I am restoring my '74 and was wondering if anyone has successfully repaired/smoothed out the bummper pads. The rear is ok but the front one has several small dips in it. I am not ready to spend $500 plus on aftermarket ones and wondered if these pads could be smoothed out with fiberglass or something else. I planned to paint them with rubberized paint. Wondering what I could use for this that would stick.

Was thinking of mounting them to the bumper to ensure they were as rigid as possible, rough sand the few areas with 80 grit or so, use fiberglass reinforced resin to fill in the spot, sand/primer/paint.

Has anyone tried this?

It has been done with varying success. the problem is the rust on the internal structure. the foam traps water so if it gets wet it can hold it against the metal and it warps as it rusts.

Just drive it, you can play with it but your solution will not be permanent.

As said above, it's actually the mild steel bits inside the pad which are rusting & causing the dimpling, & that will continue even after what you propose doing, possibly cracking off your new work as it continues to expand/shrink inside.

IMHO you'd spend as much or more for materials & your time (figure your work pay rate per hour) to do what you propose, as to get new repro pads from Mikey/914Rubber or AA.

Either live with them & clean them up "as is" until you can afford the new ones (maybe start a fund with what you'd pay on materials for your proposal & add to the piggy bank over time (McD's coffee instead of Starbucks/etc. for a month into the kitty, etc.).

You can use Wurth or similar rubber treatment (they're actually made from black urethane foam IIRC - not real rubber), or Bumper Black etc. treatments at the FLAPS, or even black shoe polish as the old time Concours guys did - to get them looking black again.

Alternatively, look for a better used one FS on here, CL, evil-bay, etc., or get one of the fiberglass ones temporarily/permanently.

But I wouldn't waste time & $s putting a band-aid on a huge wound!

Good Luck!
Tom
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It depends on how far the rubber is gone.

I sanded mine with 80G sand paper, then 120G and finally 220G.

They turned out very nice with a bit of armor all!

Yes you can take the old surface down and maybe even use a vinyl dye to color it, but the waves I'd just leave alone.

Who knows Christmas is coming up, and we will be having a black Friday sale.

thanks for the reply's. They don't look that bad and cleaning them up is probably best use of my time until I replace them, if I do. Was just wondering if folks had any luck with say fiberglass sticking as based on my experience, this is iffy....

3m makes a 2 part plastic repiar that we use to repair bumpers with. This is what i used on mine worked excellent to fill the dips in mine and it stays flexible. Mine have only been done for abou 8 months but still look very nice. Mine was hit in front end so was pretty bent up. Hope this helps.