Rare Parts In Strange Places

[72heavychevy]

I had a craigslist ad up for some 2nd gen camaro parts for sale (including some extra bumpers that came with my car, but they were rough), noting at the bottom I was looking for a nice pair of '74-77 bumpers for my car.

Well a month or two goes by, I sell some parts, and randomly get a call asking if I was still looking for bumpers. He said he had an NOS pair of bumpers with NOS rubber strips (note the rubber pieces alone are $200 each for repops!) sitting in the rafters of his barn, original GM boxes and all!! He said "give me 100 bucks and your old bumpers and we have a deal" - his car wasn't going to be done anytime soon and mine looked "good enough".

The story doesn't end there either. I drove an hour or two to the middle of nowhere Kansas and wait for the guy to show up at a local truck stop. All the sudden I see this Lincoln Town Car roll up with the trunk wide open and the Camaro bumpers hanging way out the back held in with bungee cords. I was shocked. Luckily he had towels wrapped around them so they were fine, it just looked quite odd. We traded bumpers and he was happy as could be to end up with an extra 100 bucks.

I've still got those bumpers on my car today. Every once and awhile I get asked how I got them so nice and polished up (the anodizing on these bumpers likes to cloud up over time if left outside) and I tell them that story.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by 72heavychevy

He said he had an NOS pair of bumpers with NOS rubber strips (note the rubber pieces alone are $200 each for repops!) sitting in the rafters of his barn...

I wasn't going to tell this story, but speaking of "bumpers in the rafter of a barn..."

The rear bumper on my '04 Silverado 2500HD is a little tweaked; not too bad but bad enough I notice and I compare with everybody else's rear bumper that I see.

I looked for a replacement and sort of accidentally bought a new (China) bumper off ebay. It didn't fit right and rusted before I even backed it out of the garage, so I threw it away and put my original tweaked bumper back on (after I had drug it around on the concrete because I thought I was going to throw it away).

My brother-in-law Denny got my Dad's truck after Dad passed. I stopped by Denny and Jenny's the other day and Dad's old truck was sitting there. As I walked past I noticed and remembered that Dad had removed the rear bumper and installed a fiberglass rear roll pan in its place.



I asked Denny "hey - do you still have the rear bumper off Dad's truck?"

He said "yes- it's hanging there in the barn, over the boat".

Score! So now I have a new take-off original GM, straight, rust free bumper (of known provenance) for the back of my truck.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

I wasn't going to tell this story, but speaking of "bumpers in the rafter of a barn..."

The rear bumper on my '04 Silverado 2500HD is a little tweaked; not too bad but bad enough I notice and I compare with everybody else's rear bumper that I see.

I looked for a replacement and sort of accidentally bought a new (China) bumper off ebay. It didn't fit right and rusted before I even backed it out of the garage, so I threw it away and put my original tweaked bumper back on (after I had drug it around on the concrete because I thought I was going to throw it away).

My brother-in-law Denny got my Dad's truck after Dad passed. I stopped by Denny and Jenny's the other day and Dad's old truck was sitting there. As I walked past I noticed and remembered that Dad had removed the rear bumper and installed a fiberglass rear roll pan in its place.



I asked Denny "hey - do you still have the rear bumper off Dad's truck?"

He said "yes- it's hanging there in the barn, over the boat".

Score! So now I have a new take-off original GM, straight, rust free bumper (of known provenance) for the back of my truck.

K

Bumper didn't fit.



Apparently the stepside version is ever so slightly narrower than the fleetside version.

K