That is a “repop” bumper I’m holding it against in the picture Ken. Maybe I should check it’s fit against the original to see if it matches that. I can shim the space between the bumper and mounting bracket, but the thing that really bugs me and I can’t so anything about is the mismatch of the profile radius. And I would hate to really bump anything with these bumper guards, They might look purty, shiny chrome and all, but I don’t think they would guard against anything very well.
Bill and Jim, It just doesn’t seem to register with the vendors; I think the market is just too lucrative now days. If you don’t buy from them, there’s always another guy waiting to take your spot. Business in America just isn’t hungry enough to care about quality now days. Maybe when all of the manufacturing and sales has moved off shore then they will pull their heads out of their %*$# and wake up to the fact that their goal should be to service the customer. As long as we have to keep absorbing the shipping and handling costs it just isn’t worth sending this crap back to them. This mail order society that we live in makes it easy to get screwed, in the old days when you walked up to the parts counter and put your hands on the item before you paid for it, it was a lot harder to dupe the customer. Then we have that situation where most of the buying public is willing to accept what ever is thrown to them so if you are one of those that expects quality reproductions you’re in the minority.
Gee Woo, I wish I would known that it was a “known issue” I don’t recall reading any reports on reproduction bumper guards over the past few years. I do recall reading about bad chrome jobs on bumpers but you have to factor in how may of those were left out in the weather and not kept cleaned and waxed. Even back in the day a vehicle that was left out and not taken care of got rusty in a few years.
Actually those repro bumpers that I got a couple of years ago from the same vendor are quite good, except for, and there’s always an except for, the edge treatment before they plated them. The edges of the original bumpers were rounded over; the reproduction bumper had sharp edges left un-champhered, not the best shape for electroplating to adhere to long term. Now clearly, here is a case where all the manufacturer would have had to do to make an accurate reproduction was to spend 5minutes with a Dynabrade Dynafile on the edges before plating and he would have had it perfect. I mean, like charge an extra ten bucks and put the finishing touch on it to make it an exact copy. And the repro bumper brackets had the same issue, before they were formed if they would have rounded the edges like the original brackets they would have had a part that you couldn't have distingusted from the original. These I ended up spending a few minutes rounding over with a file my self before painting them, but I couldn't get all of it where they were riveted together. There's that "except for" again!
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
Last edited by Denny Graham; 01/23/2010 5:12 PM.
