Now that the bumper is off the car, it's time to take it apart. The main bumper is three pieces, with the two bumper guards attached over the seams. First order of business is removing the guards. Easy enough - there is a single bolt that needs removing in order to free each guard.
Back side of the two guards. Note that the bracket on the bottom of the left guard has the nut attached - the right, no nut. Not sure why this is; but the bolt for each side was slightly different as well. May well have been a change made some time after the car was assembled. The rubber bits that fit between the guards and the bumper itself will need replacing.
Front side of the two guards. One's seen better days than the other. Both will need some work.
Next, it was a matter of disassembling the main bumper. The remaining attachment was a bolt on the top side of the bumper (the bolt holding the guards in place served as the connector on the bottom side as well). Fun bit with these bolts were, they were Phillips heads on the top, not a hex bolt. And there was simply no way for me to be able to both wield a socket wrench on the nut beneath, while holding a #3 head screwdriver from the side, and get sufficient leverage.
Fortunately, my ever helpful neighbor Edward was tinkering on his brother's Karmann Ghia, and I roped him into pitching in. With him holding the bolt steady with the screwdriver, I was able to get each nut loose and off quite quickly - surprisingly quick considering the nature of some of these bolts and nuts, how rusted and seized up they are.
The bumper itself is going to need some love as well - lots of little creases and such, plus one huge dent right in the middle, on the top side (visible here as the bottom, as the bumper in this photo is upside down).
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