Hi. I'm a newbie to the Zone.I just bought a 300TDI last week - glorious machine.I love driving it. However it has an old style bull bar which I want to remove. Unfortunately it is fixed on with the four bumper bolt (plus 4 others at the front).While trying to remove the first bolt (it was pretty still and I used a socket and 18 inch bar) I have managed to shear it.Now I'm a bit wary of pressing on in case the same thing happens to the others and I'm left with no bumper.
Unfortunately Haynes just says "slacken the four mounting bolts......and recover the nut retaining plates from behind the bumper" (Big help).
I would appreciate any advice.

best thing to do is carry on and if you shear the bolts just replace them with new ones

Thanks Yellow disco. If I shear the others will I be able to get the bumper off and will I need to buy new nut retaining plates. What do these look like? Are they separate from the bumper itself (Haynes which I just bought doesn't have any diagrams so I'm not all that sure what I'm talking about here)

Not absolutly certain, but I reckon the nut retaining plates are just bits of flat plates with nuts welded to them so you dont need a spanner on the nut as the plate stops them spinning. You can replace them with a nut and washer as long as you can get a spanner behind the bumper to hold the nut.

My father in laws favourite saying was "put a bit of heat on it". Meaning heat the nut up, and a pound to a pinch of **** the nut and bolt will undo.

Thanks guys. If it helps I should have said it was a 300TDI Defender. Don't know if this makes a difference.

The plates are very cheap and available from any dealer (OE or pattern).
I once made do with normal nuts but they were a pain to fit and was glad when I got some new plates.

If the bolts have sheared-off half-way along the shank then you have some drilling/cutting to do i'm afraid but don't worry, you can get them out without damaging the chassis.

Should have said in my previous post, use WD40 (or similar) and you might get away without shearing them.

Thanks guys. I'll give it another go after letting some WD40 soak in for day or two.

munro said:

...While trying to remove the first bolt (it was pretty still and I used a socket and 18 inch bar) I have managed to shear it.Now I'm a bit wary of pressing on in case the same thing happens to the others --

Click to expand...

I haven't had much luck with any of the penetrating oils, and when I've gotten a stubborn bolt undone after treating it with WD-40 or similar the oil have only managed to penetrate maybe one turn of the threads or so. IMHO anything that's tight enough to stick is also tight enough to be leak proof. But maybe I'm too impatient to let it soak properly...These days I usually don't muck about any more. If the bolt is stuck and the nut is accessible I reach for the angle grinder at very little provocation. If I can't get to the nut I'll have a go at it with the impact wrench. If that doesn't help it's time to bring in the welder. One method that I like (particularly for sheared bolts) is to place a nut on top of the sheared bolt and then weld the nut and the bolt together by putting a big nice bead in the center hole of the nut (arc weld, wire feed or stick). Heat seems to do the trick every time, and with the arc welder you don't get as much heat spread as with the oxy-acetylene torch allowing you to work closer to heat sensitive components without any risk to them. It's a really easy weld too.

The nut retaining plates are about 2" long and an inch wide made out of 5mm plate. 2 holes drilled into them and tapped to M10 off the top of my head...