ohpoppy

how are the bumpers attached.. this car has the side holes filled but I can see where they used to be. I have all the mounts attached.. regarding those filled in holes, do the spacers go through them? or does the fiberglass get clamped between the bumper and the outer braces. logically it would seem the holes should be the size of the outside of the spacers so they slide through the holes, tighten it down and the fiberglass floats.. or is the fiberglass actually clamped in-between. and where do the 4 spacers go? if I had a C2 to look at!!!

can fiberglass handle the stress of being sandwiched between bolt and nuts? doesn't seem like it could

Nowhere Man

What spacers you referring too. There are only used on the lower inner brackets so you are not to crush the U channel of the bumper and bracket

ohpoppy

ok

I see

so the fiberglass is squished between the side bracket and bumper..

no rubber or anything against the glass

65hihp

Nothing against the glass. Squish.

ohpoppy

thanks for the help

DansYellow66

I have a suggestion on drilling out those side mount holes. Apply masking tape over the area where the side mount holes are required. I would first install your bumpers (minus those side mounts) and get them good and level protruding evenly past the nose. Get them aligned perfectly from a frontal view. I would lay a long straight edge or level across them to be sure they are aligned. Reference them to the underside of the upper nose and to the grill egg crate to make sure everything lines up. Then look at the wrap around ends and make sure it "appears" level and not angling down or up. I say "appears" because the ends taper and there's not much way to check them with a level. The end of the bumpers can be moved up and down a little by hand pressure to even them up. Have someone stand back and tell you when they look good. Then take a marker and through the hole in the bumper bracket, mark a circle where the bolt hole needs to go. The reason for this is that some of the ends slightly turn up or down visually. Then pull the bumpers and drill out the hole. The hole needs to be just a bit larger than the bumper bolt (say 1/8 inch or so). The body is sandwiched between the support bracket and the bumper bracket. It's a good idea to put a thin cushion under the bumper bracket to cushion and protect the paint. You can buy them or cut some out of 1/8 inch cork gasket material. Tighten the bolts just enough so that the bumper won't move around. Don't tighten them down hard.

ohpoppy

the original fiberglass is gray but whoever plugged the hole used white so it is clearly visible where the hole was when new. Do you feel that GM poorly located the hole sometimes?

if it is slightly off could it be adjusted enough raising or lowering the front by adjusting the center mounts?

Nowhere Man

the holes were a tad bigger then the bolt but not much. the outer holes really don't have that much adjustment. that is if your frame is not tweaked and brackets are true

roberts427

no need to go to tight on the bolts,go nice and easy otherwise you can crack the glass

DansYellow66

Maybe and maybe not - a lot of things happen to a car over 50 years. It doesn't hurt to take a little extra care to double check. And GM wasn't exactly known for getting everything aligned perfectly on these cars back then. If lucky it will fall where GM had them originally.

As far as adjusting - I'm not aware of GM ever shimming the lower bumper supports that attach to the engine cradle and they pretty much fix the bumper height in the center. But, to get everything lined up nice and straight there isn't anything to prevent you from inserting a shim or two under the bolts to the frame cradle to help with alignment. A shim at the rear bolt will raise the front of the bumper and a shim at the front bolt will lower it.

ohpoppy

I have not installed the drivetrain yet, its on blocks so it is complicated to properly view it from all angles but I will check the frame height on 4 corners to make sure its perfectly level then check them. and open the garage door to see the front view. if it looks off I'll wait till I get it running to drill the holes.

a big project.. 2 years now.. red factory FI car with matching #'s

thank you all