Just finished test fitting my front and rear true-flex bumpers (3 hours on the rear and 8 hours on the front filling and sanding). As I get ready for paint I was wondering if was it was better to paint them off or on the car. BC/CC black so I’m not too worried about color shift/match. I‘ve seen it done both ways.

 

off

 

OFF

 

Thanks onaqwst and Big2Bird... any concerns of gaps changing with the added thickness... Not worried about the rear, I'm thinking of the front bumper on my '80 as it has to fit in the curves of the nose.

 

off
the paint buoilds up in the gap if you leave it on and will crack later

 

Hate to disagree with everyone else but I would paint with the bumpers in place but not tightned to the body. Put all your bolts in place but leave them very loose and from the back side slip in some sort of spacers to hold the gaps open. Put a spacer every foot or so and put them in only far enough to hold the gaps open, not all the way through. I use some strips of cardboard about 1/8" thick cut about 1/2" wide. Next snug up the bolts a little to hold the bumper in place. This should allow you to get paint coverage around the edges and still not fill the gaps with paint (one thing that really makes a cheap looking paint job, that and paint on trim).

What this does is cuts out all the handling of your freshly painted bumpers. Once the paint is dry all you'll need to do is pull the spacers and tighen the bolts. Also, I and see your painting a solid color but if it was a metalic you have all the parts in the same directions and your paint will flow from body to bumper elimating possible differences in metalic particle set up causing color shifts.

Hope this helps, Steve

 

Steve, Thats a soild idea, but there is a problem with that. When it comes time to sand and buff the paint, you to worry about burning an edge.

 

No there's no problem. I've done it many times. I tighten up the seems before color sanding and buffing and then basicly treat it like any other flat body panel except I'll go a little easier on it. You don't have to worry much about burning because there's no edge to fall off of.

Edges with no protection are the easy areas to burn, but if you use your buffer correctly and let the rotation spin off the edge as apposed to onto it then burning edges is taken care of anyway. The only other important thing to remember is take the weight off the buffer as it comes off the panel and has less and less support of the panel. I can't remember the last time I burned an edge using these methods. It's been years.

Oh and by the way this is not an just a solid idea....this works.

Steve

 

I replaced the urethane bumpers when I painted my '80 and painted the car 3 years ago with the new bumpers on - BONDED on with no seams, front or rear. I spent a LOT more than 11 hours, but it was worth it.

 

9 out of 10 **** retentives agree.


me i've always painted them on.

 

I you're not going to go seamless, then definitely OFF. I've seen several C3s that were painted with the bumpers on. The paint had filled in the seams and then cracked. The crack was more obvious than a so-so fit.

 

Great looking ride, MN80Vette. Seamless is a nice look, just not sure I want to get in to the custom look. But after looking at yours, you have me thinking...

 

If you paint them off the car you will get much better paint coverage and finish underneath the bumper covers and you can paint them at a comfortable working height which is important since there is a lot of underside area details like the tail light pods, license pocket, grille openings, etc.

As long as you fit the front cover well to the body curves across the front, and you have tested the fit of the retainers into the body, the paint film thickness won't be an issue when you mount it. Only you can judge the fit though, since we can't see it.

When I paint these bumper covers, I hang them and support them to keep them from swinging.

One trick on the front bumper cover and you'll see this problem occasionally at shows. The bumper cover mounting flange across the top must be parallel (vertically) to the body mount area (no gap when viewed from underneath). The fit depends on how good your mold came out from ACI or Toledo-Pro. If there is a gap between the 2 surfaces, you will end up with a crease along the top of the cover just forward of the bumper cover mounting edge when you tighten it down. The crease is caused by pulling the bumper cover into the body as you snug the nuts. As you close the gap between the body and bumper (you can't see this gap from the outside) the top surface of the cover distorts about 1" forward of the edge. It may not happen for a month or until it sits out in the sun, but it can be disapointing. Adding filler to the back edge of the cover to match the body shape, solves the problem. Best to check this out before it's too late.

 

Hard to argue with the look of seemless fiberglass. That does look fantastic.

Steve

 

I did the same thing when I painted mine. This was because I was afraid of damaging the new paint, especially on the front bumper that fit extra tight during pre assembly & test fit prior to paint.