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Anyone replaced the front bumper on a ‘77? I’ve ordered two of them, most recently this one from Ecklers, and cant seem to get it to snug up to the rest of the car. I’m afraid of cracking it if I try to squeeze it on. Any recommendations?
What is it made from ? The aftermarket flex fit ones don,t fit without major adjustments (cutting away big areas ), even removal of the honeycomb crash piece .
I cant figure out what it’s stuck against. I might have to do some cutting. I was optimistic that it would just slide right in to place, but that’s not happening. It’s a fiberglass one, listed below: https://www.ecklers.com/1975-1979-co...-298820-1.html
Yeah I had one of those , it has the mounting tabs for the grills on them , I bought mine many years before I actually was ready to use it . I had it in its original box and when I opened it ,it was still sticky on the inside face. Lol , no where near fitted , had to remove the honeycomb stuff to get it on .
I put rolled up pieces of al-foil on the honey comb and that big heavy "battering ram " to see which ones got squashed and by how much etc.
i just installed one. same exact bumper. went pretty well. slight misalihgnment on lert side top. and my nose was hit. do you still have the honeycomb crash plastic underneath? pull cover off and post a pic.
a lot of good info in that video. but the replacement bumper has grille mounts added. implies the underneath stuff the grille mounts to doesn't fit. and the 5mph stuff never worked anyway. especially with a glass bumper cover. i think you will need to remove all that stuff.
Welcome to my world! I have a 76 and got the fiberglass Ecklers replacement. It took a lot of work to get the fit to be acceptable. As some of the other folks have commented you will need to do a lot of trimming and or removal of the 5 mph components. I am not sure how different a 77 is to a 76 but in my case I had to remove the steel support on the side rubber bumpers, trim the rubber on the bumperettes( so they would fit inside the fiberglass bumper cover. There is also a steel rubber covered center plate that I had to trim 3/8” off the bottom edge and the center rubber pointed piece I had to trim a lot off of that to get it to fit. The bumper cover was actually 1/8” too wide so I had to cut and splice that ( see pic below). DUB. Had a really helpful post in the body work forum. As bazza77 said- on and off a gazillion times, is the truth. Good luck! Cut to fit. Back together now fits width of car. Almost final fit, needs some small tweaks. The painted silver steel back up plate had to be removed to have clearance on both sides.
i don't think any but oem urethane will fit over the crash bars and honeycomb. that is all out on mine and the bumper fits pretty well. if you want the 5mph stuff to remain, you probably need a right angle grinder with real coarse disc to grind that plastic honeycomb down. and therre is a lot of metal to grind off too. looking down thru aerofix's headlight holes and out the valance air holes he has no bumper bars in there either. easiest is to remove all but the air tank. then a little bit of fudging to provide nose support is in order.
The license plate and bumper bar area is the biggest issue.
so i would think you would start with removing this guy. https://www.ebay.com/itm/15424472965...Condition=3000 looks like it comes off the front without taking the entire crash bar assy out. the honeycombs i think are riveted from the back side. rivets might could be drilled out from the front though.
Last edited by derekderek; May 26, 2021 at 02:35 PM.
On my 75 this is all the stuff, the big bar in the back had to have 3/16 removed with a plasma cutter on the top edge.
Also the honeycomb thing never got put back on, the 40 pound rectangle thing on the right side got thrown away.
Still had lots a adjusting to do tho on the Ecklers bumper.
ive noticed the piece where it binds up the most is on the bumperette/license plate steel thing.
because the fiberglass is thicker on the inside on the cover bumperettes, it wont slide over theprotruding steel/rubber(depending on the cover thickness, this can be shaved down, or just removed.)
also, if you keep the bumper bar, the cover mounting lip hangs up theedge of the guard.(like mod75 said trimming it helps.)
Well ****. I already removed the steel license plate thing, and I was hoping that was enough. Looks like I have lots of work ahead of me. Why wouldn’t these companies just match the original specs and have it slide in to place??
That being said......I have an extra front bumper now.....
its because the originals are really thin and flexible so youre kinda able to stretch it around those areas. most of that stuff is to keep the shape of original thin urethane bumper cover
its because the originals are really thin and flexible so youre kinda able to stretch it around those areas. most of that stuff is to keep the shape of original thin urethane bumper cover
and totally unnecessary under rigid fiberglass... sell it on ebay. except for the air tank...
Last edited by derekderek; May 26, 2021 at 10:12 PM.
I'm thinking that yes, the air tank, (Vacuum tank) might be worth hanging on to. even if you switch to electric headlight actuators. you may want the metal up there.
it is also the front crossmember and frame extensions that the rad support mounts to. and it is also also the big piece of metal that plays battering ram in case you find yourself in a demolition derby. the big angled pieces with the honeycomb on them are sheet metal. the air tank is steel.
Last edited by derekderek; May 29, 2021 at 02:59 PM.
As I get deeper in to this, what I thought was going to be “paint to match a new front bumper and slap it on” is now morphing in to “might as well paint or wrap the entire thing”. Cool! time to start researching that....
ok, here is the best instructional thread for front bumpers. and this way the car's paint is not effed with. all adjusting is done to the bumper. so in the end bumper is all you gotta paint. DUB has left us unfortunately, but his info lives on... https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-corvette.html
Last edited by derekderek; May 29, 2021 at 04:20 PM.
Front Bumper Install
