I'm posting this pre-project to get some opinions. I noticed a week or so ago that the rear bumper of Stitch II had some minor paint damage to it, a large scratch coming from the driver's rear reflector and some of the color rubbed completely off the driver's pedestrian-pusher lump. My best guess to the cause of this is the front wheel of my bike knocking against that part of the bumper while I carry it (i.e. it hits during hard braking or maneuvers), which leads me to think there's probably no point in repairing the paint, as it'll probably do it again.

It got me to thinking, it looks ugly up close, so I'd like to put something there. Something durable that the bike wheel can knock against all it likes without damaging new paint.

Monday, I'm going to perform a mod on the bumper using Herculiner. I intend to cover the pedestrian pushers and the center part of the bumper with roll-on bed liner, and while I'm at it use it on that section right next to the tailgate (that you can buy protection plates for). I might try to pattern it a little, try to stylize it so that it doesn't look like a repair.

Ideas? Opinions?

 

Would the bumper pads many of us have used help?

I know when I was rear-ended, the pads kept me from having major scratches. Here's a pic of my from when I was hit. You can see the impressions.

Actually I just got done putting a set on my wife's earlier today.

 

They would not have helped. The paint is rubbing off right on the shoulder of the knobs, right where those pads don't cover, and the scratch is coming right off of the reflector.

 

Sorry. It was just a thought.

 

Call me Mr. Obvious, but what about preventing the bike from rubbing / touching in the first place? I carry my bike around and it never moves in a way that comes close to touching the car. I just use an elastic bungie cord with hooks to grab the front wheel, the bike frame and the hitch rack so that everything is tied together and the front wheel stays straight (I also have a strip of low density cell foam on the rack post so that the bike does not get scratched).
It's not going to help with your current damage, but it would prevent future damage. Just a thought...

Yves

 

Surface prep is very important with the roll-on bedliners. You will have to scuff up the bumper very well for proper adhesion. While the bedliner material itself is pretty durable, I'm not sure how would it will bond or work long-term on a flexible bumper with repeated hits/scratches. Urethane bumpers can be quite finicky and need proper surface prep. You might also look into the commercial line-x and rhino lining options. Those also offer color-matching.

 

I don't have pictures yet, but I finished this mod on Monday. My fingers are still black from where some of the Herculiner adhered to me, but the mod itself looks good (considering I took the time to mask it really well). The color difference is pretty subtle, since Stitch II is Imperial Blue: from a distance you can't tell there's a difference other than the texture. When I get some batteries in my camera, I'll post pictures.

 

As promised, here's pictures of the mod now that it's had almost two weeks to cure. I think it came out rather well.



From the most obvious angle, it tends to blend in with my Imperial Blue (though one co-worker who saw my handiwork said it would've looked good on Stitch I's Daytona Blue as well).



I tried to make sure that I masked the bumper really carefully. I didn't even use the supplied roller to apply the product, just the detail brush. I had a little bit of spillover, but it cleaned up really easily with a xylene-soaked rag, since I got to it before it had a chance to cure completely. Looks like I've got no adhesion problems as of yet.



Since I didn't take any "Before" pictures, I marked on this one where the paint had been rubbing off the bumper. There was also some scratching near that driver's side reflector.

Opinions? Anyone who wants to try this, if possible get yourself only a quart of Herculiner, I barely even used any on this (had to buy the gallon kit since I was getting the product through my store). I'm trying to think of something I can use more of it on ... maybe my bike rack is next, since the rubber coating on the bike support arms is starting to shred.

 

That might work good on the back fenders where the "Sand Blasting" is occurring.

We used this on a customer unit that went to Honolulu and painted over with the chassis color. it looked good even painted over.