Holy crap these bumper bolts!!

[rescuediver1982]

Long time troller, first time poster!

I'm getting my 73 satellite Sebring ready for dustless blasting and am trying to take off the bumpers... The front one I ended up grinding the bumper bolts down till I could punch them out. (This was due to how tight they were then the bolt spinning once I got them broke loose!)

So this brings me to the back! Holy crap these are in ridiculous spots that my arm and ratchet can barely contort too! Is there a trick to removing these that I haven't found? I'm going kinda resto-mod on this so cutting them out isn't out of the picture... Thanks!

 

[YY1]

Remove the brackets from the frame and pull the bumper and brackets off the car as a unit.

You can then have an improved angle on the nuts, but it still kinda sucks due to the concave bumper angle.

 

[Bruzilla]

I ended up taking a cutting wheel and cutting the heads of the bolts in quarters, then used a chisel to cut each section off. They were a major PITA.

 

['73bird]

Remove the brackets from the frame and pull the bumper and brackets off the car as a unit.

You can then have an improved angle on the nuts, but it still kinda sucks due to the concave bumper angle.

So remove the nuts in the trunk?

 

[YY1]

Yep.

 

[mopar73dge]

It seems no one make the proper length bumper bolt for the 1973 dodge charger mine are 1/4 inch longer at least, I had to use my originals. After a lot of polishing they look decent also the originals have a higher curve cap and roundness to them than the repos!

 

[rescuediver1982]

Remove the brackets from the frame and pull the bumper and brackets off the car as a unit.

You can then have an improved angle on the nuts, but it still kinda sucks due to the concave bumper angle.

Worked great! After realized the brake light buckets weren't coming out and were just gonna come out with the whole assembly... Once off, some blue torch wd, an impact, and some adjustable pliers got me all but two bolts out! The other two met the grinder I used on the front bolts!

Going back together I may weld the bolts in and smooth them out for a flat smooth look!

Thanks for the help!

 

['68 Charger]

Yes always remove the bumpers from the frame/tail panel to do any kind of work on the bumpers.

Another trick is once you got the bumper bolt nuts broke is to take a cold chisel and wedge it between the bumper bracket and the inner bumper shell and whack it with a hammer to force the chisel to keep the slack out of it. This will help keep the bolt head square secured into the slot and thus preventing it from spinning.

Unless you have torches (not to cut the bolts but to heat them up) use a ton of WD40.

If you need any bumper bolts I have a ton of the oem ones.