74 Five MPH Front Bumper & Shocks

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Mojoe9955

Mojoe9955

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I'm thinking of "tucking" the front bumper on my 74 Duster. I've read where removing the rubber filler and collapsing the shocks to move it back. I've also read that it doesn't move it back enough to look right and if I read the post correctly it might even make it look worse.
To do anything with it you basically have to destroy parts that may have some value to someone. An other solution is to get a 73 bumper and brackets to make it look "right". I also saw where someone drained the shocks, took out the guts, sectioned them some too move the his bumper back, as well as cutting away as much of the heavy backer to make the bumper as light as possible... lots of work for little reward as it seemed he only gained an 1"or so. Mods to our cars, at least for me are a "Catch 22" in that I need to spend money to get the 73 parts, then more often then not, I'm stuck with perfectly good parts laying around. I have a 72 bumper for the rear that I need brackets for and a 74 back bumper without mounts. Both 74 bumpers are pretty nice. Is there a market for the 74 stuff? If there is I might put back together as a 74 and look for 73 stuff at Carlisle.
Thoughts? :popcorn:
 
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I did this on a '75 Dart Sport and it moved back enough (fully collapsing the bumper shocks) to look like it was factory. Sorry, I don't have any pics of the car and it's long gone. I currently have a '75 Duster and will probably do this in the future, but my filler pieces are like new, so it's not a high priority at this time.
 
middleagecrisis said:
I did this on a '75 Dart Sport and it moved back enough (fully collapsing the bumper shocks) to look like it was factory. Sorry, I don't have any pics of the car and it's long gone. I currently have a '75 Duster and will probably do this in the future, but my filler pieces are like new, so it's not a high priority at this time.
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My filler is in very nice shape as well. I'd think if you took it out and couldn't get the bumper back far enough a gap between the bumper and valance wouldn't look right.
Did you remove any of the reinforcement behind the bumper?
 
You will still have a couple of holes that are visible when you remove the filler. I put little plugs in mine BEFORE painting the car . I simply drilled out the shocks and pushed the bumper back. I think a couple of self tapping screws secured it from there on
 
I have a 72 Demon that needs quite a bit of rust repair on the back half but the front is pretty nice. I've been resisting swapping those pieces thinking I might "fix it up"
 
I put the cylinders on my Duster in a press brake and squished them down a bit and welded them in place. Then if for some reason I can cut the welds if I ever want them to be operable again.

Tom
 
Pound said:
You will still have a couple of holes that are visible when you remove the filler. I put little plugs in mine BEFORE painting the car . I simply drilled out the shocks and pushed the bumper back. I think a couple of self tapping screws secured it from there on
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I did this on my Dart Sport ~20 years ago, so my memory is fuzzy on everything I removed. I do remember drilling a hole in the bumper shocks and securing them closed with some self-tapping screws. I don't remember seeing anything exposed that made it obvious that I modded the bumper.
 
On my 74 duster I unbolted the bumper shocks removed the brace in the bumper and bent up new brackets using 1/8 in steel. Bolted it back on using existing bolt holes. Saved about 80-100 lbs. If I remember right that was about 45 years ago
 
The early 74's had the 73 style front bumper brackets, later production had the shocks. You can switch from one to the other if desired. The 74 cars had holes for both designs.
 
TomMoparMan said:
On my 74 duster I unbolted the bumper shocks removed the brace in the bumper and bent up new brackets using 1/8 in steel. Bolted it back on using existing bolt holes. Saved about 80-100 lbs. If I remember right that was about 45 years ago
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That makes sense. I know the steel metal brace behind the front of a Duster bumper is a little over 41lbs. The rear bumper steel brace must be a similar weight?

Either fabbing a smaller brace or just using a cutting disc to eliminate the 18’’ of steel brace that extends out from each end of the bumper mounts works. Also cutting/removing the 18’’ of steel bracing behind the license plate would probably cut a solid 25lbs from the rear brace while still using the small steel sections to actually hold the bumper to the shocks?
 
middleagecrisis said:
I did this on my Dart Sport ~20 years ago, so my memory is fuzzy on everything I removed. I do remember drilling a hole in the bumper shocks and securing them closed with some self-tapping screws. I don't remember seeing anything exposed that made it obvious that I modded the bumper.
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That's even fewer years ago than I did mine, so my memory may be fuzzy! Oddly, I can remember doing it in my parents driveway, but not the exact method I used. I really had to dig deep in the memory banks!
 
TomMoparMan said:
On my 74 duster I unbolted the bumper shocks removed the brace in the bumper and bent up new brackets using 1/8 in steel. Bolted it back on using existing bolt holes. Saved about 80-100 lbs. If I remember right that was about 45 years ago
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I'm thinking something like that too Tom
 
According to the response I'm getting on this, I'm going to assume the value of these parts, outside of the bumper itself, is negligible.
I'll give it another day or two and then I'm going to start hacking away on what I have not so much for appearance sake, but mostly weight savings.
Thanks
 
Mojoe9955 said:
According to the response I'm getting on this, I'm going to assume the value of these parts, outside of the bumper itself, is negligible.
I'll give it another day or two and then I'm going to start hacking away on what I have not so much for appearance sake, but mostly weight savings.
Thanks
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There’s not a lot of people restoring the tail end era of the A bodies unless it’s for sentimental reasons. Therefore the cash value of the ‘heavy/safety’ bits isn’t high.

When you do take off one of the bumper shock absorbers, can you weigh it and let us know the weight of it?
 
