Filling Holes in Aluminium Bumper - Tell me show me!

[garthalgar]

Finally decided to get the front end of my 944 re-painted and want to get rid of the light surrounds and flush the small holes in the bumper. The bumper is aluminium.

There will be 6x 5p sized holes and 2x 10p holes to fill up.

So do I weld, braze or just fill? And how to I go about doing it. Do I take it to someone who apparently knows what they are doing or do I give it a bash myself? I've welded aluminium with tig before but just practising but would happily attempt something if it is a relatively bog standard task.

Thanks in advance!

[slater]

Might weld ok. Mighy be a pita. Largely depends what the material is like.

[bjornagn]

Mig with a spool gun or Tig would be the right answer.

Myself? I would want a quick practice run on something or somewhere where it wont matter. Been surprised by alloys in the past that don't behave when I put the torch to them.

How do you plan to finish the job? Paint or polish? If polish, then rod selection is going to be critical for a color match.

If this is not a supper fussy application, I would look into a urethane epoxy and just fill, sand and paint. The epoxy is tough and a bit flexible to accommodate expansion and contraction.

[garthalgar]

Jan 18, 2017 22:50:40 GMT bjornagn said:

Mig with a spool gun or Tig would be the right answer.

Myself? I would want a quick practice run on something or somewhere where it wont matter. Been surprised by alloys in the past that don't behave when I put the torch to them.

How do you plan to finish the job? Paint or polish? If polish, then rod selection is going to be critical for a color match.

If this is not a supper fussy application, I would look into a urethane epoxy and just fill, sand and paint. The epoxy is tough and a bit flexible to accommodate expansion and contraction.

Cheers for that. The holes will be filled then smoothed off for paint. It's not particularly fussy it just needs to look good and last! I'd just rather do it the 'right' way whatever that is.

Whether it makes any difference they are all through holes, so even with epoxy i'd need to fiberglass the backside most likely. I'd have thought with welding the small holes could be sealed and the larger ones would need a plug.

Then again I might be speaking utter rubbish since i've never had to do this kind of thing before!

[garthalgar]

Nevermind, it'll be fiberglass and filler. Been a total berk after looking at all the Americans fill the bumper holes as their bumpers are aluminium whereas the euro ones are PU jobbies. Well, that answered my question anyway.