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no bumpers

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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Rubber bumpers on my 76 add a goodly amount of weight. Are bumpers really necessary, if the car is rarely on the street? Anyone ever just pull the rubber bumpers off? Is there a "looks nice" bolt on cover panel available to replace the front bumper - something like racers use? Less weight would also give me a bit more zip.

Thanks.
Tom
 
The original chrome bumpers really offer little if any crash protection. The rubber bumpers improved this situation somewhat.
I have fiberglass versions of the rubber bumpers and a modified conversion which allows you to add a chrome style grill.
see them at :
https://www.morspeedperformance.com
 
Tom R - what's the approximate weight difference between your bolt-on units and the stock rubber bumpers? (about how many pounds will I *not* be carrying around?)

Thanks.
Tom
 
Bumpers protect the bodywork in small collisions but in larger ones offer very little. If you have overriders on the bumpers they can cause body damage in the slightest collision. My roadster has full bumpers and overriders but my future GT will receive the full sebring treatment, ending up something like this:

30mgc4_jpg.jpg
 
Tom, the fiberglass bumpers are around 10 pounds each versus approx. 50 pounds each for stock rubber bumpers. I have a set of "demonstrator" bumpers with the fiberglass skins and they weigh in at 40 pounds each. These demos still have the big reinforcing steel bar in them which can be eliminated by fabing some simple brackets to mount the fiberglass bumpers.
The modified bumpers on my site are bolted to the body and have no interior reinforcement. The front bolts on where the valance mounts and the rear is bolted or rivited thru the rear trunk wall. Using the modified front you also cut off the mounting horns for the bumpers which further cuts weight as well as eliminating the steel front valance
 
Hey, that's what I'm gonna do! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Actually I was planning a MGC Sebring replica but ended up going with a B and V6 conversion. So difficult to find a good C project car these days and I don't want to cut up a nice example.
 
There are two options. First is to buy complete fiberglass fenders and replace the steel ones with them. This is a lot more work than it sounds like because they will not simply bolt on. THere is a lot of cutting, drilling and fitting to be done. However it does guarantee everything will line up properly when finished.

The other option (which I will do) is to buy fiberglass flares and install them on the steel fenders. This requires cutting a few inches from the fenders along the arc of the wheel arch. The flares are then attached with a chemical glue and rivots. Once bondo has been applied and smoothed, simply paint the fender. From what I understand the only critical part is cutting the proper amount of metal away from the fenders. Some people have fabricated steel wheel well liners to protect the underside of the fiberglass flares but this is a significant amount of work. I plan to look into it but not sure I will go that far.
 
Hey Tom R,
In that picture of the Modified front bumper w/ incorperated spoiler, you have the bumper already installed on a car in the background. What kind of head lights are those? and how much work was involved in doing that conversion? and finally... is there a kit for it? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Yep, as Adam says, those a mini lights and that car was a one off by the guy who made all the molds I am using. No kit available and Tony B's conversion looks like lots of work.
The flares I sell are the glue on ones as Steve described above. The designer came up with these after a very frustrating experience with the British made Sebring flares which are much larger and more difficult to fit. You use an adhesive such as 3M 8115 which is easily sandable. All the ricer boys use this to tag on all those dinosaur looking pieces they like adding.
The inner fenders will need to be widened for the rear flares which I have done while the car was on a rotator which made the job much easier. I never could weld overhead.
An easier approach might be to get a trailer fender and cut it in half and use Fusor bonding to hold it in place while overlapping where the original inner fender has been cut off. Next time I do flares I am going to try this.
 
Instead of cutting and shaping sheetmetal couldn't you just spray the underside with a few coats of spray on truck bed liner? It would also give them a nice black look instead of having metal show underneath. Either way, it looks like I am out of luck as I can not find knockoff wheels that would even come close to filling out those fenders.
 
When you add flares the inner fender needs to be widened out to match the width of the flares otherwise the larger wheels/tires will interfere with the stock position of the inner wheel well's outer wall. I accomplished this in the past by sectioning the entire OD of the well and welding in a strip which pushed the wall out to meet the newly widened flare.
 
Wow I think the flares are a little over my head right now. I'm curious though, where can you get 8" knockoff wheels? The only ones I have found are the ones at mossmotors.com
 
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