The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop straightening (recurving) a stock bumper?

Has anyone had luck with straightening (recurving) a stock front bumper?

It's for a 1953 3600 on a 1978 Suburban chassis.

A powered arbor press would be ideal but I don't think I know anyone that has one. Best to heat or just pressure it? Thanks in advance.

Not sure about stovebolts, but some early vehicles had spring steel bumpers that had to be compressed at the ends to be attached to the frame brackets. A fixture about twice the width of the vehicle with jackscrews would be used to hold the bumper into a curved configuration while it was bolted to the frame brackets.
Jerry

Thanks Jerry, not what I was hoping to hear. But I was prepared for it. It seems the front bumper I have is probably of the spring steel variety. It has too much curve in at least one spot, and not enough in another. I laid it on my shop floor on edge and traced the profile line at the bottom edge. I marked center of bumper on floor then flipped it end for end. Quite a bit of difference. Thought I'd start by straightening the gravel pan then trying to make the bumper match the profile of the pan. Then heat and alter the bumper brackets to match those. It will either work or it won't!

Original AD bumpers are spring steel. But they don't have to be compressed like Jerry described. They could be straightened, but it would take a big press to do it correctly. You would have to over-straighten quite a bit for it to spring back to the correct curvature. If you heat it, it will lose it's springiness, which may or may not be good (it'll be easier to bend, and provide less protection in a bumper tap.) If there's a plating shop near you, they're probably set up to do that kind of straightening. but it would be $$.

The bumper brackets are also spring steel, so the same would apply to them.

Thanks Kevin, good info. I thought the bumper was probably spring steel, I clamped one end on my bench vice and got a pretty good pull on it, it just laughed at me!

Yeah, they'll do that.
I know that repop bumpers can be bent pretty easily. Been there - done that as they say.

S & H Chrome Plating in Madison, TN will do it for you

615-865-0100

Thanks for the reply and info.

Those guys have been around about 3 days past forever- - - -or at least since the mid-1950s when every body shop in Nashville got their straightened/rechromed bumpers from them!
Jerry

To everyone that replied, thanks! I got the problem solved yesterday, found a willing accomplice with an arbor press. I now have a usable item.

Do you know what size arbor press it was? Curious as to the required size in case I need to fix mine.

I asked, he couldn't remember. Said he thought it was 50 ton. It was the base line type, not air over hydraulic. Just a bottle jack in a frame. Had a couple of home made pieces of tooling to control the flattening effect.

I’m quite sure a 20 ton even a 12 ton from HF would do the job. Worse case scenario, it isn’t big enough and you’ll have to find a bigger one.

The press we used is a 20 Ton. Also attached picture of my bumper tweaking tools. Short piece of RR Rail, Solid Round bar and a tool I made one night from whatever scrap was laying under the welding table to put the curve back in when it's tweaked or flattened out.
~Mongo

Yeah, what he said!