Bump it Up

Here's a mod I've had in the works for for a while. Still needs some tweaks, but so far, it's coming together!!!

I've had the idea of doing this for a while. There's a threefold impetus for it. First, the shape of a rear bumper is something of a parachute effect, in theory creating excess drag and probably underbody turbulence. Second, it will eliminate the Saturn script from the bumper, a look I've never much cared for, and adding a bit of the "what is it?" factor. Thirdly, and mostly, back when she was my wife's primary driver, she'd gotten tapped on the rear bumper, and it left a couple of license plate screw imprints, a minor one on the downstroke of the R, the other a few inches past. This handles all three!!!

I had the though originally that I could get it with a two foot cut out, but it turned out not to be the case. I was also originally thinking of doing one opening, but had the concern that it might mouth open if it were cut all the way across. Additionally, the expanded metal I'd gotten was only 2 feet across.

I used a hole saw for the ends, and a circular saw for the straights. A little file clean up, and it came out pretty good!!! Also got to put some satin black on it while it was off, and it came out some of the best I've done!!! It was pretty warm out, with low humidity, and I think that helped quite a bit!!!

Before I added in the expanded metal, I rigged up a couple of LED light strips. I did a strip of blue that goes with the running lights, and a red strip wired into the brakes, with a relay cutting the power to the blue strip when the brakes are applied.

As you can see, it only shines through in a couple of spots, so I'll be modifying it some more. The red doesn't show up too well, so I'm going to rig up a reflector for it.