Magnum '82

Just ordered two tru-flex bumpers made by Toledo Fiberglass. NEITHER front or rear was wotrh a crap for fit :mad The front didn't fit the sharp curves in the center and the turn signals were a poor fit(wouldn't without a lot of work). The rear when lined up either at the deck or bottom edge left the body line off by a full half-inch!!!!! :mad :mad I guess I'll stick with the factory urethane. Just had to vent. Sorry

Dalannex

I thought about ordering some of these for my vette, but was worried that the fit wouldn't be good enough. Glad I didn't order them now. I suppose you could make them fit by "reworking" some of the fiberglass, but for what those things cost, they should fit.

1979toy

Venting is good, as long as you don't have a large hammer in your hand at the time! :smash:
Just don't get it all out of your system before you contact the vendor. You want a bit of that edge to transfer over the phone lines. :mad

Paul Borowski

Magnum '82, really the problem is'nt the TrueFlex bumpers, it's "your" car. Or, all of "our" cars. Corvettes seriously "VARIED" in bodywork from car to car as they were being assembled. That is the "bad" point. The "good" point is that when GM used these urethane bumpers, they were very forgiving-they were pliable, bendable, stretchable and really helped GM "mask" up alot of variances with the Corvette(C3)body. Now, here we are 20 some years later trying to attach non-pliable, non-bending, non-stretchable bumpers and it's by good luck you get one that fits with little or no trouble. These bumpers are all coming out of one mold(each model), so if one is bad, the next one and the next one and so on will most likely be identical. I put TrueFlex's on my '75 last Winter, and they are not perfect, but overall they fit "pretty good". The '80-'82 front wrap around bumper I thought might be hard to get a good fit as large as it is. One downside of getting a NOS GM one is that it too maybe 20+ years old and could possibly only last a few years before it too starts cracking and splitting. I dread the day I may have to put one on my '80!!! :smash:

Magnum '82

Paul, I understand what you are saying. BUT,,, Although I have never taken a plant tour, common sense tells me that GM uses jigs to glass up their panels, and doesn't just give Bubba and his relatives some resin and say "slap 'er on there." GM has tolerances of .002"-.003" on their body panels. And if you recall, the Vette was not the only car using urethane bumper covers. This is industry wide, but they're not used to cover sloppy tolerances, it's just their best answer for a cover on the 5 mph government mandated crash bumpers. The True-Flex (Toledo Fiberglass) bumpers I got had BIG problems. The rear one was off a full 1/2" on the body line!! The front one did not have the sharp corners near the center of the bumper like factory ones. These were rounded. That is just plain poor tooling work, as that is not a "variable" seam of the body. Also, the turn signal/cornering lights would not fit without severals hours of glass work. This also is a tooling issue as the signal frame is stamped steel. Now, I hope you better understand my frustration. :sad:


[Modified by Magnum '82, 1:36 AM 1/3/2002]

73 Teach's Pet

My experience is that Tru-Flex bumpers are extremely overated and the fit on my virgin bodied,unwrecked 73 sucked! If they are as good as they have been touted to be, I would hate to see how bad the competition is.
Lesson learned the hard way.
"TEACH"

01MY74CvGray

I just had my original 74 split urethane bumber replaced with a Toledo trueflex bumper. I took my car to a great body shop up here in Massachusetts and that did a wonderful job in fitting the bumper to the car. They told me that they had to perform a lot of modifications (cutting etc) to the bumper but it looks great. Good luck in fitting the bumper. :cheers:

fauxrs

I installed a regular fiberglass rear cover on my 78 that fit so near to perfect I was amazed. To get the fit to be perfect required a 1/16" glaze of filler on one side of the car.

American Sports car design no longer offers corvette parts so that source is no go anymore.

Paul Borowski

I understand they can get pretty bad trying to line them up and all. I was fortunate that the front and rear for my '75 came out very good, not perfect, but pretty nice seeing that I bought "seconds"(ones they could'nt sell to MidAmerica, Corvette Central,etc.) directly from Toledo Pro Fiberglass for $322(front and rear)shipping included.

So Magnum, did you send the bumpers back? Are the OEM GM ones still available for '80-'82s???

I know someone that just put on his car in the last year one of those supposedly brand new "GM Restoration Parts" urethane bumper and it too I was'nt impressed with!!! Anymore, I don't know which way is best!!! :confused:

zwede

I wish they were within 0.002"!!! I talked some with Gary Gruhala who worked at the assembly plant during the 60's and 70's. Some of the stories he has are hilarious (or scary depending on your viewpoint). As for the jigs, yes they had them. However, the guy responsible for the jig would usually sit around playing cards. Once the jig was off by about 3/8", it would be impossible to fit panels, and the assembly guy would yell at the jig guy to get off his butt and reset the jig. So 3/8" variance was perfectly normal. As far as doors, hoods etc, they kept a large number of them around and just trail fitted one after the other until they found one that fit. Often none fit, and it went to the basement where they had files, hammers etc and they made it fit, by whatever means they had.

So no, our cars are not the same. All of them vary.

BeachinVette

My front is an after market fiberglass . I am molding it in. It has a very sorry fit.

Bob

Magnum '82

Paul, I did return the bumpers. Just waiting for credit now. I called Ecklers and they have the original GM molds for the urethane bumpers, so I can always go that route if need be. Ecklers also makes a "flex" bumper. I have to call them back yet. The guy thought that they(Ecklers) made thier own bumpers and did not get them from Toledo Pro, but he wanted to confirm this for me first. At this rate it's going to be a spring time paint job :crazy:

Frank75

I had to change my rear bumper and used a urethane from early '76 that came with the car. No problem at all (after adjusting the mounting assembly/5 mph bumper stuff).

The front wasn't that good, so I put on a tru-flex so I wouldn't have to worry about it again after painting. Fit was not good: had to remove all the honeycomb stuff, adjust everything around and still have a fair amount of fairing to do. I ended up gluing it on with epoxy because of major gaps and will recut the joint after all fairing is finished. In my mind, once you get it finished, the truflex will be better, but if you have a quick installation, you're lucky.

Vettesic

Magnum82, I know how ya feel. I also returned Tru-Flex pieces of SH**. I didn't want to spend the $500.00 each for the GM urethanes either or buy 20 plus year old covers from some rip-off vette parts dude!!. I went with the Eckler's Flex Fit bumpers. Get this....the front fit nearly perfict on my 80 and the rear is only a little off at the top corners. It's good enough for me. Not sure if tha't ok for you?? Also, the quality of the part is there. If you need additional info, im/e-mail me. (PS When returning the Tru-Flex make sure you get reimbersed S&H for the defective fitting bumpers....Insist on it!! I did.)Good Luck, L8TER, Paul.

Paul Borowski

Good to hear Eckler's has good fitting bumpers for the '80-'82s. I will go that route when the time comes. Also, too I read a few years ago where they did buy the GM urethane molds to make their bumpers. I know their '74 two piece bumper is the most "correct" looking like an OEM '74 bumper. Will also get that off of them when I need it. :yesnod: