Hello.
I'm just restoring my 3dr Cossie and I have a problem.
The car came with a fiberglass front bumper, and I have purchased an original 500 one. It all seems fine (wings, brackets, etc not damaged at all). But when I try to fit it, there is a quite big gap between the bumper and the wings.
Could anybody give me an idea about what could be the reason and how could I fix it?
Many thanks.

 

There are two flap like pieces of metal which are attached to the wings, that hang down behind the bumper on the sides. The clips for the bumper locate into these pieces. With mine, I gently pushed them in towards the engine bay until the bumper sat right. Takes some fitting and re fitting, but it will go eventually.

 

I already have tried to do that. Well, perhaps I have tried too gently.
Could you give me another tips?

 

The RS500 bumper is wider than a 3dr one, it can be quite a task to get the gaps even and looking good. It was done for a reason, as the touring cars could then have the wings pumped out at the bottom to achieve greater wheel travel. Takes quite a bit of adjusting to get it looking ok, and even then the gap is quite large both sides.

 

When i changed my bumper from a standard 3dr to RS500 version i dont recall it being that much of an issue. Yes we did have to fettle it a little to get the gaps even all the way round

 

Thee are loads of pictures of rs500 front bumpers fitted on here

www.rs500owners.com

Look in the resto section for best results

The 500 bumper should fit exactly the same as a 3 door

 

So we can consider it as a direct fit but not perfect fit?

 

But those are RS500, not standard Sierra RS, so they probably have some slight modification in order to get perfect fitment, isn't it?

 

Some of the 'mushroom shaped' genuine Ford fixings are actually longer than others. I was caught out by that until I saw the two side by side.

 

They do go straight on but you have to fiddle with them to get them to sit right with the correct gaps alround

 

Thank you all!
All this info will be a great help for me!

 

No they dont

The rs500 shell is a totaly std 3 door shell , and the bumpers are exactly the same other than the cut outs

They all fit identical if you spend time fitting them correctly

 

This is the only point that I do not totally understand.
It seems clear to me that it takes a bit time to fit the 500 bumper, but... is it wider than 3dr or not?

 

NO!! same width

 

Never measured one side by side with a 3dr version, but always found that the side gaps were slightly bigger on RS500 bumpers whenever I tried adjusting them compared to the 3dr version.

The race teams unstitched the front wing lower mounting points on the shells where the bumper also attaches and fitted a spacer to pump out the wing and allow more room for the bigger wheels and tyres and my thoughts always were that the 500 bumper was slightly bigger to accommodate this.

Pretty sure this was why the eggenberger cars were disqualified from the Bathurst win as a standard road car was checked for clearances which brought the practice to light.

Could well be barking up the wrong tree though.

 

Mine was exactly as you describe.

 

3 door and rs500 are exactly the same size

However Paul has piked up on a good point

My front bumper on my Lui eggenberger car has a front bumper that is 20mm wider than the other 3 rs500 bumpers i have on the shelf , so im sure that some were made wider for eggenberger


These pics show the fitment on a std rs500 and is the same as a std 3 door ,, all these are differant cars

 

Does the bottom mounting point on your wings have the spacer behind them Paul compared to a standard cosworth shell?

If not maybe they all removed them after Bathurst.

 

No it doesnt ,, but the bumper has a massive gap compared with any road car due to the spacers being removed and the wings back in the std place

 

The cheating buggers! same with those egmo RS500 blocks full of metal in the waterways