73 Bumper Choices

[jeryst]

I hate the huge bumper guards on my 73 Challenger, and I want to do something about them. I'm sure many of you 73-74 Cuda and Challenger owners have gone through this, or at least thought about it, so I just wanted to know what works, what doesn't work, how much it costs, and what is the most popular. Thanks.

[72hemi]

My brother used an extra set of 72  bumpers and brackets that I had and installed them. This got rid of the large ugly guards and at the same time moved the bumpers closer to the body.

[360 'CUDA]

Keep the big bumper brackets and install fiberglass "rubber bumper" copies over them.  Safe and clean looking.
You have to screw around with the brackets but it looks pretty cool when your done

[4Cruizn]

Well really the only logical choice is the second one or what 360cuda has said.  If you fill the holes in the bumper, you'll still have the holes in the valance and that is gonna look like sh!t.  Either leave the big ones and deal with it or pick up some 72 brackets and bumper and make it look like my 73 below. 

[jeryst]

The holes in the valence don't bother me because the car needs body work, so the holes will get taken care of at that time, if need be.

Can anyone tell me which year brackets are interchangeable with which year bumpers? I know that the 73-74 bumpers and brackets are different from the other years, but I'd like to know if, for example, a 70 bumper will work with 72 brackets, or if a 72 bumper will work with 70 brackets, etc. I see a lot of bumpers and brackets going through ebay fairly cheaply, but I rarely see them together, so I'll probably have to buy them seperately,and I want to make sure I will get a combination that will work.

[MJS73]

You could just remove the bumper guards and put bumper bolts in the holes.  That's what I'm doing.

Mike

[72hemi]

The only difference between the 70-72 bumpers is the earlier bumpers do not have slots in them for the jack, because they had a hook that grabbed the underside of the bumper. So all of the brackets from 70-72 will interchange with the bumpers, the only ones that might be different are the factory elastomeric bumpers and brackets, not sure on that one.

[mickey]

I'm in process of doing same thing to my 73 chall, i have 72 bumper guards iam going to use.
What i have found out,  you have to stick with or use the same year bumper filler renforcement with the same year brackets.
You can customize other yrs to work with diff fillers & brackets and bumpers but you will be drilling holes and patching to make it work, a real pain in the butt.
I'am using my 73 brackets & bumper filler and bumper. I have to rechrome my bumper, the hole in bumper where the original guards were will have to be filled in and a new hole drilled for the 72 guard to fit.
The only problem, if you want to use the bracket that goes from the 72 guard that bolts to rear frame rails these bracket will be to short,but you don't really need them for it to work. The guard bolt will hold it in place.

[Challenger6pak]

70 through 72 front and rear brackets are the same.  73 &74 front brackets are the same.  74 rear bracket is different.  70 through 72 front bumpers are the same. 70 through 72 rear bumpers are the same.  73 and 74 front and rear bumpers are the same.  The top rear bumper bracket is 73 the bottom is 70-72.  The longer half front bracket is 73-74.  The shorter is 70-72.  The last pic is 74 rear.

[TreeFrog]

remove guards modify the bracket and push the bumber back justa tad...allows you to remove the bumper filler as well....