Bumper Refurb

Had a frantic morning reinstalling the turn signals on the bumper, from yup, you guessed it, another, "as long as I'm" project. The alignment appointment was first thing that morning, and I was not going to miss another one.

The project started because the license plate brackets on the front bumper were snapped off. As I knew I was going to be driving the car a fair distance when I took her in for her alignment, and with the Illinois plates, I wanted to be Colorado legal. This meant fabricating new brackets and finding a way to mount them. As long as I had the bumper off, I figured I would deal with the rusty interior metal from the splitting rubber, and then seal the rubber back up.

Really, fabricating new brackets was an easy project. A piece of metal, a cutting wheel for the angle grinder, and a drill. I didn't have access to a vice, to I improvised with a cinder block, 2x4, and a hammer.

I pulled the bumper off to get better access to bracket mounts. Easy enough, four bolts on each bumper shock. Once I had the bumper off, I used a large wedge punch to pop off the left over old brackets.

The broken brackets before removal:



I used a smaller punch to knock out the rivets.


I then measured the length needed for the replacement bracket, and cut the metal with the angle grinder. That was fun, sparks flying, the smell of burning metal. First time I have cut through metal, let alone with an angle grinder! Anyway, once the metal was cut, and the sharp edges filed down, I used a 2x4 on a cinder block as a mount, and pounded the metal into an angle.





Because the rear rivet holes were accessible, bolts were used for attaching. For the front rivets, I used self driving metal screws. I don't want to spoil the finish by posting the picture of the mounted brackets on the nicely finished bumper, so that will have to wait a bit...

The bumper itself needed some attention. The rubber was faded and looking tired, and since the rubber was split on the backside of the bumper, the metal on the inside of the bumper had a little rust issue.






And my bumper emblem was in bad shape


Cleaned up the metal as best I could removing as little rubber as possible. Once the metal was as clean as I could get it, I sprayed rust reformer into all the splits.





Once the rust reformer was dry, used adhesive and clamps to try to pull the rubber back down into shape, and was mildly successful. Then used silicon to seal the splits, which worked really well (so far) if not totally attractive. Almost all of it was on the car side of the bumper, so wasn't overly worried about looks, just sealing it up to halt the deterioration. After the silicon set, a razor blade trimmed it up. Then a quick key of the rubber to give teeth for the paint to stick, and a couple coats of bumper paint.

Silicon filler on the bumper:




Once it was all done, it was time to remount the bumper. No problem, right? Four bolts on each of the two bumper shocks. Yeah, right. Fought trying to get the bumper lined up for at least an hour. I had to get it mounted, because I was heading for the appointment first thing the next morning. Finally had the bright idea of removing the bumper shock, attaching it to the bumper, and then sliding the bumper shock back into its mount. Actually worked, thought the bolts for the shock didn't line up exactly right either, and ended up spinning the head off of one of them. Oh well, the bumper is mounted, and not going anywhere. I'll deal with it when I pull the bumper again when I am prepping the car for paint.

Now, as promised, the much anticipated finished bracket mounted on the painted bumper... ;-)



And a couple of shots of the mounted newly painted bumper with the new emblem. It isn't the correct one for a 75, but it is new, and beautiful, and honestly, I like it better! Also, these shots were taken after I had driven it, and the bumper already had some dirt on it. It looks much better in person than the pictures show.




Next project... Cooling system. Stay tuned!