Guess the next project is new hands. Break out the metal glue gun!
Hutch
BUILD THREAD Project Olds Cool (Recognition!!)
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Guess the next project is new hands. Break out the metal glue gun!
Hutch
Yes, it’s still possible Tony. This is a good condition bumper, but it’s original, i.e. 40 years old. It’s got a few bumps bruises and blemishes. Interesting thing is, some of the more minor imperfections can actually be removed during this process. (I’ve already done it on this bumper)
That question was asked by Supercharged already Jim, see my previous response to it, as well as Scoti’s reply below:
We just had all the chrome redone on the 65 442 that’s at my job. There’s a few pieces that get painted so I’ve been sanding them down and it sucks. I have about 4 hours in sanding the grill alone. The owner plans on driving the car, and a lot of it gets painted, so I’m sanding it and it sucks. I can really appreciate the amount of work that goes into brushing the chrome.
Ok guys, it’s the time many of you have been waiting for. The front bumper is finally done and on the car. I just hope it’s not anti-climactic by now.
As you’re about to see, it wasn’t quite as simple as slapping some paint on the filler panels and throwing them back on the car. A lot of work has gone into revamping many of the components on the whole front of the car.
I mentioned previously that I put the inner reinforcement on a weight reduction program, and I continued the thought process by looking for a couple more areas to remove weight. The reinforcement mounting studs were unnecessarily long, even with the consideration of being able to shim for better alignment. So out came the cutoff wheel. An old nut threaded on ahead of time killed 2 birds with one stone, it made the cut off lengths all equal, and it cleans the threads when it’s threaded back off:
Yes I realize I’m getting nit-picky here, but any weight removed is just that: weight removed. Especially off the nose of the car. I felt I could safely remove a little more from some of the heavily reinforced areas of the structure, so I punched 3 more holes in increasing sizes in the top of each side with the hole saw:
The next step was to bust the worst of the rust off the inner assembly, then coat the entire thing in a fresh coat of VHT Satin black Chassis and Roll bar paint. This is about as close as I get to “hacking it”, but it does look much better. Amazing what a simple coat of paint can do.
The same “rust busting” and painting process was next applied to the inside of the bumper. VHT Flat Aluminum was used here instead of black, but it turned out equally as nice. Better yet, it’s interrupted the corrosion process, and will provide protection.
Next, I reunited the two with new stainless steel carriage bolts, nyloc nuts, and speed nuts for the impact strip:
Finally time for the freshly painted front filler panel to go on. Starting to actually look like something!
I wanted to try and refresh the marker lights a bit too, but the faces are corrugated with a raised lip around the outsides, so there wasn’t much I could do with them.
The best I could do was polish up the faces of the lenses a bit by hand, this is as good as I could do for now:
After this picture was taken, I buffed off the rust residue from the mounting clips, and outlined the perimeters with a silver Sharpie to replicate the factory chrome outlines.
Speaking of the rusty trim clips, I also carefully wire-wheeled all 6 of them, along with the bumper shock mounting bolts. They got a couple of good coats of VHT as well.
Next was to actually install the bumper. This required removing the grilles so that the front painted filler didn’t get damaged. That’s how the primer got cracked on the filler panel in the first place: too heavy of a bumper, trying to put it on by myself, and the grilles in the way.
This was my first look at everything somewhat assembled for the first time. It was looking pretty good, and the two- tone break was spot on. Definitely worthwhile test fitting the bumper to get the break lines in the right places, even if it did crack the primer.
After a quick break for dinner, I next installed and aligned the side filler panels, installed the marker lights and reinstalled the grilles.
A lot of other work went on behind the scenes too, like removing the flexible radiator closeout panels, removing the white overspray from the previous repaint on them, and reinstalling them with new push clips. And also re-tie wrapping them to the bumper shock bodies like factory.
Curious as to just exactly how much weight I removed from the inner structure? Here’s a picture of the scrap, and of the digital fish scale I weighed it with:
Yep, almost 17 pounds worth! Definitely worth it in my opinion.
Alright, enough build up to the finished product. Pics for perusal, sorry but I couldn’t get any better pics because the car is so close to the front bench.
