Been looking for a good replacement rear bumper since I bought this car last year. I think I finally found one that is at least not rusted through. Should I get it? The yard wants $40 if I take it off myself, is it worth it? My current bumper is rusted through in multiple places, including at the lights.

Here are some images showing what kind of shape it is in. I can still stick a magnet to it in all the spots that are rusty, which says there is still metal under that brown rust. I am fine sanding it off, but am currently unable to weld anything.









Took forever to find one in this shape, already tried to remove it but couldn't figure out how, and was on the clock since I had classes to get to. Does anyone know how to remove this thing? I tired prying of the plastic on top of the bumper and it wouldn't bulge and I didn't see anything that screamed "I'm the bolt" when I looked under it. The only video I found was how to remove the bumper off an S10, which showed the bolts under the plastic cover.

 

I would get it, looks solid. The bolts are under the plastic piece.

 

How do I remove the plastic piece? I jammed a screw driver under it and tried to pry it up but it wouldn't pull free, it just kept bending to the point where I thought I was gonna tear through it.

 

Got the cover off, took a lot more force than what I thought it would. I also removed 4 bolts, two on each side. It won't budge! I tried prying it off and spraying what I could with PB and just can't remove it. Is there a trick to this or am I missing a bolt somewhere?

 

From what I have seen ( I have not personally removed a second gen s10/blazer bumper)
that should be it on removing it.
I wish I could offer more advice on the removal.
Being in Michigan I would guess rust has played a roll in the pieces being stuck together.
You could try the heat and cold water trick, get the areas around the bolt holes ect hot with a torch (be careful) and then pour cold water over it, it will contract the metal fast and possibly break loose the bumper.

 

I believe there is another bolt on each side on the bottom if you look in your last pic you will see it. I could be wrong but I remember my 96 had bolts on the bottom side.

 

 

Found the last 4 bolts. They were rusted pretty good but they broke off and then the bumper slid right off. They were on this weird bracket type thing, which was rusted enough that it was bending, probably gonna need to buy that new or hope mine are in better shape.

Now for the restoration work of the bumper before I put it on. Holy crap is the back side of this thing rusty. I have taken my screw driver and hammer and chiseled away but this is going slow. Is there a faster way to remove all this rust? Is there a way to even remove the stuff that I can't see behind where it wraps in on itself? Also a lot of the rust is black (not like the paint, which just disintegrated), is this still rust?

Even more importantly how can I prevent it from rusting like this again when I'm done, other then the obvious painting it.

 

If you have an electric drill you can buy a wire wheel attachment for it, and that should help you clean it up. Once the rust is cleaned off, give the bare metal a thick coating of epoxy primer(preferable) or a self etching primer(still good, and available in spraycan) then scuff that up and coat it with a paint or undercoating or spray bedliner of your choice.

 

No drill, bought a brass wire brush and will be going at it here soon.

Still have no idea how I'm going to remove the rust off some of the concealed parts like where it folds up on itself, let alone paint it.