[s-cars] Re: RS front installed

[William Noland]

Hi Rich -

I wouldn't call the install simple, but it isn't bad, if you take your
time and have a willing partner. My wife helped me out -- without
demands for special favors or money.  :-)

The piece is very well made and, as the directions say, any minor fit
problems are due to the condition of your bumper cover. The previous
owner of the car had obviously caught the trailing edge of the cover on
a concrete parking block, split it part way and broke some of the
vertical hangers. Both the wife and I had managed repeat performances
over the past few years. This was part of the reason for the new RS
front. It took some minor tweaking as part of the install process. One
of the rivets had popped out slightly, for example, but fixed that with
the judicious use of a hammer.

The instructions have you fit the piece 3 times -- holding it against
the car, bolting it on and taping the sides, then the final fit. You
should have a good idea on how it lines up, before you reach the final
step. You may want to run the supplied tap screws up through the holes
you drill twice, to make sure your threads are nice and clean and run
the allen bolts (5mm, I believe) into the holes, before you put the
cover up for test fit #2. One of my allen bolts was a pain to screw in
on test fit #2, so I retapped the hole and checked it, before the final
fitting. Just drill the hole enough to lose the flat head of the rivet.
The tapping screws should do the rest. If you can't start the tap screw,
drill a little bit more and try again.

I was a little nervous with the initial cutting of the bumper cover, but
you really don't need to be -- the RS front covers up your work nicely.
I used masking tape to mark my cuts and keep them straight. The one step
that I still don't understand is the 3-inch horizontal cuts into the
cover. Don't understand how the cuts fit in the process. You might call
or email Mark Lubotta at lltek on this one -- 888 465-5835 or
markl at lltek.com.

Other problems were minor. One of the installed mesh grills wasn't
clearing the original bumper cover, so I trimmed it with tin snips. Was
worried that the glue might set up too quickly, but that was not the
case. Overall, the install is not that difficult. Just read the
instructions over a few times, measure twice and cut once and take your
time. If you have two assistants, you can step back and make sure all
looks good, before you proceed. I was a little worried that I was
getting in over my head, but it wasn't bad at all.

I used a couple of small padded bar clamps to clamp the piece and glue
back at the wheel wells -- just like in the instructions. I let the
piece sit over night, before removing the clamps and tape and shining
her up. Ended up with only a very slight gap at one side (due to the
condition of the original cover), but nobody, other than me, notices it.
The glue kind of filled it in. A little glue did squeeze out onto the
original cover, but it wipes up easily with a rag.

The new piece does hang lower than the original and I've managed to
scrape it on a couple of steep driveways. Can feel scrapes on the
underside, but doesn't seem any worse for wear. Will park back from the
concrete blocks from now on.

That's about all I can think of -- feel free to email with any specific
questions and I will try to help out.

Bill Noland

Rich Dauenhauer wrote:

>Bill, Hello I as well just received my LLtek RS font
>and looking at the provided directions began to
>question wether it truly is something that could be
>done by someone w/0 bodywork experaince.
>I thought perhaps you could vould help a bother out,
>first with some wisdom & 2nd if I did try my hand,
>some BTDT support?
>Thanks
>
>Rich
>95.5 T-Red S6 Avant
>Seattle
>
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