The Corolla AE92 GT-S Project

A website about my ongoing project

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Sprinter Trueno zenki rear bumper

The Corolla as I bought it was a USDM (United States Domestic Market) car. That meant that the car had to comply to US legislation if Toyota wanted to sell this model there as well.

As US legislation differed from that of other markets where the coupé model was sold, they had to make some modifications to the car.

 

One of those modifications involved the bumpers. US legislation stated that the front bumper should be able to absorb a crash of 5mph (About 8km/h) without damage occurring to the rest of the car.

 

This was impossible with the ABS bumpers Toyota used on the car in other markets.

 So they altered the construction of the bumpers for the USDM cars.

First they mounted a heavy beam to the chassis, with a layer of 'foam' in front of that to absorb impacts.

To make it look like a bumper again, this beam and foam were fitted with a 'cover' that was made of a very soft sort of plastic.

This made the bumpers a lot bulkier and stick out a lot more than the Asian bumpers. If you ask me, this didn't do the looks of the car any good.

 

Original rear bumper

In this picture, you can clearly see how far the rear bumper sticks out. A pretty cumbersome bumper.

 

With a much nicer new front bumper, I also wanted a nice new rear bumper. But luckily for me, where front bumpers are hard to find, rear bumpers are easier to come by. And again I could choose from the zenki and kouki rear bumper.

 

Zenki rear bumper  Kouki rear bumper

A zenki rear bumper on the left and a kouki rear bumper on the right.

 

I is very subtle, but if you look closely, there is a difference between the two. The kouki bumper looks a little cleaner and more rounder than the zenki bumper. But again I liked the zenki bumper better because of the 'step' it has in it. I think it breaks the line of the bumper a little and makes it look less bulky.

 

So I started to look for a zenki bumper again and I found one on yahoo online auctions in Japan. It was undamaged, clean and came complete with mounting brackets and license plate lighting on it for a very nice price.

The shipping costs would probably be a nightmare again, but hey with a nice front bumper, I now needed a nice rear bumper too.

 

And after a few weeks, the mailman delivered a nice big package with my name on it, fresh out of Japan.

 

Packed rear bumper

 

My kids helped me out a little with unpacking it. It was probably the biggest thing they had ever unwrapped, so they both really dove into it.

 

Unpacking rear bumper with my son  Unpacking rear bumper with daughter

 

Rear bumper  Rear view of rear bumper

 

And where the front bumper presented some issues with getting it on the car, the rear bumper didn't. The rear bumper beam had been removed long ago and as with the front, all the holes to mount the bumper were already there in the chassis. So it was a direct fit and bolt on job.

 

Test fitting rear bumper

 

Test fitting rear bumper

 

It was a nice straight and clean fit and it lined up perfectly everywhere. It didn't need any adjustments anymore and if you ask me, it was a huge improvement over the old USDM bumper.