I'm pretty sure that anyone with a Gen 4 Taurus knows exactly what I'm taking about in the title. I'm talking about the terrible and awful design Ford used to keep the bumper aligned with the fender. Like other people I've seen, after any driving my bumper lines up as shown below.
After finally getting tired of my bumper looking like crap I decided to look into fixing the problem. In order to fix the problem I first had to look at the bumper to determine how Ford thought it should work, find why it wasn't working that way, and determine the best route to making something work. How the bumper is supposed to work is there is a plastic channel that the bumper slides into. At the top of this channel is a plastic tab that sticks down and is suppose to secure the opening in the bumper to prevent the bumper from creating the gap. The problem with my vehicle was two issues. First, there is an air gap right below that tab so the plastic would sag down so the tab could not secure the bumper. This meant the bumper was free to slide in/out of the channel with no resistance. The second issue is that the front corner of the bumper (near the headlight) has nothing behind it to force it to hold it's shape. So the air resistance while driving would push he bumper back and cause the bumper to flex outward at the gap while rotating around the simple pin holding the bumper to the fender.
To fix the issues I decided to implement two solutions. The first solution was to add some foam fill behind the bumper to force it to keep it's shape while driving. This is pretty straight forward in getting some foam and cutting it to shape to fit behind the front corner of the bumper. Also for this fix I purchased a sheet metal clip and a bolt to replace the plastic rivet. This allows me to torque down on the bolt to keep the bumper from rotating out. Both of those I think were really minor fixes to what I feel is the real fix.
The real fix was keeping the bumper plastic from sagging to force the plastic tabs to actually secure the bumper. To do that I went to the store and just browsed around for some rubber or dense foam. The idea was to get some rubber/foam that I could fit into the air gap that would force the plastic up and cause the tabs to secure properly. What I ended up finding was some foam that's used to make prevent air infiltration behind wall outlet plates (see below).
While at the store I also found some tool box liners that would work and also a truck bed liner. But those were about $10-$20 and the outlet covers were $5. So I took the outlet cover foam, glued 3 of them together with super glue, and then cut them to shape. Then I used some super glue to glue the foam into the air gap below the plastic tabs (see below). You can see the white foam in the black plastic channel.
The results work WONDERFUL. Took it for a trip down the interstate where I hit 100 and when I got home there was no alignment issues. After a couple days of driving it still work and holds the bumper in place. I'm not sure if it will last years or not. But if it doesn't, at least it fixed the issue for now.
After finally getting tired of my bumper looking like crap I decided to look into fixing the problem. In order to fix the problem I first had to look at the bumper to determine how Ford thought it should work, find why it wasn't working that way, and determine the best route to making something work. How the bumper is supposed to work is there is a plastic channel that the bumper slides into. At the top of this channel is a plastic tab that sticks down and is suppose to secure the opening in the bumper to prevent the bumper from creating the gap. The problem with my vehicle was two issues. First, there is an air gap right below that tab so the plastic would sag down so the tab could not secure the bumper. This meant the bumper was free to slide in/out of the channel with no resistance. The second issue is that the front corner of the bumper (near the headlight) has nothing behind it to force it to hold it's shape. So the air resistance while driving would push he bumper back and cause the bumper to flex outward at the gap while rotating around the simple pin holding the bumper to the fender.
To fix the issues I decided to implement two solutions. The first solution was to add some foam fill behind the bumper to force it to keep it's shape while driving. This is pretty straight forward in getting some foam and cutting it to shape to fit behind the front corner of the bumper. Also for this fix I purchased a sheet metal clip and a bolt to replace the plastic rivet. This allows me to torque down on the bolt to keep the bumper from rotating out. Both of those I think were really minor fixes to what I feel is the real fix.
The real fix was keeping the bumper plastic from sagging to force the plastic tabs to actually secure the bumper. To do that I went to the store and just browsed around for some rubber or dense foam. The idea was to get some rubber/foam that I could fit into the air gap that would force the plastic up and cause the tabs to secure properly. What I ended up finding was some foam that's used to make prevent air infiltration behind wall outlet plates (see below).
While at the store I also found some tool box liners that would work and also a truck bed liner. But those were about $10-$20 and the outlet covers were $5. So I took the outlet cover foam, glued 3 of them together with super glue, and then cut them to shape. Then I used some super glue to glue the foam into the air gap below the plastic tabs (see below). You can see the white foam in the black plastic channel.
The results work WONDERFUL. Took it for a trip down the interstate where I hit 100 and when I got home there was no alignment issues. After a couple days of driving it still work and holds the bumper in place. I'm not sure if it will last years or not. But if it doesn't, at least it fixed the issue for now.
