Hello all,
On assembly of the rear bumper cover after repaint I noticed that my tail lights hump over each opening. The cover is mounted straight flush with the rear deck lid and did not show the humps prior to screwing in the tail lamp retainer bezels, once they were tightened, the humps appeared.

Is this normal and have others experienced the same?
Are the tail light retainer rings on too tight?

Personally I think it looks really cool as the humps are uniform on all openings, kind has that molded in look. Please share your comments.
Thanks

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Bump...anyone...

 

Whats the wind load on that garage door?

 

Bill...If I remember you installed a fiberglass bumper cover. The tail light pods on the bumper cover must fit flush with the tail light brackets that are mounted on top of the reinforcement. If there are any gaps, you will distort the new bumper when you tighten the 3 bolts for each tail light retaining ring. It humps might look cool now, but once you start driving the car, the paint might crack in the stressed areas. The gaps were normal with the original urethane bumper cover, and it could flex into position when tightened with no adverse effects, but fiberglass doesn't flex. Even flex fiberglass shouldn't have any stress placed on it.

Unscrew all of the the tail light retaining rings but leave the cover attached to the body and see if you relieve some pressure and open up a gap between the tail light brackets and the bumper cover. If you have gaps you'll need to disassemble the bumper cover and relocate the tail light brackets on the reinforcement to match the new bumper and you may need to modify the brackets themselves to fit the tail light pods better. If this is the case, you can email me for the mounting info. The tail light brackets were designed to fit urethane bumper covers which are thinner than fiberglass. The factory tail light brackets usually don't fit over the fiberglass tail light pods very well. All interference with the new bumper must be eliminated for a good fit and long life. But it doesn't mean that you have to eliminate the inner structure (like a lot of people do) to achieve a good fit.

 

Did you install the gaskets,I don't have them but I've seen them in the vendors books

 

Actually I'm in south FL so after hurricane Andrew some time ago all of the building codes changed requiring hurricane level 4 or greater wind resistance, thus my garage door, I think it is rated for 170 mph or some such

 

Al,

Thanks for the info, the bumper cover is factory uerthane from a 76 car and is not glassed in it sits in the bukets fine. When I got the car, the bumper cover was only mounted at the tail light bezels, all of the surrounding body mounting strips were missing and it sat fine then with no humps. When I mounted it I did the reverse, fit the body strips first, then the bezels and noticed the humps.

With urethane will the slight stress/flex be an issue with the paint and should I still relieve a little pressure at the bezel rings?

Thanks and you can see the final results of the car here
http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k238/75coupered/

Thanks for all your help especially with the rear letters template

 

Which gaskets are you refering too? I have not seen any, I purchased a new body mounting kit stip but no gaskets with that, and the bezel rings are just sheet metal are there other gaskets required?

Thanks

 

I saw them in corvette america or one of them I thought maybe they were installed on the back side causing your humps I don't have them on my 75 either.By the way I'm in Louisiana Hurricane central thats why I noticed your door our building codes are changing alot

 

Yeah, those are some serious struts you've got there on the garage door. Hopefully, you won't need them.
Jud

 

I also hope I don't need those struts either,

I've losened the tailight bezels, opened each of the screw holes in the bumper cover so that they would not be distorted when re-tightening and I lossesend and played with the bumper to body support, all in all I managed to take out a little bit of the humps but not much they are still there.

The cover must have shrunk a bit all those years not mounted to the body but just the tail light brackets, there seems to be no way around the shrinkage to eliminate the humps, I've got them mounted and as smooth as I can, maybe with them mounted they will stretch back to normal .

I'll live with it, thanks for all of the tips,
Bill