OK Mal is gonna laugh at me for asking, but how do you get the ****ing bumper off the front of a TL Magna? I need to get it off so I can swap out the headlight assemblies but the Mitsubishi service manual is really obtuse on how to get the plastic off. So far all I have removed is the bolts from the wheel arches, the stupid plastic screws at the top and the 10mm bolts holding the plastic slider guard on.

The bumper wiggles, but won't move beyond that.

Any help is much appreciated.

Plastic off? Try looking at the frame or reinforcing bar in the bumper, it comes off as a unit. Don't try to take the plastic off, remove the whole bumper. It needs to slide forward just a bit to get clearance for the lights. Look for 14 mm bolts holding the bumper on.

(I'm assuming the TL bumper is similar to the TJ one. Mal can flame me if this is bullshyte. lol )

I only noticed two big-ass bolts in the middle of the car which looked to go through a crossmember that runs down the length of the car. Pretty sure I'm not meant to touch those!

The manual seems to point to those two 14mm bolts as being on the far edges of the car. I can't see how I get to those though, unless you stick your hand in the hole where the grill goes?

I'd remove the grill but even after removing the two clips (on each side) I couldn't wiggle the thing loose. I'm great with motorbikes but with cars I still scratch my head when it comes to lots of things.

Hmmm looks like those two 14mm bolts hold the whole assembly onto the chassis of the car - it looks like box steel that slides over, or into it. Am I right?

Max...max...max, again you try and I respect you for that but again wrong.

Under the skin are a couple scrivits, along top and on each side underneath along bottom of the guard are 3 bolts

Btw reo stays on the car

So the reo cannot be removed?

The TJ's and prior models had removable reo bars the front.

Of course it can but no need to

Max...max...max, again you try and I respect you for that but again wrong.

Under the skin are a couple scrivits, along top and on each side underneath along bottom of the guard are 3 bolts

Alright I've called Malcolm. Attempt #2 will kick off this weekend, and I'll video the darned thing so everything else can avoid the pain too. :-)

Mal's gonna accuse me of taking business away from him soon! :-P

Good idea to video it :thumbsup: - there aren't many people who know how to remove the L/W series bumpers and the associated service manuals are hard to find so it'll be good for a reference. Maybe post it up in the DIY section ;)

I always found it easier to remove the bumper with the reo. I always seem to break scrivets.

Make sure you have some spare scrivets. They are fairly cheap from mitsu spares.

OK I got the bugger off. No video yet, but Malcolm was right. Essentially the process is:

Turn steering wheels full lock left
On the right-hand side of the car, remove the two screws from the plastic wheel arch guard that screw into the bumper
Turn steering full lock right
On the left-hand side of the car, remove the two screws from the plastic wheel arch guard that screw into the bumper
Remove all the 10mm bolts from the external underside of the bumper . There'll be a few but as soon as you lie down on the floor you'll see them all.
Remove the scrivets holding in the lower grille and remove the grille
Now that the lower grille has been removed, reach into the gap and remove the scrivets holding the bumper to the bumper reinforcement. The heads of these scrivets face the ground, i.e. they are vertical.


At this point, you need to remove three 10mm bolts from the inside of the bumper on both the left and right sides of the car just forward of the wheel arch. These bolts bolt the bumper to the front quarter panels.You can either remove the entire plastic wheel arch guard or jack up the car to do this. If you choose to do this part by jacking up the car, you will need to remove one of the bolts that hold the plastic wheel arch guard. This lets you lift the plastic away from the bumper and get a socket in behind it to remove the rearmost one of those three 10mm bolts. The rest of them you can just lie under the car, looking up into the bumper hollow and remove the other two bolts. The three bolts are mounted to a plate which will fall away when the bolts are removed. Keep that plate and not which way it was mounted for reinstallation.

Anyway after this the only thing holding the bumper on are the top scrivets which are where the front of the bonnet meets the bumper. When these are all gone, you can basically lift the bumper free of the car. It weighs about three kilograms all up so it's not heavy.


FYI the reason I did all this was to replace the headlight assemblies. I discovered while doing this the car has previously had a low speed smash at the front right and it make installing the new headlight a bitch due to the poor panel work done.