The car before any work was done.
Notice that the silver colored lower lips pieces are
actually kind of "flat" in appearance, as well as mine after
only 1950 miles had several nicks and rock hits and were in
worse shape than the yellow
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bumper just above it.
I did have 2 minor nicks in the yellow and touched those up
with factory touch up paint and some Langka. (See sponsors
page for Langka).
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Alan sets up his
table, equipment, bottles of liquid, etc.: |
One of the
benefits of the StarShield kit is that the front bumper
is all one piece with a couple of relief cuts. This also
means it is more difficult to install than a 2 or 3
piece bumper kit. Alan actually had me help him lay down
the bumper piece initially because it is so large and he
wanted to make sure no part of it touched the ground. |
Alan begins by
tacking the piece down in the center and then working
outwards towards each end:
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In the following
picture you can see that the center is tacked down and
smoothed out and that Alan is working towards each side.
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Here Alan is
working towards the right side (US Drivers side) |
While not only
working side to side, Alan is also working top to
bottom, especially difficult are some of the compound
curves of the Cayman S front bumper.
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In this next
image Alan is using his soft plastic squeegee to make
sure the edges of the material are laying down properly.
Often times this has to be checked and re-checked as
material is moved about and the clear bra begins to set
up on the car. |
In the next
picture the upper and side portions of the bumper are
done on the let side, only the strip along the bottom
remains to be completed. I've noticed that the new 3M
material has more shine to it than prior versions. Alan
says that 3M continues to improve their material and I
could actually tell since I've witnessed many installs
in the past and done some of my own.
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In this image
Alan is working on the horizontal bar and fog light
area. The new kit has this as one piece per side whereas
the old kit had 3 pieces per side. Alan liked the better
coverage of the new kit, but he said it was twice as
difficult to install as one piece, again due to tight
radius compound curves.
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Now Alan has
finished the install of the lower lip pieces as well. In
this image you can see where he has sealed up the lower
bumper piece below the grill opening and you can also
see the shine of the silver spoiler piece now that it is
covered with the 3M material. If you don't protect these
silver pieces you will be repainting them, guaranteed!
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Even the tow hook
cover plate has its own little piece, here Alan is
reinstalling the circular cover plate.
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Here is a shot of
the finished light and horizontal bar on the right side:
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Alan now wipes
down his work, checking for any little imperfections,
trapped solution, or edges that might be lifting up. |
Now that the
front bumper is done Alan requests that I pull the car
out into the sun for another inspection. Alan also likes
to have a car get at least 3 days worth of as much sun
as possible after an install to help the material set up
as well as possible. |
Alan also sets to
work on the other horizontal bar and fog light area to
finish that up now that he's had a chance to inspect a
completed one in the sun. Since this was a newly altered
pattern Alan was taking no chances that there would be
any surprises. |
Suddenly a can of
silver paint fell on my car and the front end
distorted... no wait, that's not it. Actually it was a
local PCA member who arrived with this 2003 Boxster.
Alan took a break from my car to do his while he waited
and started on my seat belt project. Here are some
photos of the Boxster for comparison. |
Very hard to see
the lines on a silver car, probably almost as hard as on
a Speed Yellow car.
Ok back to my car, the Boxster owner was finished, very
pleased and drove off knowing that his new (new to him)
Boxster was well protected against the elements. Alan
now set to work on the fenders. Here is one of the
fenders in progress: |
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