Spent a little time in the "FabShack" yesterday and came up with these new bumper brackets using scrap I had laying around.

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Thank you, it turned out nice. The channel with the tabs came from a motorcycle cycle lift I found in my neighbors trash. It served a dual purpose to mount the modified fender braces from an old van I scrapped. Its a little wild on the ends, but all in all it looks much better from the front.

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I pulled the bottom in some to which helped a bit as well. The old bumper system including the bumper, reinforcement, shocks and hardware weighed in at 86.5 lbs.
The new setup with the old bumper, fabrication and new hardware, weighs in at 31lbs, for a 54.5 lb weight loss. This coming week I'm going to attempt making some brackets to fit a 72 bumper to the back. I don't have the back shocks, but the 74 bumper and reinforcement weighs 62lbs, say they weight about the same as the front with the bolts 24.5lbs = 86.5 same as the front :realcrazy:

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The 71 rear bumper I put on mine use’s the factory 71 mounts. Just drilled 2 holes on each side to mount it. Kim
 
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FM3 Dart said:
The early 74's had the 73 style front bumper brackets, later production had the shocks. You can switch from one to the other if desired. The 74 cars had holes for both designs.
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None of this is accurate!

Early ‘74’s started out with shock mounted bumpers, from August of ‘73 (model year ‘74 production) until ~December of ‘73 all of the ‘74’s had front mounted shock bumpers. These cars had only 1 mounting bolt for the shock mounts on each rail. That shock mounted bumper is totally different than the ‘73 bumpers, and because of the single mounting bolt these cars can not be switched to a standard bumper bracket without adding mounts to the frame.

In December of ‘73 there was a production issue with the shock mounted bumpers, and production was changed back to non-shock mounted bumpers. Those cars have both mounting locations, the single mounting location for the shock mounted bumpers AND the 2 bolt mounting location for the non shock mounted bumpers. The non-shock mounted ‘74 bumpers are also different from ‘73, both the brackets and mounting holes on the bumper itself are different. They bolt up to the same standard mounting location, but you can’t mix and match ‘73 and ‘74 bumpers and brackets even for the non-shock mounted bumpers.

Shock mounted front bumpers were not reintroduced again until the ‘75 model year.

This is my ‘74, with a June ‘74 production date. It had a non-shock mounted front bumper from the factory.

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Mojoe9955 said:
I pulled the bottom in some to which helped a bit as well. The old bumper system including the bumper, reinforcement, shocks and hardware weighed in at 86.5 lbs.
The new setup with the old bumper, fabrication and new hardware, weighs in at 31lbs, for a 54.5 lb weight loss. This coming week I'm going to attempt making some brackets to fit a 72 bumper to the back. I don't have the back shocks, but the 74 bumper and reinforcement weighs 62lbs, say they weight about the same as the front with the bolts 24.5lbs = 86.5 same as the front :realcrazy:

View attachment 1716242847

View attachment 1716242848
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Nice work! Getting rid of the shock mounted bumpers makes a huge weight difference.

I actually was able to sell my ‘74 non-shock front bumper and brackets and even the shock mounted rear bumper. I didn’t ask much and the shipping on most of it was pretty substantial, and I did that a few years back so just shipping now would probably kill most deals.
 
Thanks, good info. I got lucky setting it up as I had some some 2" angle with 1/2" holes punched every 2.5" on both sides. I cut them in even lengths and using the bumper bolts attached them to the bumper which with the plates and channels attached it turned out to be the perfect width to mount directly to the frame. I don't recall there being additional tapped holes for bolts but there were punched holes on the outside which I had to drill through in order to mount my "contraption".
I'm almost thinking of doing the same thing on the back with the stock 74 bumper as it's nicer than the 72 I'm planning to use.
 
72bluNblu said:
None of this is accurate!

Early ‘74’s started out with shock mounted bumpers, from August of ‘73 (model year ‘74 production) until ~December of ‘73 all of the ‘74’s had front mounted shock bumpers. These cars had only 1 mounting bolt for the shock mounts on each rail. That shock mounted bumper is totally different than the ‘73 bumpers, and because of the single mounting bolt these cars can not be switched to a standard bumper bracket without adding mounts to the frame.

In December of ‘73 there was a production issue with the shock mounted bumpers, and production was changed back to non-shock mounted bumpers. Those cars have both mounting locations, the single mounting location for the shock mounted bumpers AND the 2 bolt mounting location for the non shock mounted bumpers. The non-shock mounted ‘74 bumpers are also different from ‘73, both the brackets and mounting holes on the bumper itself are different. They bolt up to the same standard mounting location, but you can’t mix and match ‘73 and ‘74 bumpers and brackets even for the non-shock mounted bumpers.

Shock mounted front bumpers were not reintroduced again until the ‘75 model year.

This is my ‘74, with a June ‘74 production date. It had a non-shock mounted front bumper from the factory.

View attachment 1716243067





Nice work! Getting rid of the shock mounted bumpers makes a huge weight difference.

I actually was able to sell my ‘74 non-shock front bumper and brackets and even the shock mounted rear bumper. I didn’t ask much and the shipping on most of it was pretty substantial, and I did that a few years back so just shipping now would probably kill most deals.
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I was not aware of the early cars having shocks, then switching back to brackets. My December and February produced Dart Sport 360's both have the brackets, not shocks. Both cars have the 3 holes on the side of the frame, and the small hole in the front for the shocks, so they could use either system. My parts car has the shocks and all the same holes. I don't know its build date off hand.
 
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