i am geting ready to paint my 88 iroc in two tone with a sunburst orange bottom and a black top. as of now i have the bumpers, ground effects, and three part spoiler removed. when i paint the car should i put the bumpers back on the car to prevent damage to new paint from instalation? or should i paint them seperate from the car and put them on after paint and clear? what are the advantages and dissadvantages of each method?

 

I would definatly take the bumpers off. Mainly due to a peeling problem. Once you pint your car with the bumpers on it will create a lip of paint that laps over the gaps where the bumper meets the fender/ quarter panels. And if your bumper so much as gets a tap on it the paint will crack and then continue to peel off and chip.

 

Most professions will remove the bumpers when they paint.
One of the reasons for this is exactly what was mentioned above.

I personally leave them on, but I do this for 3 reasons.

1) You guess already, with my luck I will damage it during installation.
2) I do a lot of work with Metallic, and from one mixed batch of paint to another the density of metal flake can very. So if I want the bumper to match the car exactly, I need to use the same batch and since my garage is not big enough to paint the entire car, and all the additional pieces off the car, I choose to do them together, while on the car.
3) I admit, I get in a hurry and want to get it done. Well, that is when I work on a potential daily driver at least. My hobby TA is a total different story.

 

i am leaning toward painting it off the car right now but on the other hand it is going to be my budget daily driver not a show car.

 

Just something else to note while your thinking of it. Removing the front bumpers from our cars and putting them back in is less than a thrilling task.

Maybe Camaro's are easier due to the headlight placement, but the brackets holding the bumper to the fenders on a Firebird are a nightmare to access.

 

on my camaro taking the bumper off was not all that hard but it did take about an houre or so. i expect that getting it back on and lined up will take about twice that long.
now for my second question. is there an easy way to get the head light assembly out of the bumper cover? or do you just pry the ends of the bumper cover up off of the head light assembly studs? if the only way to do it is to pry/ bend the bumper cover how are you supposed to change head lights with out cracking the paint?