Front End Damage(07 Ranger)

[Zuke]

About a year ago i ran into someones truck going about 10mph. There was no damage to his but i got the worst of it. At the time i could not afford to pay my $1000 deductable so i let it look nice and ugly, I removed the font bumber once before and banged on the bracket holding it to remove some of the "bent" look while the bumber is on, i know this is not a safe way to fix this but for the time being i need to. I have got the bumber pretty close to normal, here are some pictures of the bumer and the bracket that holds it. I was curuois, maybe Mark can chime in, or any other ford guys, or body shop exp people can help me tweak this so its not such an eye sore. Thanks for any advise.

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Front End Damage(07 Ranger)

That's some pretty heavy duty metal to be bending, and the major risk is that the more you bend it around, the weaker it will get.

Have you thought about spacers or wedges to give the effect of a level front and then the bumper would appear normal?

It would be a 2 person job most likely having someone tighten everything and the other hold it in place. I adjusted the bumper on my Ranger back when I had it to close a gap and it was fairly easy to move it around- but a second set of hands helps.

[Zuke]

Re: Front End Damage(07 Ranger)

Im pretty bad when it comes to vehicle maitence, what kind of spacers or wedges would i need.. Thanks for the quick reply!

[wyseilmykkar]

Re: Front End Damage(07 Ranger)

Zuke, you need to pick up some fender washers from the local hardware store and as Mark said, enlist a friend (or two) to help hold the bumper while you use the washers to shim the upper bolt out from the bracket so that you give the bumper a vertical surface to rest against.
It'll probably take a couple of tries to figure out the right number of washers needed, if you're doing it by yourself you can eyeball it by duct taping the washers to the bracket, punch a hole where the bolt goes through and then hold the bumper up.
It looks like the lower (black) section of the bumper is cracked, I would suggest using some 5 minute epoxy to connect it back together (you can glue something flat across the break line on the back side of the bumper)