Pabby

I've bought a 2004 Ford Fusion which has accident damage to the rear end. It was an insurance write off due to the value of the car. Car drives perfectly, 61,000 on the clock, one lady owner from 11,000, MOT 500 miles ago and got it for £1,100 cash (see below for actual car)

http://www.ebay.co.u...cvip=true&rt=nc

So all seemed great until i did a bit of research and discovered that i may actually have to DRILL out the aluminium rivets (two on each side of boot when tailgate open) in order to remove the bumper! (see Youtube clip below)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7-Yxh1Xp7M

Can this really be true? Why the hell would they rivet the damn thing?

Anyway, if it is the case can anyone reccomend a good way of doing this? As you can see the Youtube video above seems to have been filmed on a wobbly potato and is hardly comprehensive.

Thanks loads in advance for any help.

Paul.

robrs2

my mk6 fiesta, had to drill the rivets out on that. 1 each side.

Pabby

I'm likely to have to do the same seeing as the MK6 Fiesta and the Fusion are very simalar.

What size drill bit did you use and what size rivets/screws to replace? Any other advice you can give if you've done it before would be great.

Thanks for the reply.

robrs2

You need to carefully drill the head off the rivet, not all the way through. I had an 8mm drill and slowly drilled until the rivet head comes off.
DON'T drill all the way through, as the rivet is only about 3 or 4mm through its hole.
With the rivet head off the bumper can be unbolted. Then just knock what's left of the rivet through the hole. I just fitted self tapper screws back in, but the rivets can be bought from ford or b&q if you have a rivet gun.