Right Rear Bumper Takes A Hit And Compresses…Quick (temporary) Fix?

[OK-944]

Now I’ve done it! Backed into my wife’s Subaru Outback Wilderness (at an angle) and…boom! The Outback? Not even a hint of a scratch. My ‘87NA? A pushed in right rear bumper and that side’s bumper-shock compressed, with that side’s plastic side-skirt also bowed outwards.

With my car due for inspection - my thought for a “quick fix” (will properly address later)…is to either remove the bumper and the compressed shock, pull the shock out to its original length (will replace it later), and remove the plastic side skirt and straighten it out and re-install.

Alternately, I’m thinking I could just do a “quick and dirty” and tie a strap to the compressed side of the bumper and run this around a tree…and see if I can’t just pull the compressed side out by driving forward (gently!). My thought is that this could actually work to pull out the compressed shock along with the bumper…and the bent plastic skirt would also straighten out during this process.

Thoughts about the above?

[944 Ecology]

Sure, go for it.

[OK-944]

I think instead of driving away from the tree I'll run a ratchet strap around a tree and attach to the compressed bumper - so I can carefully monitor any progress (or lack thereof) as I operate the ratchet.

If things look like they might go south...then I'll remove both rear plastic skirts and the entire bumper - remove the compressed shock and see if I can extend it, and also use my heat gun to help straighten the bent skirt. I've already squirted a bit of PB blaster on the tiny, rusted skirt screws - and my guess is they may just break off as I remove them, but I'll try to go slowly with this.

Ultimately I'll acquire a new bumper shock and do this correctly - but in the meantime I need to do a temporary fix.

[924RACR]

It should extend OK; I've done this before using a porta-power with the expanding jaws...

[944 Ecology]

As an alternative, a come along and an anchor tree will give you a lot more leverage and reasonable finesse when doing the pull.

[924RACR]

We did once use chains and one of the power line poles in the paddock at Mud-Ohio for some rough'n'ready realignment on an ITA 240SX after an unplanned encounter with a wall in Madness one race weekend... though there was still plenty of remaining work to smooth out the result with some dead blow hammers and even some kicking from inside the car...

[Monkey Wrench]

mie were compressed and I bought others. you might try using a hydraulic press, they can be arroanged to pull insted of push. you might need a bit of rigging but that is posible.

Id also apply heat it wil expand the gasses and help and also there maybe some plasitc bushings in there ? I believe they are gas chearged.

I dont think you can quite trust it to work again as well as OEM and it is worth having them work properly..

for the bumper ends, I bought one and it was also not perfect I wished I had jost looked harder for a good one.

I had a lot of problems of old cracks int he paint telegraphing through.it is plastic, mine had been painted twice and i took most of the paint off

I did use a heat gun somewhat. you can re- form the plastic.

to get it to look right was hard, I eventually gave it a coat of epoxy and thet helped stop the cracks from transferring through.

Id say after doing all that, dont bother , buy one in good shape that has not been hit save yourself the grief. paint it , sure that is easy, dont try to fix it because youll have hours of work , that was my experience.

if you do tie it to a tree I'd warm it up whth a torch as well maybe it wiil help it want o expand. I tied mine to my van and backed up , it didn't seem to want to budge so I gave up before I werecked something else.

my bumper itself suffered no damage , I had to paint it too or it would have looked dorky. it seems less so with the bumper at least the same colour as the rest of itself.

getting the waves and sags out and making it look half decent was actually really hard ,or so I found, start with high build proimer. use spot putty I found it finicky and did so many coats that I had regretted even trying to fix a bent up one. I did win but after quite a few hours and stillnot perfect.


I think they may even pop out themselves if they havent been fully compresessed f you are lucky.
volvos have soimilar ones but htey are a bit longer, same idea though.

my bumper and bumper ends are now a brighter (guards) red than the rest of the car due to paint fade.

my bumper has the licence plate holder I had to fix that too, some cars have it above the bumper. mine has a porsche labeled "lens" there . it wasnt; so damaged but water wrecked the bulb holders. you can get new ones.

although mine was not a 16 valve or an S2 or turbo model and it is early 85, it does have the rear under bumper skirts that the turbo models seemed to sport. I dont know if it was added. or maybe an option. they were not damaged but needed to come off for bumper installation.

the shocks are a great , all cars should have them ,now carmakers figured out that if they completely omit bumpers and instead just put on a plastic bump that they call "bumpers" thay can make more on replacement parts, what a rediculous racket.

a crash standard that said a car had to come away undamaged after about a 3 MPH crash or wouldnt pass apporoval.. that was a great idea. - for consumers, Just not for car companies. the bumpers are decent quality, same with volvos of the era. thick alunimum.

[hpaulb]

I backed into my trailer and the same. Took off the shock, put in vice and easily pulled the part back to correct position.

[OK-944]

I ended up using a ratchet strap tied around the bumper and a tree...and with a bit of effort, things gradually got straightened out - and all is well excepting I'll need a new bumper pad as the existing one fell off on the road someplace.