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Whats behind front bumper?

2K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  sharvey 
#1 ·
I rolled my '92 164 S about five feet at very slow rate (accidentally) into the back of a SUV. Didn't scratch the SUV but my front bumper looks slightly askew and I had a hard time opening the driver side of the hood. In the service manual it looks like the bumper cladding is covering a beam, is the beam attached to some type of shocks?
 

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#2 ·
No bumper shocks on the front bumper of a 12v 164. The plastic bumper cover does cover a steel beam. This beam is part of the uni-body of the car, and is not a bolt-on part - it is welded in as part of the front structure. Between the bumper cover and the beam is a piece of styrofoam, if I recall correctly, but I don't have a picture of that.

Any inward bending of the steel beam will likely cause deflection in the steel members directly above the headlights, which is where the latch for the hood is, likely causing the hang-up of the hood opening. They are connected by vertical steel support members.

If the steel beam is bent only slightly, I would think that a body shop could make quick work of simply pulling it back out to its proper position. Or a come-along and a stout tree would maybe do the trick...
 

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#3 ·
Follow up to earlier post on front end "bump". After checking with various body shops, none of which wanted to put a 22 year old Alfa on their frame straightener, I decided to go with the "Old school" method. After a dozen or so slow backward rolls in neutral the front bumper frame was as close to its original position as I felt comfortable with. The hood closed after the process but wasn't tight on the passenger side and was sitting a little high. My thought is to loosen the hood bolts and see if I can get it to adjust, I wanted to check with the "board" before I did anything to make sure I wasn't going to cause more problems.
While I have the front apart I'm going to clean and tidy up a few things, is there anything else I should consider doing while it's open?
Thanks,
Steve
 

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