FHC resto nr. 105; Rear bumper

I left these parts well over a week ago, and still feel bad about it. But hey, life goes on! So while looking into options for a replacement centre front cover I started with ordering a new battery powered drill. Yes the old one didn’t survive 😈, but it wasn’t working anyway. Plus after well over 20 years of service it wasn’t viable to spent much money on it! And with that sorted I went in search of some motivation to get back to the bumpers. So I took the DHC for an almost 500 km long round trip to the German Eifel with a friend. Which was a lovely day out. But I forgot to take any photos. So you’ll have to do with this one taken in the shed the day before the trip.

With some motivation regained, I returned to work on the ’76 car. And it is rather obvious that I started with the rear bumper. Earlier in my holidays I already cleaned the covers thoroughly, which meant the next task would be fitting the covers to the bumper bar. This bumper bar was e-coated a few years ago, having the added bonus that it is coated not only on the outside but also on the inside. And the e-coating layer is relatively thin. So the covers went on pretty smoothly.

Only problem was the centre section which was bulging upwards in the middle. To get this inline I used some binder clips (with the handles removed after fitting of course). And it looks like they are doing a pretty good job so far.

And with the covers fitted the only remaining task was fitting the rear bumper to the car. Though I took some precautions to protect the paint work just in case. For this I used packing foam sheets held in place by strategically placed clothespins.

For the rest this job went rather well, with most time (less than 10 minutes) being spent on getting the bumper properly centred and aligned. Much easier as well over 10 years ago while restoring my DHC! And with the bumper bar correctly aligned I could torque down the mounting nuts.

After which it was time to admire the work done. It is starting to look like a car again from the back.

Currently waiting for the front bumper bar to return from powder coating. And I even found a fairly good centre cover section (see the picture at the top of this post). Which after a good clean looks fairly presentable! Though there might still be a plan B here. Probably more on that later.