Hi guys and gals, newish to the forum but have been watching and learning for a few months now, my vette is going to the paint shop on saturday and being a poor english man I have been stripping and preping the car first.
The problem I have is that the paint guy said that it would be better if the front bumper was removed first due to cracking along the seam at a later date if painted as one with the car.
I have just been trying to remove it and wrung the first two studs off, does this really have to be removed and if so is there a method of repair if the others break off aswell?

 

ttt

 

Dave, it is indeed best to remove the bumper-not only will it have a good chance(probably 99% chance)of cracking there along this seam. Also, due to the way that seam is, if you paint the bumper with it on, paint will have a tendency to "puddle" and fill this seam. Good painters can get around this by limiting how much paint they put there but most do not. Those "small retaining" studs, if rusty, as most of our 25yr old '70's Corvettes are, break most of the time anyways and have to be replaced.

 

Thanks Paul, is it much of a job to replace these? my other option would be to put an 82 front on it because mine has got some damage already, but reading a previous post this looks like a nightmare of a job, will these fit a 75 and if so how much do they cost.
Living over the other side of the pond means that my options are limited and although the exchange rate is very good for me, the shipping kills it a bit on large parcels from the usa.

 

I believe Eckler's has a '80-'82 style front bumper for '75-'79 Corvettes, but in my opinion, the way the front of the '75-'79 has a certain contour, this special made '80-'82 style bumper, to me looks a little strange. I myself do not care for it. When I replaced my '75's front bumper, I just went to the hardware store and got similar sized nuts & bolts. There is a metal ring that encircles the bumper to which these studs are attached to. This "retainer" as it is called, was basically used to speed up installation of the bumper so the GM worker wouldn't have to use multiple individual "studs" as they were attached to this retainer.
The hardest part of the job is the access to some of these "nuts" is NOT easy.

 

Another reason to remove the bumper cover may be to repair the cracks in the fiberglass that inevitably occur after years of service. On the end of the car where the bumper mounts, the seam between the top hood surround and the side fender may begin to crack. You would want to take the opportunity to repair that so the crack doesn't continue into the body where it would be visible.

 

Same thing with the rear bumper, obviously.

 

Hi Dave
I took my front & rear bumper covers off for painting & those studs can be a real PITA. In the end I gave up trying to get some of the nuts off with care & just undid them. If the studs snapped then, well, they snapped. It's easy enough to repair them once it's all apart & you won't need to buy any kits from the US. A visit to the local hardware shop is all that's needed. They (on an '81 at least) are mounted on steel strips that are pop rivetted to the cover. It's easy to drill out the rivets, drill out the snapped stud on a drill press & then replace the stud with a bolt. Clamp the bolt to the support using a nut (there's enough room to "lose" it in the recess in the cover) & then just pop rivet the strip back onto the cover. The rear cover was easy to remove (once all the mounting nuts were undone), but the front on mine needed a bit of flexing to get it off (the studs either side of the top "corners" were stopping it from just falling off). Send me an email if you need any pics as I took quite a few so that I didn't forget how it all went back together. Be careful it doesn't snowball on you: I ended up with the entire front of the car in pieces, right back to the timing cover! It looks good all painted now but, phew, what a bunch of work it was!
Another bit of advice. I spent 3 full days over a Christmas sitting in front of the TV while rubbing down the rear bumper cover with 400 grade wet-or-dry (in the time it took to rub down 1/3 of the bumper, some guy on TV had completely restored a series 1 E-type ). The front took even longer. Doing that gets you real, real if the painter doesn't put enough flex agent in with the paint. You get even madder when he doesn't use the correct primers on new fibreglass parts & the paint comes out in a rash of micro-blisters after a couple of months. Choose your painter carefully
Check out Corvette Kingdom's website as they sell parts like bumper covers. I bought a lower air dam from them in bare fibreglass (now white with a bad case of acne ) & it fitted perfectly. They have converted an earlier vert to the 80-82 style front & rear using their parts & it looks If you want to talk to them about it then leave it for a while as Ray (the owner) died last week (a great loss to us UK Vetters ) & his funeral is tomorrow.
Good luck with the painting,
Paul
p.s. there can't be many Dave's in England with C3's looking like that! I haven't forgotten your wheels & the despatch driver is (very) well aware that he needs to drive them up to you. If you need them urgently let me know & I'll drive them up myself.
Additionally, if you need any of those metal bumper mounting strips repaired & don't feel like doing them yourself, send them down & I'll do them for you (as an apology for the wheels taking so long!). If you do them yourself I'd recommend using st/st bolts (set screws) & nuts so that they don't rust in place again (making it easier to get the cover off if the paint cracks/bubbles).

edit: I repaired the broken studs with 3/16" UNC set screws (st/st).

 

Thanks for your all your help, I removed the rear bumper with little trouble, it was a fiberglass replacement so just a ring of nuts and bolts to contend with which were galv'ed so no problem it just seemed a little daunting with the front I was'nt sure wether or not I was wrecking the bumper by breaking the studs, you have put my mind at rest and I will have a go at it tonight, yes Paul thats me, it looks a little different now, I will try and attach a photo.
I will send you an email, some pictures of the front disasembled will help so I know what to expect.

OK I'll admit it don't know how to attach photos anyone help me on this one