What the rubber bumper is going on in 74
Ok, so, here's the thread that talks about the bumper changes in '74 and has a bunch of different owners with plant/production date info. It's not a "bumper thread" specifically but it has some of the good info, post #124 has most of it
How many CURRENT owners of real '74 360 Duster 4 speed cars on here?
Here's another one...
73 VS 74 Duster Front Bumper Differences.
And here's some pictures of the different frame rails that go with the bumpers. ‘67-73 cars only have the front two locations (standard bracket mounts), early '74 and 75+ only have the shock bracket mount, and mid-74 until the end of '74 has all of them like shown. This is actually my '74, with a production date of 6/74. It was a standard mount bumper, and you can see it has all 3 mounts so either style bumper bracket can be used.
Here are the other styles of rails, the later one is labeled incorrectly, it should be early '74 and then 75+ for the shock mount only
That gets to be an issue with front clip swaps if you put an earlier front clip on a later car. If you have a shock mount front bumper it gets more involved because you have to install the mounts for the standard mount bumpers too, you can't just bolt them up because there's no mount there.
Here are the bumper differences too, for the '74 folks. You can't just buy any '74 bumper, you have to make sure it's the right one.
Shock mount '74
standard mount '74
Ok, so, here's the thread that talks about the bumper changes in '74 and has a bunch of different owners with plant/production date info. It's not a "bumper thread" specifically but it has some of the good info, post #124 has most of it
How many CURRENT owners of real '74 360 Duster 4 speed cars on here?
Here's another one...
73 VS 74 Duster Front Bumper Differences.
And here's some pictures of the different frame rails that go with the bumpers. ‘67-73 cars only have the front two locations (standard bracket mounts), early '74 and 75+ only have the shock bracket mount, and mid-74 until the end of '74 has all of them like shown. This is actually my '74, with a production date of 6/74. It was a standard mount bumper, and you can see it has all 3 mounts so either style bumper bracket can be used.
Here are the other styles of rails, the later one is labeled incorrectly, it should be early '74 and then 75+ for the shock mount only
That gets to be an issue with front clip swaps if you put an earlier front clip on a later car. If you have a shock mount front bumper it gets more involved because you have to install the mounts for the standard mount bumpers too, you can't just bolt them up because there's no mount there.
Here are the bumper differences too, for the '74 folks. You can't just buy any '74 bumper, you have to make sure it's the right one.
Shock mount '74
standard mount '74