Restoring a 1970 and wrestling with my bumper dilemma. Have a set of front and rear that are stripped and now very lightly primed to prevent rust. Ideally, my goal is painted black bumpers but restoration costs coming close to $1k each. Can buy new stainless for that cost! They both need some reshaping, a bit of rust mitigation and a bit of welding where the old bumper teeet holes exist. I'm only seeing new chrome bumpers out there, nothing in raw metal. Now what???

You might want to get a current price on SS bumpers, they are now in the $2k range.

Welcome to the club. Did you expect a quality item to be cheap? You might want to try Rich at High Performance House in Redwood City, CA.

AA offering ss bumper packages with toppers, light grills for around $2500. So bumpers around $ 1000 each which what I was noting in the price.

Was wondering what’s common for folks out there facing the bumper restoration- have a bumper shop do all the straightening, metallurgy and then paint oneself? Seams like a good route and enjoyable to do some parts of the process on self
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How bad are your bumpers? If you are going to paint, they are just metal. If you can not do body work, take them to a body shop and have them straightened and painted. With paint you can use a little filler, whole lot less work then if you are going to chrome them.

I had one bumper rechromed lately. A good chrome job is about 1k, including some straightening.
My bumpers were chromed someday in the past by the PO in the US. Chrome was peeling in some areas, grinding marks still visible. Bad (cheap?) work.

I checked this 914 with stainless steel bumpers which is for sale in my area.
Note that the "shine" of stainless is different to chrome. More on the "dark" side. Fit seems to be correct, though.

An option, nevertheless.

if you could work on the bumpers yourself you would be fine.
hours of work.
can see the 1K number on it.
but black painted bumpers are within the capability of the garage restorer.
except............for the art of how to achieve the mysterious subtle orange peel finish.
i would say a certain amount of german beer is involved, but just the right amount.
and some kind of black paint that isn't quite shultz....but is shultz?

A little bit of time with a hammer and dolly, to take out the dents and some filler to smooth everything out.

Used SEM trim paint. they are not perfect, but with the black you really can't see the flaws.

Just don't point them out to everyone....

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Do NOT buy from Harrison Group. They sent me garbage and are a nightmare to deal with. Going through this right now. Buy from Oscar or Auto Atlanta.

I would have a body shop repair them and repaint the cars color as the non appearance group from 1970 had them. Cannot believe that a body shop would charge you more than 450 to body work and paint both of them Of course the 70 never had bumper guard holes. Used non chrome bumpers are readily available for 450 each out there

Check with Oscar, he may have some leftovers. I know my bumper weren't good enough to fix for chrome, but they might be good enough for painted bumper cores.

Thanks for all the good advice. Found an old school bumper guy, fabricator of rare parts in Santa Rosa who thinks he can help me out. Plan for him to to the heavy and light hitting of the bumper and I'll finish with the prep and paint.

Valances need love too. Luckily the bumpers in better shape.


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