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Well, the work is done, with some minor challenges. The 960 bumper is different from the 940, as it is not screwed to the shocks, and has several connection areas that the 940 does not have. With thanks to Spook who gave some information in an earlier post, here is the summary:
Broken 95 960 Front Bumper Wing Clips
The 960 front bumper mountings are different in format from those on the 940, but I suspect based on the same principle. The steel body panel has attached to it, a plastic receiver, into which slides a plastic mounting plate, attached to the inner surface of the bumper. The end of the bumper sags, because the mounting plate has broken free of the inner surface of the bumper. This has occurred, because the mounting plate is affixed to the bumper's inner surface by heat-forming heads on plastic studs, that are moulded into the bumper.
Thus, when the bumper is made, the plastic mounting plate is put onto plastic studs that protrude from the bumper. Heat is then applied to the ends of the studs, to melt the plastic and to form heads, that hold the mounting plate to the bumper's inner surface.
Removing The Bumper Cover
The 960 bumper is held on in three areas: Headlight Wipers, Fog Lights, Air Guide, and Twelve Flat Clips. These are removed as follows:
Headlight Wipers
The headlight wipers are held to the shaft by a small nut, approx 12 mm. There is a plastic black cover over the end of the shaft. To remove them, flip open the cap over the end of the wiper arm. Remove the nut and pull the wiper up off the splined shaft. Under this you will see the nut. This black plastic shaft cover can easily break, so first spray it with good lubricant to loosen things, and let sit. To remove the wiper and reinstall it, you will need to pull the wiper arm away from the headlight so it is pointing toward the road in front of the car. It should then be gently wiggled back and forth until it begins to come loose, and will slide off the shaft.
12 Flat Clips:
With the 12 flat clips, 6 of these are near the top of the bumper, and 6 are near the bottom of the bumper. These flat clips have a bevelled edge, and slide into slots on the bumper re bar that is behind the plastic shell. To loosen these clips on the top, remove the Volvo chrome front grill by squeezing the two clips at the top on either side of the chrome grill. When removed, you can see the top six clips. Gently pull up on the clips so the bevelled edge lets go of the slot in the rebar. This takes some finesse. For the bottom clips, you will need to slide under the car and look up. Using a trouble light and your fingers, feel where the bottom flat clips are, and push them so the bevelled edge is released. Each of the six must be off to allow the bumper to slide off.
Fog Lights:
To remove the fog lights, unscrew each of three screws, and remove the 12 volt connector by pressing down on the spring clip of the plug. They slide off toward the rear of the car.
Air Guide:
To remove the air guide, it is attached to the bottom of the radiator with three screws that go into the bottom of the rad. Be very careful with these. The slots into the bottom of the rad often become stripped, and many have then used longer screws only to find they screw 3 solid holes into the bottom of the rad - which means a rad replacement. After removing the screws, the air guide has three tab clips that fit into the back of the grey bumper trim that is on the bottom of the bumper. Carefully pull the three tabs out, being careful to keep the three metal guides. These are required to reaffix the air guide.
Once the headlight wipers, air guide, fog lights, and flat clips are loose, you should be able to slide the bumper off. The bumper is large and somewhat unwieldy. If you have no one to help. put a couple of strong cardboard boxes under either end of the bumper, to support it. That will prevent the bumper falling on you, when you remove the mounting bolts.
Remove & Replace Bumper End Plates That Clip Bumper On
Once the bumper has been removed, You should see the mounting plates. They may be still in the receivers, attached to the sheet metal panel. If so, gently pull them out (forward).
You should see, on each end of the bumper, the stumps of the plastic studs, that used to hold the mounting plate to the bumper. To re-attach the mounting plate, you will need to drill into each of the stumps, a hole about half the diameter of the stump. These holes should be 1/2" deep. You must be careful to drill straight, so that you have a hole centered in the stump and perfectly parallel to the axis of the stump. Use a small drill, that is variable speed, so that you can control the drill.
It is very easy to drill most of the post away when removing the plastic weld that holds the plate to the bumper. If this post is gone, there will not be any way to attach the plate to the bumper. So, to help prevent this, I used a Dremel tool with a stone bit to gently grind away the top of the plastic weld, and remove the plate. I had planned to mix some plastic epoxy and use a Q tip to apply it to the plate and in the screw hole to hold things in place, but I ran out of time.
To re-attach the mounting plate, get stainless steel sheet metal screws, with countersunk heads, of a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of the hole you've drilled into the plastic stump. I used #8, 1/4" screws. Also get some stainless steel finishing washers, which will fit the heads of the stainless steel screws.
Finishing washers are designed to allow a counter-sunk head screw to be used on a flat surface. The washer mates with the screw head, and keeps the underside of the screw head from biting into the surface of the material, into which the screw has been put.
Using finishing washers, "widens" the screw head. That means the screw head puts less pressure on plastic. That, in turn, makes it less likely that the screw head can be pulled through the plastic. The screws should be tightened very gently. They need only be snug. I did run into some difficulty as the post of two monts were mostly gone. As a result the #8, 1/4" screw was not biting enough, and was loose. So I used a slightly longer but skinnier screw. While this held well, unfortunately it did penetrate the bumper, and there is a very small bulge where it has pushed through. A project for another time will be to remove the bumper again, replace the loose screws with #10, 1/4", and use plastic epoxy on all connectors.
Once You have re-attached the mounting plates to the inner surface on each side of the bumper, you can slide the bumper onto the receivers, on the steel panels, on either side. Do this gently. Be sure the mounting plates engage the receivers properly. It is ususally a better idea to lower the bumper cover from above, angled toward the car so the top clips enter first. Then, with the top clips in place, gently guide the bottom on an angle toward the bumper. It is tricky to align the 12 clips as well as the side guides, and took several tries to get right. It is a big help to have someone at each end of the bumper.
With the bumper supported by the cardboard boxes (or a helper), go underneath and secure the bumper to the shock absorbers, using the hex bolts. That's it.
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