Best way to do smooth/painted front bumper

[Neil B]

What's the best way to smooth and paint a '69 front bumper? I'd like to maintain the stock brackets and not use an endura bumper setup. I've seen where Year One offers a non-chromed smooth bumper; how is the fitment on these? Should I get one of these or de-chrome, smooth and paint my current bumper? Are there any other good options such as fiberglass or carbon fiber bumpers?

[69keith]

I bought the front from year one, not the best fitting bumper...The rear is a cheap chrome from NPD, i stripped the chrome down to the nickel and cut an inch out of the center to snug the quarters, modified stock brackets and smoothed.

[JRouche]

I started on the path to smoothing my bumpers. I was gonna stay in chrome though. My original bumpers were not that bad, so I thought. Till I really started working on them.

What I did was remove the chrome from around the original holes, not easy without removing the base metal. And thats critical when going for a chromed bumper cause the chrome doesn't fill like you can do with a painted bumper and filler.

So what you see is what you get. The metal has to be perfectly smooth. So I made up some 2x3" backer plates for the mounts. Welded them to the backside of the bumper. TIG welded the holes up, smoothed it down pretty good. But then started looking more closely at the rest of the bumper. Every lil scratch needed to be metal filled with the tig then smoothed. And every lil dent or distortion needed to be worked. It started turning into a major project. I started feeling over whelmed and gave up. Bought new bumpers and Im gonna go with those.

But if I was gonna paint them the body color it would have been a piece of cake. The hardest (money wise) part for me would have been removing the chrome. I would have had to take them to a bumper shop to have them remove the chrome. No way can you sand it off without really creating an ugly bumper.

So, if you can start with a bare metal bumper I would go that route. See if goodmark sells a bare (no chrome) bumper. My chrome bumpers are goodmark and they are really close, very close to the originals. Only a slightly thinner gauge, not by much, and they have the same shape. JR

[MuscleRodz]

I bought and unpainted bumper, mocked it up to make sure it fit, then tack welded the bolts in place so I could cut the heads off and then weld them permanently. Bodyworked and painted appropriate color

[hhijleh]

I bought and unpainted bumper, mocked it up to make sure it fit, then tack welded the bolts in place so I could cut the heads off and then weld them permanently. Bodyworked and painted appropriate color

Where did you buy the unpainted bumper? Where can I get one for a 1968 Camaro?

Thanks Alot!!

[MuscleRodz]

I get them direct from Dynacorn. I will check and see if they are available for 67/68