The customer had received a Peugeot 206 as a part exchange against a BMW he had sold. The Peugeot was up for sale and was in excellent condition apart from a rather long crack on the rear bumper insert and a couple of scuff marks on the same bumper.
The scuffs are relatively minor and will be straightforward to repair. The crack is a hairline crack and does not look too bad but it must be repaired or the damage will continue to spread.
The first step is to feather out the damage on the scuff marks to prepare the area for priming and painting. For this a dual action sander is used, firstly with a 240 grit sandpaper and then on to 500 grit to get a smooth finish.
After sanding, the damage has gone and the area is ready to be primed.
We then move on to the cracked section. The bumper crack is currently not wide enough to allow the resin to form a permanent bond within it so the damage must be widened. An air belt sander is used to sand a v-shaped groove right down the centre of the damage.
Although the damage is made much worse by this process, it is essential to allow the repair to be completed with a permanent bond.
The next step is to drill a hole on each end of the crack to permanently prevent the damage from spreading. Then a series of holes are drilled approximately one centimetre apart in pairs along the groove that has been sanded.
The aim here is to provide holes for the resin to be injected into and along the actual crack, effectively stitching the whole repair together and forming a very strong bond.
A strip of meshed film is applied to the back of the bumper and taped into place to give the resin some purchase as it is injected using a specialist bumper repair gun.
The resin and hardener are injected directly into each hole and then a contouring film is used to spread it over the top of the bumper to reduce the amount of sanding that will be required later.
After the resin has fully hardened it is then sanded with the da sander again to remove any high spots.
It is then time to use a flexible car body filler to bring back the original bumper shape.
After the final layer of filler has been applied, the repair is sanded down using a flat block to avoid producing hills and valleys in the filler.
The area is masked and two layers of primer are applied to both the crack repair area and the previously sanded scuff mark area.
After drying the primer with a hot air gun, the masking is then removed and the hard edges caused by the primer are sanded off with a 2000 grit wet and dry sandpaper. The first coat of paint is then applied.
The first coat almost completely coats the two areas of damage and only a light second coat is required.
The final coat is a low pressure “drop coat” which is required on metallic paints to replicate the metallic finish.
The paint needs to be fully dried now before the lacquer is applied. We used a one coat lacquer on this repair and the results were excellent.
The final stage now is to harden the lacquer under an infra red heat lamp. This process takes about half an hour and the final result was a perfect bumper crack repair.
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