JGreen

I am almost done putting my 75 back together. I bought it in the middle of a frame off, and we are finally at the point to put the front bumper and supports on. The problem is that the impact bar, and outer bumper brace are too far forward to all the bumper reinforcements to be installed. Without these, the nose of my car will just hang in the breeze. Anyone else have this proble, and what can I do to fix it?

One more question...is there any support in the center of the nose?

Big Fish

Do you have the body back on yet? By the looks of the photo everything is assembled correctly, but you need to have those side braces off to set the body. The forward ends of those braces sandwich the fender reinforcements between the bumper. Once the body is on that will tell you what needs to be shimmed for fit. I have some extra factory shim plates that are used in the big triangle shaped area where the nose bolts up, would sell them cheap, let me know if you need them? :smash:

75Rag

Do you have the threaded bar that goes from the hole in the lower portion of the rad support up into the nose framework?

JGreen

Threaded bar? That could answer a lot of questions. Where does it go, from the center of the radiator support to the center of the nose? I do not have anything like that...yet.

As far as shimming goes. I can not shim the center piece out because te outer supports in their shortest position line up perfect with the nose. The problem is that the bumper reinforcements are way off. We are about 3/4 off.

Big Fish

That support rod is shaped like an "L". I'm not clear on how you are off. The bumper reinforcements (the 2 short ones on the bottom?) stick out too far? These things are a pain to get set up just right, lots of variables. The main support with the vacuum tank moves around for alignment as well. Sometimes the bumpers are not bent at the perfect angle and need a little gentle persuasion. A picture might help? :cheers:

JGreen

I do not have any pictures, but I may be able to take some this weekend. I found a support rod in my box of this morning with the threads snapped off. I guess I will need to get another one. The only other thing we are trying is to slide the bocy forward a little more. The bumper cover lines up perfect, and the lower valence lines up too. It just confes us becasue it seems as though the frame is too long. If anyone has pictures of how teh front end (without a bumper cover) is supposed to look, I would like to see them.

NHvette

The front header bar support rod is cheap - $12.
You caught me about 2 weeks too late. I had to mess around with all that when
gluing the front fenders back on. You need to loosen all the bolts in all the
supports - including radiator support - and move things around a bit until it
lines up OK. Unfortunately, I did not take pictures at that point.

Now, I'm down to bare frame - so maybe in a couple weeks I will be back at
that point. It's frustarting to get lined up - but keep trying. There should be a
fair amount of independent play with the frame extension and the side
bumper supports to take up your slack. Shims were used - so don't rule that out. 3/4" is a bit extreme for shimming.

My nose is a 75 - and there WAS some kind of rubber bushing that helped
hold the front of the nose off of the bumper bar. It also helped to retain
water - and rotted away. I decided on a fiberglass bumper - so I don't
think I need the extra support there.

Here is where it mounted to the nose reinforcement:



:seeya


[Modified by NHvette, 8:57 AM 7/11/2003]