The bumpers on my 73 are terribly rusty. Like to get some opinions on painting or re-chroming, or looking for some more. Steve
what direction are you wanting to go with it? I'm sure you'll get plenty of opinions, but what do you want? its your car, and your paying the bill, so do what ultimately makes you happy,... not what 50 other people tell you to do. you have several options as you know, painting, rechroming, or looking for replacement parts. do whats in your budget and what your interested in having your car look like.
Depending on how bad the rust is and what you can afford, I would get then rechromed or look for some used ones in good shape.
I had a set of rusty '73 bumpers off of a parts car I obtained for my bumper swap. I don't feel that the quality was/is real high, but I swapped them at Bumper Boyz out of California for somewhere around $170 on swap. The rear flaked, I sent it back, they sent me a pretzel courtesy of UPS. I sent it back and rec'd a straight one. I have seen much better chrome work, but not at that price. I am satisfied but not tickled. Do a Google on them and check their show schedule. If you talk with them in advance, they can bring the bumpers to a show near you. That's what I did and didn't have to pay shipping. Seth Oh, that price was for both bumpers.
Bumper boyz aren't that cheap. They have Mav bumpers for $165 each if you have a good core to swap. $190 without a core. The back bumper on my Grabber is a Bumper Boyz bumper ... I haven't had any issues with it ... but it never see's bad weather. I am picking up a front and rear 71/72 bumper for my 74 bumper swap this weekend from Bumper Boyz at the Moultrie, GA swap meet.
MY experience with them was not good either. Since then I've used TriCity Plating. I'm very satisfied with their service and price.
When I talked to the woman at BB on the phone she made it sound like they don't even do the plating themselves. I had asked if they would be ready for Moultrie and she said it depends on how they look when they come back from the Chromer. She said if they find any problems they send them back to get chromed again and that would delay the delivery ...
I don't know how important it is to you to have an exact replacement for your bumper, but I'll pass this on anyway (be warned; it sounds weird). I was told by a guy that the bumper off of the late '70 Chevrolet Monza was nearly identical in size and shape to tha big bumper Mav. I'm almost certain it was the '73 as opposed to the '74-'77 bumper that he mentionned. He insisted that the Monza bumper was a good fit and near match visually. If "identical" isn't important to you, it might interes you to know that these were polished aluminum bumpers, and so it would be lighter that the Mav bumper, and rust and plating would never be an issue. I include a pic of one of these Monzas for your consideration. (By the way, I can't confirm any of the above, and am just passing on a third party opinion. Good luck. John B.
Gotta be for one ... I bought mine at the exact same place in either 2001 or 2002 ... What a coincidence! Did you happen to see a guy with a 2 year old on his shoulders pushing a stroller around with a Maverick bumper in it? I remember it was raining ...