So there ya have it. No more unsightly large gaps on the front end, everything looks as it should. Like I said in the beginning tho, hopefully it’s just not anti-climactic for everybody at this point.
Rear bumper needs the similar procedure done to it next, but I think I’ll take a short break from it and address the rocker guard coating on the passenger rocker panel first.
Until then,
D.
As you’re about to see, it wasn’t quite as simple as slapping some paint on the filler panels and throwing them back on the car. A lot of work has gone into revamping many of the components on the whole front of the car.
I mentioned previously that I put the inner reinforcement on a weight reduction program, and I continued the thought process by looking for a couple more areas to remove weight. The reinforcement mounting studs were unnecessarily long, even with the consideration of being able to shim for better alignment. So out came the cutoff wheel. An old nut threaded on ahead of time killed 2 birds with one stone, it made the cut off lengths all equal, and it cleans the threads when it’s threaded back off:
Yes I realize I’m getting nit-picky here, but any weight removed is just that: weight removed. Especially off the nose of the car. I felt I could safely remove a little more from some of the heavily reinforced areas of the structure, so I punched 3 more holes in increasing sizes in the top of each side with the hole saw:
The next step was to bust the worst of the rust off the inner assembly, then coat the entire thing in a fresh coat of VHT Satin black Chassis and Roll bar paint. This is about as close as I get to “hacking it”, but it does look much better. Amazing what a simple coat of paint can do.
The same “rust busting” and painting process was next applied to the inside of the bumper. VHT Flat Aluminum was used here instead of black, but it turned out equally as nice. Better yet, it’s interrupted the corrosion process, and will provide protection.
Next, I reunited the two with new stainless steel carriage bolts, nyloc nuts, and speed nuts for the impact strip:
Finally time for the freshly painted front filler panel to go on. Starting to actually look like something!
I wanted to try and refresh the marker lights a bit too, but the faces are corrugated with a raised lip around the outsides, so there wasn’t much I could do with them.
The best I could do was polish up the faces of the lenses a bit by hand, this is as good as I could do for now:
After this picture was taken, I buffed off the rust residue from the mounting clips, and outlined the perimeters with a silver Sharpie to replicate the factory chrome outlines.
Speaking of the rusty trim clips, I also carefully wire-wheeled all 6 of them, along with the bumper shock mounting bolts. They got a couple of good coats of VHT as well.
Next was to actually install the bumper. This required removing the grilles so that the front painted filler didn’t get damaged. That’s how the primer got cracked on the filler panel in the first place: too heavy of a bumper, trying to put it on by myself, and the grilles in the way.
This was my first look at everything somewhat assembled for the first time. It was looking pretty good, and the two- tone break was spot on. Definitely worthwhile test fitting the bumper to get the break lines in the right places, even if it did crack the primer.
After a quick break for dinner, I next installed and aligned the side filler panels, installed the marker lights and reinstalled the grilles.
A lot of other work went on behind the scenes too, like removing the flexible radiator closeout panels, removing the white overspray from the previous repaint on them, and reinstalling them with new push clips. And also re-tie wrapping them to the bumper shock bodies like factory.
Curious as to just exactly how much weight I removed from the inner structure? Here’s a picture of the scrap, and of the digital fish scale I weighed it with:
Yep, almost 17 pounds worth! Definitely worth it in my opinion.
Alright, enough build up to the finished product. Pics for perusal, sorry but I couldn’t get any better pics because the car is so close to the front bench.
So there ya have it. No more unsightly large gaps on the front end, everything looks as it should. Like I said in the beginning tho, hopefully it’s just not anti-climactic for everybody at this point.
Rear bumper needs the similar procedure done to it next, but I think I’ll take a short break from it and address the rocker guard coating on the passenger rocker panel first.
Until then,
D.
Absolutely gorgeous, I love this look. Awesome work as always man!
Bout dang time ya got this painted and installed! For real though D, it looks stellar, and it doesn't look like a Regal anymore with missing bumper fillers lol!
Beautiful work as always Donovan. I love the attention to detail.
That is the nicest front end I have ever seen on those years of Cutlass. Worth the wait. You are obviously a fan of VHT paint, I like it as well.
I'm glad I'm not the only fan of VHT!
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