This Eclipse right here is a certified badass 4G if you hadn't already seen it on YouTube. I can't do most of the custom amazing mods he's done for performance, but I'm wondering if I might be able to emulate a backyard version of his custom one-off front bumper mod.
You can see it here in blurry screengrab quality.
I've never taken my bumper off, but I was thinking it would be relatively cheap and harmless to snag a front end from an 09+ Eclipse from a junkyard and go to town on it. That way any hideous bumper I Frankenstein wouldn't matter. I was hoping you guys might shed some light on potential problems I might encounter if I take this on. Seems as simple as a rotary tool, some fiberglass reinforcement and Bondo, a large sheet of mesh and maybe a trim gasket to hide my amateurism; but I'm sure it's not as easy as that.
I was thinking I could cut out the blue area to lay a single sheet of mesh and cut it to fit, leave the green area for upper support for the bumper (reinforce it probably) and to give me somewhere to secure the top of the mesh, and then surround it with some trim gasket around the pink outside edge (like the kind people use to edge their rims, and sometimes interior trim I guess) to give it a clean outside edge. Maybe paint the trim line with something glossy so it looks like it belongs there. Paint the inside the same way to hide my mess, and slap a Bishi logo in the upper center of the mesh overlay.
Can this be done simply with some hours put in and basic tools or am I severely underestimating the scope of this work? Some pitfalls I have already identified are finding a mesh sheet that large (probably needs to be custom ordered), curving it properly for the shape it needs to be to sit flush and not flat, and I assume there's a very large beam under there that may or may not look right if exposed (even if it is covered by the mesh).
I have a dremel, which I think is capable of cutting through most of this, and some minor experience with both fiberglass resin and fiberglass reinforcement, as well as Bondo and spot filler (not on a car, but I built an Ironman helmet out of cardboard and used autobody materials to make it permanent).
Any thoughts?
You can see it here in blurry screengrab quality.
I've never taken my bumper off, but I was thinking it would be relatively cheap and harmless to snag a front end from an 09+ Eclipse from a junkyard and go to town on it. That way any hideous bumper I Frankenstein wouldn't matter. I was hoping you guys might shed some light on potential problems I might encounter if I take this on. Seems as simple as a rotary tool, some fiberglass reinforcement and Bondo, a large sheet of mesh and maybe a trim gasket to hide my amateurism; but I'm sure it's not as easy as that.
I was thinking I could cut out the blue area to lay a single sheet of mesh and cut it to fit, leave the green area for upper support for the bumper (reinforce it probably) and to give me somewhere to secure the top of the mesh, and then surround it with some trim gasket around the pink outside edge (like the kind people use to edge their rims, and sometimes interior trim I guess) to give it a clean outside edge. Maybe paint the trim line with something glossy so it looks like it belongs there. Paint the inside the same way to hide my mess, and slap a Bishi logo in the upper center of the mesh overlay.
Can this be done simply with some hours put in and basic tools or am I severely underestimating the scope of this work? Some pitfalls I have already identified are finding a mesh sheet that large (probably needs to be custom ordered), curving it properly for the shape it needs to be to sit flush and not flat, and I assume there's a very large beam under there that may or may not look right if exposed (even if it is covered by the mesh).
I have a dremel, which I think is capable of cutting through most of this, and some minor experience with both fiberglass resin and fiberglass reinforcement, as well as Bondo and spot filler (not on a car, but I built an Ironman helmet out of cardboard and used autobody materials to make it permanent).
Any thoughts?