1996 Mercedes SL500 R129 Project Heidi Part 9: Broken and Shattered Front Bumper Cover Full Repair!

Duct Tape and Bailing Wire on a R129? You bet 'cha. When it comes to R129 Front Bumpers these things are almost always broken or shattered. Welcome back to W140Restorations where we take a deep dive down a rabbit hole filled with different types of plastic welding tools, techniques, and temperatures to wed the Bumper Cover of Heidi with a very broken inner core from a donor vehicle. Its a match made in a recycling yard for long term drivability in the W140 Restorations Garage. We find out aluminum rivets and washers are the way to go putting these back together and a quick tutorial on how to put Bosch Fog Lights back in the bumper rounds out this latest episode of #ProjectHeidi.

It took weeks to finally finish all the plastic welding but it was so very worth it. We use Polypropylene and Polyurethane plastic welding rods to give some structure to a very broken bumper cover and re-use the bumper hangers and hardware to finally get Heidi back together.

Parts used:

Amazon.com plastic welding kit
Polyurethane welding rod
Polypropylene welding rod
Harbor Freight plastic welding iron
Mercedes Benz Fog Light (Bosch) 129-820-1256 Left
Mercedes Benz Fog Light (Bosch) 129-820-1156 Right
Arrow Heavy Duty One-Handed Rivet Gun
Arrow 5mm (3/16") x 12mm (1/2") aluminum rivets
Arrow 5mm (3/16") x 6mm (1/4") aluminum rivets
Arrow 5mm (3/16'") aluminum washers