My eBay purchased 74

[Jamiez]

Week 15: Bumper Guards

I managed to get a set of both front and rear bumper guards for a 73 from fellow member DMZ73 and decided to install them.  I know the later year guards are not popular due to the large vinyl pads.  I think they look better than just having the holes in the bumper.   



Maybe some day I'll remove the pads, fill the holes, grind them smooth and get them chromed. I was experimenting on the look for the passenger rears, but I ended up putting the pad back on.

I also tried a few different horn relays in an attempt to get the buzzer working.  No luck. I'm not sure why neither the seat belt, door open, lights on, key in the ignition conditions trigger the buzzer.  I guess it's time to check out the wiring.

[Super Blue 72]

I dunno, like you mentioned some people son't like the bumperettes but they are nice to help protect the bumper if you drive your car regularly... they don't look bad IMO.  If my car had them on I would leave them for an extra measure of protection. 

[brads70]

I think it looks nicer without the bumperettes. But that's just my 2 cents. Do what YOU think looks best . 

I wonder if a 70-71 bumper would fit to get rid of the holes? That way you would always have the original set up to put back on ?

[joelson6]

i like it without the bumperettes too


unfortunately you cant just install 70-72 bumpers. the bumpers are completely different from
the 73-74 bumpers. the holes in the 70-72 bumper won't line up with the 73-74 brackets.
that's a whole can of worms there.

[wally426ci]

 would just put extra bumper bolts in to fill the holes.... 

[Jamiez]

The main problem is the holes in the valance. The valance is painted the same custom color as the rest of the car, so just filling the holes and repainted the panel isn't that straight forward.  And on the 74/73 the valance is filled by the vinyl piece that doesn't match up without the cover.  You can see it on the passenger side. I'll try and get close up pictures to show it more clearly.

The fronts are easier to remove and fill, but I didn't want them to be mismatched

[Jamiez]

Here's a more detailed picture of the guard, with the parts marked.

As you can see if you remove the guard (circled in red) then the other two pieces do not line up well.  You can see this in the previous picture as well, if you look at the middle picture in the second row, you can see the exposed bolt and end of the vinyl cap.
For now I am leaving them on with the guards, as I like the look better than not having them.  I'm still looking to purchase a second set and I'll attempt to fill the holes/fabricate a filler, clean it all up and get them chromed. That should be a good winter project.

Oh I have a set of 70-71 rear guards and they are not even close to the right size.  The contour of the bumper is completely different.  The only way to use them is to go through getting a set of 70-71 bumpers and modifying the brackets to mount them.

[Jamiez]

Week 16:
The last piece of the radio wiring finally arrived from dutch (no idea why the shipper took so long), so Thursday I did a quick test of the new harness and everything worked! 

I woke up early on Saturday trying to beat the heat and get the harness in place.  During the process I pulled the glove box to place the crossover unit and discovered why the buzzer wasn't working....it was unplugged.  Well now I have a spare horn relay (and a working buzzer).

Installing the harness wasn't much of a problem until I needed to run the wires to the trunk.  I couldn't figure out how to remove the rear trim panel (any tips on this?) so I ended up having to fish the speaker harness through. It took a lot longer than I planned but I managed to get it done. Along the way I removed the original mono fader harness and the old single rear speaker harness.  I think I now have a complete collection of the E body radio harnesses.
On Sunday I decided to install the refubished dimmer from JS Restorations.  My old dimmer worked from 0 to around 50% and then above that the lights cut off until the click for the dome light.  This made driving at night a bit on the unsafe side as the gauges were a bit difficult to read.  The instructions I got from Jim (aka Slotts) were pretty easy to follow.  I had never removed the switches/light bar before but the whole process only took about an hour.  Now the dimmer works exactly as intended and you can see it does make quite a difference (the camera made the photos a lot darker than they actually are):

[joelson6]

i've taken apart dimmer rheostats and cleaned them. it's amazing how much better they work. even with just cleaning the contacts with some 220 sandpaper. usually i'll sandblast the contacts using very low pressure with fine glass beads.


looking at your bumpers again. i'm not sure if the 70-20 style bumperetts would bolt to your bumpers and cover the old holes.
the early style don't wrap around the top of the bumper.


when i switched on my '74 challenger.

1 - had to get the early style bumper
2 - had to get early style bumper brackets
3 - had to get the early style bumper filler - yes, there is a filler piece that gets screwed to the body.

the lower valence is the same, but on the 73-74 cars, there is a license plate bracket that is spot welded on the valence.
this is so the plate isn't hiding under the bumper. i just removed it off my valence and the plate hides everything.

you then need to remove the rubber filler pieces, and then you don't know what's underneath, (unless you already looked)
cause now that's all exposed. then there will be 2 holes in the QP pocket where the corner pieces were.

i'd probably just leave the late style on with the custom paint you have. i did mine cause the car was all taken apart when i got it.

[Jamiez]

The early style definitely do not work with the 73/74 bumper.  It addition to needing new brackets, the contour of the bumper/hole alignment is different

Here is how they would mount (roughly) if you lined up the hole in the guard with the hole in the bumper (note the gap at the top)


And if you were to mount them so they sort of fit the bumper, the hole would not be covered.


Not to mention you'd need to fabricate/modify a set of brackets as the earlier brackets are too short. 

I've read about the swap to earlier bumpers and I considered it, but for now I've ruled it out.  I'm going to try and modify the later year bumperettes in the winter.  That will give me something to do when I can't drive the car

[Jamiez]

Look at what I found under the driver seat  



 
It's in bad shape and I'll get it scanned for better clarity.  The end of the VIN is missing, but I assume since the Vehicle Order number matches my fender tag the sheet is for my car?

[joelson6]

a shame it only about 1/2 the sheet. but 1/2 is better than nothing 

[Jamiez]

After some flattening and scanning:



Now I have something to decode during lunch!

[GranCuda1970]

Them mice were hungry!!

[Jamiez]

Less time than I would like working on the car the last week...mostly due to work.  After finding the remains of the broadcast sheet, I took apart the rear seat hoping to find a better copy. No luck but once I removed the seats I did some cleaning...probably the first time anyone ever cleaned under the seats.  The floor pan is still rock solid though.  Looking at the edges I might replace the carpet next year, I'm pretty sure it was done once before.

I also fixed the dash reverse light.  It turned out to be a grounding issue.  I ended up cleaning the everything and now that it has a good solid connection to ground the light is working as it should.

Finally I took the plunge and decided to take a shot at adjusting the front door glass. Fortunately there was a lot of help available here on how to remove the panel and how to do the adjustments.  In my case lowering the rear upper stop brought the window back in line.  I might do a little fine tuning but I got rid of the gap.  Unfortunately it's difficult to get a good picture of it.

Before:

After: