The Ford Capri Laser Page

Hello. I have recently had my rear bumper powder coated, and thought I had better tidy up the corner caps before I fitted it back up.



As you can see one is in good nick, but the other has suffered from being rubbed down and painted at some point in the long distant past and has then flaked off, faded, and generally has always looked pretty bad! In fact I think it is one of the worst I have ever seen, ironic that it's on my car.
What I want to do is get them looking vaguely similar and a bit more presentable.
All I've done here is clean them up with kitchen cleaner and give them a scrub all over with a green pot scourer.

Unfortunately the rough one also has a bit of a kink in it:


So first job warm up over a good hot heat source and then hold it in the right shape for half a minute.
Very easy to get the edges a bit hot and melty, so it pays to not over-do it and not get too close to the flame.



Much better shape after that:



Then into the garden for a few coats of HALFORDS FLEXIBLE VINYL PAINT, what else?
The problem with them as a pair is that one is the correct texture and the other has been messed about so much its got smooth patches and proper textured bits, but the paint has kind of evened it up a bit and they look much better together.


It was a warm afternoon Friday when I did it, so all dried off quick in the sun. Then onto the ends of the refurbed bumper. Here's detail of the formerly rough one. Not perfect, but a massive improvement.



and the other side.



Total cost £9.99 for the can of paint.

Good old Halfords flexi paint I think we should all get 10% discount from them with all the publicity we give them , made a good job , I bet your start on the front next .

Front corners have been done with satin black in the past, so match each other and look good.
My old Range Rover has plastic bumper corners like the Capri, so I got on and did those too on Sunday!

Nice one Noel. Great job fella. Really good tip on how to reshape the end caps by heating them up over the hob. I would never have thought to do this. Brilliant tip ! Sorry mate what was that paint you used to restore them again....

Noel wrote:
and the other side.



Total cost £9.99 for the can of paint.

This side looks great and to get the other side looking closer you should have used https://www.arc-rite.co.uk/proxl-protex ... 500ml-54-p. It hides the blemishes better and is harder wearing.

Sorry Nick I know how much you rate HFVP but this isn't the best option for textured bumper end repairs

Nice tip, will try that on the duff corner at some point.
Got the front bumper back from powder coating too now, the difference from the thin old flaking paint the pattern bumper come in, is remarkable. Its given the whole car a real lift.

Thanks for putting this post up as i was thinking of what to do with my bumper end caps as ive had both bumpers shot blasted and painted satin black recently. One of my rear end caps has gone the same way as yours where someone has painted it in the past luckily I've got a can of halfords black flexible vinyl paint somewhere that I brought ages ago.

Hi Dan, noticed you are contemplating this on the years anniversary since I did my end caps.
Noticed yesterday that the rough one has a tiny bit that has flaked off after it got glanced by a broom handle falling on it in the garage.

Not end of world, but I think it demonstrates these plastic things need to be rough and clean to take the paint the best, so the watchwords are
degrease
degrease
degrease
scrub
scrub
scrub
etc.. until you've had enough!