[68RamII]

Hello Everyone,

I have posted a few pictures of my Endura bumper. As you can see, the thickness of the upper portion of the bumper is different, which is causing my bumper to hood gap to be off. Does anyone now how to fix this?

[paint guy]

I had the same nasty gap on mine, which I lined up yesterday. Mine is not perfect, what I did was loosen the hood to hinge bolts (slightly) and pulled forward on the hood on the drivers side. this lessened the gap as you see it in your picture, but caused the gap along the hood to fender to open slightly on the drivers side, and close slightly on the P-side. I then pulled the P-side fender out slightly by the bumper to get back some of the gap, and likewise moved the D-side fender in a bit near the bumper. First thing to check, though, is your core support measurements diagonally, if this is off, you will have a really tough time getting everything else (fairly) straight. Mine is not perfect by any stretch, but they were never perfect from the factory, either, if that's any consolation. I just had to split differences and decide what I could live with. If your hood doesn't line up exactly at the other end (hood to fender lines by the dashboard) because you pulled it closer to the Endura, at least you can maybe minimize it with the trim piece, at least I am hoping that will help me. It also seems like only about a 1/16" or so at the dashboard end of the hood can go a long way toward closing that gap. Good luck.

[68RamII]

Paint Guy,

I have worked from the quarters forward to make sure the gaps are perfect. When I installed the fenders, I measured across the inside corners to make sure the area where the hood goes is perfectly square. The hood fits in nicely and the gaps between the fenders and the hood are good. The gap between the drivers side of the hood and the bumper is good. But the gap between the passenger side of the hood and the bumper is way off because the bumper is almost 1/4 inch smaller on the passenger side. I show this in the two pictures. I almost need to add material to the bumper on the passenger side to close up the gap.

So, can I use one of the 3M product to do this or would that material just break off in time? Are there any products that would be strong enough to use to fill this gap?

Thanks,

[68RamII]

Will the 3M 5896 Flex repair kit stick to the inner edge of this bumper?

[marshallbeach]

I just measured mine. It's about 2 1/4 inches. No wonder the factory, and everyone since, had/has a difficult time making them fit.

[paint guy]

Originally Posted by 68RamII

Will the 3M 5896 Flex repair kit stick to the inner edge of this bumper?

I wish I could say I have done this, or that I had a better answer for you, but I don't. The edge of the Endura is only about 1/4" or so, not much there for anything to hang onto. FWIW, I have used SEM flex.bumper repair with good results as far as adhesion goes ( I imagine 3M would perform comparably), but it was on a flat area, so there was much more area for it to adhere to. Don't know what your time schedule is before painting, but maybe you could build up an area of the edge, then deliberately flex it to see how well it holds up. (Do this before painting, of course). Another option that I would only consider as a last resort would be to trim the other side even, then slide the hood down. But I wouldn't consider that until I had exhausted all other options, and decided I couldn't live with the gap. Wish I had better advice for you. Hopefully someone else will chime in that has a better solution.

[th442]

I have used 3M 5896 for that exact purpose in addition to repairing gouges and nicks in the surface of the bumper. Make sure you first use 3M 5907 adhesion promoter. It is an aerosol.

[PaulatFast]

In our trial and error over the years we have found the adhesion promoter is not needed on the endura material. We do use a precleaner.

[68RamII]

Paul,

What kind of pre-cleaner do you use?

[Jack Ferris]

I used SEM 39708 to fill some gaps on a 68 GTO. It sat for a year before I got back to painting it and it seemed fine. It was built up about 3/16 by the top of the fender on both sides.

[6869GTO]

I also used the SEM 39708 filler.Good product,but the SEM flex primer S%cks.Go the epoxy route.