Rear Bumper Refinishing

[Supermike]

My license plate won't fit there unless I bend it...

[dcbullet]

dcbullet-
did you place your rear license plate somewhere else other than the the upper left corner? I noticed it wasn't there in the second picture.

Nah, I just hadn't put it back on for the the picture yet.

[BiggDogg]

My license plate won't fit there unless I bend it...

I have the same problem with mine... trying to decide where to put it once I do something with the bumper

[68F250]

You feed it up the gap between the bed and tailgate, it clips the top of the plate.

[Supermike]

I thought that, too, but mine wouldn't fit... it's a pretty snug fit there, and would bend the plate, not clip it. And my plate is a vintage 67 truck plate. Luckily, mine has plate holes above the hitch.

These bumpers are weird. I'd like to know the story on them. I swear I've seen 20 variations of them. It almost seems that, outside the sport bumper, it was like they changed the style of these step bumpers once a month.

Anyone know??

[Jake11]

Lazy mans way. Go to the 99cent store. Buy 10cans of "oven cleaner"
spray it and let it set a while. Hose it off and repeat. Takes off paint,
rust, boogers, ect. Dry it off and paint it. easy!

[Joe Kriston]

These bumpers are weird. I'd like to know the story on them. I swear I've seen 20 variations of them. It almost seems that, outside the sport bumper, it was like they changed the style of these step bumpers once a month.

Anyone know??

I don't know for sure,but I remember working for a construction outfit in the '70's and they bought a new truck that came without a rear bumper...Dealers in those days(and still do,come to think of it) had a large mark-up on factory accessories and often recieved lots of competition from independant jobbers for accessories like bumpers...I had a '72 C!@#$$vy that had a 16" wide stepbumper installed when new by a local aftermarket camper place to accomadate an extended overhead camper...

[Supermike]

Very interesting... so it's quite possible that Camper Specials and some other trucks did not come from the factory with a bumper, that perhaps only the "sport" bumpers came from the factory, and that there were many independent suppliers of bumpers? That's kind of cool, actually, because it means your bumper is somewhat unique.

My step bumper, for example, looks like many of these but does not wrap around the end of the bed. It also has a Reese-style hitch, which many of these do not seem to have.

It would be fun to start compiling an index of bumpers, but you would have to almost know for sure that it was "original" to the truck when bought, which would be difficult.