um, is my engine goning to fall out?

[Haribo!]

basically i swapped some bumpers from my driver to my gti as they were in better nik and have fogs, problem is on one side for some reason there is no humanly possible way to get the rear of the two bolts onto the leg, it just wont go, ive done it before a good few time on different cars and for some reason it isnt gong to play so at the mo on my drivers side i have the front of the two bolts on nice and tight and the smaller middle one is loose and wont go any tighter, niether will it come out, it just rattles in its place, and the rear bolt is missing completely, is my engine gonna fall out or should this hold it anyway?

[JMallows]

Have you tried jacking the engine a little bit? I dont actually belive the whole ting about having to jack the engine, as i never needed to, but i have heard a few people say they need to!? Failing that, get someone else to push the bumper in really hard, while you pop the bolts in!

[Haribo!]

its no good, the hole lines up perfectly, noe of the bolts i have will screw into it, as hard as it is to belive it really wont go, i think maybe ide be ok if i swap my bumper skins over and keep the original legs etc that were already there before and maybe the bolts will go into where theyve been before, but more importantly i need to drive the car early tomorrow and need to kow if the whole things gonna get worse, can i drive with only 3 of the 4 bolts holding that bumper on?

[Ozz]

Have had a similar problem, I found that it seemed to line up, but the bolt was actually missing the bumper becase the arm from the bumper had bent outwards, so although the front bolt goes in, the rear bolt is miles off.

Not sure about the engine falling out, but I wouldnt be all that happy driving with only 3 of those bolts in place.

[Veedubgt18v]

try moving the bolts round and putting them in in a different order. i had this with mine and shuffled them about a bit and eventually got them in. or try new bolts cos the threads may be a bit shot.

[rubjonny]

Try putting the rear ones in first, see where that gets you.  Also, dont tighten anything up untill you have the threads on all the bolts started

[Haribo!]

nope tried both of those methods in the 3 hours i spent outside, what mk2_ozz said seems to make sence, i reckon the legs bent, i men, i know it is, but didnt realsie until now that being bent even tho the bolt reches it it probably is at a weird angle so the thread wont catch, to ill swap the skins over or just keep the old bumper and make it fog light worthy, ill let ya know if i get a bumper on it, but as for tomorrow im gonna drive real careful to work

[rubjonny]

Hah bent bumer irons a bane of my life.  I spent 3 hours hammering the crap out of my bumper to make it sit vaguely straight, and even now every time I take my bumper off its a half hour struggle to get it back on again! 

[Haribo!]

is it easy to swap over bumper skins? as i have 3 big bumpers im hopeing i can make one good one out of them all

[rubjonny]

In theory it is yes, there is a series of clips along the length of the bumper, which are help open by 'wedges' Take the wedges out and the skin should unclip from the iron