90q back in one piece

[Tom Nas <tnas@euronet.nl>]

Last evening's wrenching session got everything back together again, and
just before nightfall, too.

Last year I'd managed to slightly bend the front end in a collision- the
strip that runs between the grill and the bumper was bent, the passenger
side headlight was pushed in and one fog light broke. I'd replaced the
fog light already (it was sandblasted anyway), but I kept putting off
taking everything apart and fixing it properly. Annual testing time made
this inevitable, so I took advantage of the spate of nice weather we're
having currently.
It turned out that the headlight unit (twin-bulb H4/H1, some $300) had
lost three of its four mounting points in the crash, making it
impossible to mount properly. The metalwork behind the headlight was
soon restored to its former shape, and I resorted to fixing the
headlight with some metal strip bought at my local hardware store. This
is galvanised metal, punched with holes at regular intervals, 20mm wide
and .8mm thick. It's easy to cut using tinsnips and bent using pliers. I
fixed it to the headlight's plastic outer housing using self-tapping
screws and moved the captive nuts from the broken-off old mountings to
the metal replacements. A couple of minutes later my headlight was back
in its place and adjusted properly. Cost: $1...
The strip that runs beneath the grill was unfortunately a lot harder to
un-bend- it'd stretched and must be replaced sometime soon. An OE
replacement costs about $35. It's luckily straight enough to mount the
grill onto, so for the first time in a year my car's front end looks
halfway decent. 

The remaining fog light was also replaced (unfortunately, the new
replacements do not include the adjuster screw- which cannot be removed
from the old housing either. I'm still looking for a proper solution for
this). The old fog lights were sandblasted to the point of being utterly
useless, having survived 168k km.

Some observations on my car's front end construction:

The euro bumpers of the 80 and 90 are barely worth the name 'bumper'.
They consist of an outer shell to which metal clamps are bolted. Even a
light hit will make realignment of the clamps with their counterparts on
the front outriggers neigh-on impossible.  The long hex bolts that fix
the bumper to its mountings are very hard to undo, never mind putting
them in again.  Anti-seize compound is not a luxury here.
If you forget to route the connectors for the fog lights and turn
signals back through their respective openings in the bumper, they're
impossible to retrieve later, thus making it necessary to take the
bumper off again. BTDT ;-(
Realigning the bumper with its clamps on the front fenders and its
mountings is strictly a two-man job (Luckily, I have very nosy
neighbours! ;-0 ). Especially when the mounting points aren't exactly
where they're supposed to, realigning the bumper can be a tough job.
The strip running on top of the 90's bumpers turned out to be stainless
steel. It was so tarnished, I'd taken it to be aluminium.
The headlight washers are connected to the pump with a thick reinforced
hose resembling garden hose. There's enough slack on the hose for
comfortably taking the bumper off and placing it away from the car.

Tom
1987 90q
Zeist, The Netherlands