Here I have mounted the rear bumper
using the rear rockers. Two additional mounting points are
provided as per the original vehicle via mounting brackets
fixed to the chassis. The main brackets are provided by Parallel
but you need to construct two simple extenders to make them
reach the chassis. I will use stainless steel to make these
brackets.
The first thing to do before mounting the bumper is to drill
and tap eight 8mm holes. There are two on each side where
the bumper meets the sides of the vehicle, and two for each
of the brackets. The positions for the side holes are marked
on the two spacer plates, whereas the holes for the brackets
are drilled so that the bracket sits at the top of the bumper.
A rubber shroud covers this part.
I have been using cobalt steel drills on the car upto this
point. They are extremely tough and can cut through stainless
steel like its butter. They are very brittle however, and
I snapped one drilling the holes for the bumper. I managed
to get the snapped portion of the drill out so it wasnt too
much of a problem.
With the rear valance removed at this point I can now work
out the position of the brackets with relation to the chassis
and begin work on constructing them.
This is a slot I have notched into the rear bumper
to accomodate the section I have made in the rear valance. Without
this recess, the bumper touches the rear valance and would cause
rubbing.
You need to remove about an inch of material if you copy my
rear valance modification. I filled the resultant void with
glass fibre and sanded it down to a nice rounded finish.
Here are the rear rockers in relation to the
rear bumper. This is not normally a view you would see as the
rear wheel covers this entirely. I have just the Granada wheels
on at present, so you get a good view of this panel.
The rear view of the car is looking pretty
good now. I made an error cutting the slots for the mounting
brackets, they are currently too high and need to be dropped
down towards the bottom of the car. I thought I measured the
gap up correctly but obviously screwed up somewhere. Its easy
to fix and therefore not really a problem. Its just more time
that could be better spent on something else.
I will fabricate some adapters to the chassis, and I also
need to source some Mk3 Ford Transit bumper rubbers to cover
these brackets and then this part is complete.
These are the brackets I have made up to connect
the chassis to the rear bumper brackets. I have used stainless
steel here as I have the facilities for welding this quite well.
Its also in a reasonably exposed position so this will help
with corrosion.
These are not structural parts although they could be if required.
The metal I have used is of a pretty heavy gauge.
