66 442 bumpers
#5
I bought an NOS rear bumper for my old 66 442 from Ron Memmer back in 2000, wonder if it was the last to be had at any price. My recollection was it cost me $600, which at the time was considered a lot of money, haw haw!
The '66 rear bumpers are VERY hard to restore properly, as they show a very broad "face" perpendicular to the ground (i.e. head on when you are looking at it from behind). Most often, you can see evidence of straightening, or crimps caused by jack use. All depends on how picky one is I guess. Bottom line is I'd never trust buying a restored one based on a photo. If you have a good core, hopefully someone here can recommend a good chromer, but regardless a lot of FAITH is needed in such cases.
The '66 rear bumpers are VERY hard to restore properly, as they show a very broad "face" perpendicular to the ground (i.e. head on when you are looking at it from behind). Most often, you can see evidence of straightening, or crimps caused by jack use. All depends on how picky one is I guess. Bottom line is I'd never trust buying a restored one based on a photo. If you have a good core, hopefully someone here can recommend a good chromer, but regardless a lot of FAITH is needed in such cases.
#6
Alien, there is one more, but I am hoarding it! And, you are right, they are hard to get right when straightening a used one. A good place could do it; maybe somewhere like Ogden Chrome. Front bumpers aren't plentiful either; I have a couple that need some straightening. They were discontinued in the 70s and I only found one--it wasn't perfect but I bought it anyway.
#7
Alien, there is one more, but I am hoarding it! And, you are right, they are hard to get right when straightening a used one. A good place could do it; maybe somewhere like Ogden Chrome. Front bumpers aren't plentiful either; I have a couple that need some straightening. They were discontinued in the 70s and I only found one--it wasn't perfect but I bought it anyway.
#8
Maybe I better go look in my bumper pile as I think I have some 66 bumpers there. I also have a 66 parts car that has a real straight back one and a slightly kinked front one where I pushed it with the tractor bucket while clearing snow. I have had good luck with tri cities plateing in Tenn. I used to take them bumper cores 50 at a time. Maybe thats why I don't have many now.
#10
Guess you have been abandoned. I can't recall any visual difference, except some front bumpers have had inboard light housing holes added with the 4bbl delete option. I examined a front long ago with factory holes inboard, but I wish I could remember if it had both sets or just one, or if the original light housing holes fastened the hose inlets on that car. NOS is not that rare around here, as one example I have two one still in GM wrapper and know of locally several more. Trouble is, I can't bring myself to use mine (yet) as 'nos' bragging rights don't yield much in appearance.
#11
Thanks Coldwar. The reason I asked is because I saw a dealer service bulletin on 'Wild About Cars' that just showed bolt on brackets to move the turn signals to clear the scoops for the W-30 option. I've looked at my bumpers and I didn't see any additional mounting tabs.
#12
The only added brackets with the 66 W30 are for the ducts to core support. The lower flange of the bumper cooling slot is bent down, and new holes drilled for the parking light. One more hole is drilled in the lamp mounting tab, and one new one is drilled in the bumper for the bezel (scoop, to the un-initiated). One OEM light mounting hole (the inboard one) is left unused. Thus a total of three new holes are drilled in the bumper on each side to install the OAI.
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