Date:         Tue, 9 Mar 2010 23:36:20 -0500
Reply-To:     parillamilt@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Milt Schullian <parillamilt@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Fiberglass rear bumpers (vanagon)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello, need some input on my '90 Vanagon rear bumper. I was in a parking lot and backed into a car. Not one scratch on the car, but my fiberglass bumper got tagged big time. The bumper mounting brackets were pushed through the fiberglass. This was years ago and the fiberglass is flaking apart. I was able to find a used center section of the bumper at a junkyard and bought it. While I was cleaning the massive amounts of dirt collected on the junkyard bumper, I noticed that the mounting points on the fiberglass were either cracked or sheared off. I then took the bumper off my van and discovered that the fiberglass mounting points were shattered, so really nothing holding the bumper to the van except the bolts holding the side bumper covers. 

So, can these bumpers be fixed by a body shop that is familiar with fiberglass? Could the weak looking bumper mounting points be fixed? I've seen aftermarket bumpers, but they have no appeal to me. While examining the bumper/bracket set-up, I came up with an idea. See if you guys think this will work. I was thinking of having a bodyshop weld a steel bar/bracket between the two bumper supports and then use the bracket as a new mounting point for the fiberglass bumper. Maybe use 3 to 4 ss carriage bolts to mount it with maybe some rubber sandwiched in between.  ----Milt