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Monday, December 3, 2012

Resto: Matching Bumpers Fitted

Gidday,

A good few months back I stumbled across on ebay a matching set of 1928 front and rear bumpers, well I was the only bidder in the end and got them for a great price and with them being matching that was a rare bonus but the down side was that they were located over in South Australia, so after a couple of calls I manage to contact a interstate truck operator that I do signs for and he just happened to be passing through the town of "Mount Baker" in a couple of days time and would gladly stop out on the highway in his B-Double, meet the seller, collect the bumpers and bring them back home... it all went as smooth as clockwork.

When I got them back to the resto shed and unwrapped them, the bumpers looked great, covered in just enough surface rust to suit Monty but when I held up the brackets to the car they were all "ass about" for some reason, maybe not from a 1928 Chevrolet after all as the seller had advertised them as being, hmmm not to worry, we can correct and fix the problem and also back in the 1920's & 30's there were about 15 companies making different "after market" bumpers for various car manufacturers from what I have been told.

Anyway with a few quick soakings and sprays of "rustbuster" over the weeks ahead as they sat in the shed and then a good hit with the wire brush, the end result was just what I was looking for, steel bumpers with "patina" now I just have to fit them up.

With the roadworthy and rego out of the way, Ray Dean and myself started to plan another day on the tools which were becoming few and far between now that I am driving Monty more instead of fixing it, so we pencilled in last Sunday and like always, Ray arrived bang on the money from his trip out of Melbourne and this time he showed up in his lovely "Red Chev".

We quickly had the 2 x front bumper brackets mounted and went to work asap with the oxy torch to get a lot of heat into the old thick "spring steel" which then had to be bent and re-shaped into place, but nothing that a couple a dodgy blacksmiths couldn't handle and when we held up the front bumper it fitted perfectly.

The rear brackets were much the same and it all came together very easily and the end result of our 5 hours work looked great as the photos below show...












Thanks once again Ray, its always a good day with many laughs and bullshit while working on the cars..


1 comment:

  1. Hi there Grant,
    its nice to see that you are still enjoying "fitting out the boat", as they say, lots of enjoyment in finding a treasure and installing...
    Now all that remains is the hood and bows, like rays car.
    You could, when Ray's not looking, whip his off and see how it fits on your car, then you would be sure of a good fit?
    Even leave it on for a couple of years, he might not notice untill it rains?
    Great blog as usual..

    blueyau

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