Front bumper/wing problem

[BHadley]

Morning all, trying to remove front bumper bolts which just won't move! Is there anywhere I càn spray wd40 into cant see anywhere!
Did manage to get the old wing off by in bolting the bumper mount bracket, but refitting the new one is tricky as there is a bolt/screw by the front join of the headlight that screws up and into the base of the wing. With the bumper on this is impossible to get to! Any ideas? Car is a facelift coupe on a H plate and its the passenger side wing.....
Thanks in advance!

[Rav335uk]

You are on about the 2 large Torx bolts that you access from underneath the bumper?
The only way is to spray WD40 up into the cavity and leave it to soak.

[BHadley]

Yeah that's the ones, felt like FT tight plus twenty years of rust, thanks il try and spray as much as I can up and in to them....

[Brianmoooore]

The problem is that the bolts are about three inches long and where you can squirt the WD40 is at the wrong end. Rolling the car onto its roof would help, but probably a little drastic.
The WD40 will help loosen up things under the heads of the bolts, so may just help enough to loosen them, but if they're badly seized you have a problem - one that could have so easily have been avoided if the last person that had the bumper off knew what copper grease was!
If nothing else works, the outer plastic shell off the bumper can be forced off, pulling all the plastic pop rivets through the beam or breaking them off, allowing you to get closer to the four M8 bolts holding the bumper mounts to the chassis rails. Still needs a little surgery to the underside of the beam to get a spanner in, but not enough to substantially weaken it.

[BHadley]

Thanks for the hints, tried again this evening still FT and no movement! Managed to curl the plastic bumper shell after removing the bumper mounts from inside the wing , wedged it with cardboard, wound the nut that bolts up in to the base of wing by the headlight by winding the threads in reverse with small vice grips..... Not ideal but rotten wing off, rot free repainted wing on, did the seam sealer at the top and jobs a good un for today!

[Tan91]

Maybe more leverage, so use the T55 or T50 cant't remember, and have it attached to a break bar, with the needed adapters if required. Got the TORX from Halfrauds and was a 3/4". Should work, I know this because I had the same problem with my ones when I was respraying my front end. and it worked.

Using WD40 did not really help because you spray up and it comes down lol.

I didn't use the longest break bar, it was around 15"-20" the break bar IIRC. (Or breaker bar what ever it is called)

Good luck.

[Topblag]

Make sure you use a half inch drive T55 socket with a lifetime guarantee as I got through a few 3/8 drive sockets with these bolts.

As Brian says, get the outer skin off the bumper and put wd40 in from the top. Also worth giving the bottom of the bolt a tap with a punch to try and get it moving before trying to get it out.

Last ones I did would turn but wouldn't drop out.

[Brianmoooore]

When you eventually put it all back together, coat the bolts in plenty of copper grease, and don't torque them up like you were bolting down a cylinder head. They are only pins to locate the bumper bar, and only need to be tightened up enough to ensure they don't work loose.