Urethane bumper removal on 73 Mach

Platonic Solid · Sep 2, 2006

My car is finally going to the painters next week (first week in Sept.). I am doing all disassembly and reassembly, which is cool since I can practically do it in my sleep… well almost, except the Urethane bumper, which isn’t even mentioned in my 72 shop manual. I could remove the entire bumper assembly, which will surely weigh a ton, but I’m wondering if it’s possible to remove just the Urethane part (or whatever plastic it’s made of) leaving the steel frame attached to the car. Since this part is not available repro, it’s critical that it not get damaged in the process. Any experienced words of wisdom on 71-73 Urethane bumpers welcome and appreciated.

Platonic Solid · Sep 2, 2006

If anyone has the 73 shop manual set, could you please tell me if they cover the Urethane bumper assembly in the body section. I don't want to buy the 73 shop manual set just to find out it's a duplicate of what I already have.

Gud T.B. Blown · Sep 2, 2006

here you go directly from the '73 shop manual:
1. Remove the six bolts attaching the bumper assembly to the isolators and remove the bumper.
2. Remove the four nuts and six screws and seperate the reinforcement and license plate bracket from the bumper asembly.
I'm not sure if that helps, the urethane bumper on the '73 is only a cover. Underneath the cover is a heavy gauge piece of square tubing. The bumper itself weighs at least 100lbs.
Why not just remove the 4 bolts holding the mounting bracket to the frame?

electricgreen · Sep 2, 2006

Dunno-ours was rotted off when we bought the car! I'd bet that removing the urethane portion would ruin it, but that's just conjecture. (it does way a ton though-we bought a used one to replace the one that came with the car)

Platonic Solid · Sep 2, 2006

Hmmm...Yes, I could "remove the 4 bolts holding the mounting bracket to the frame", but I was trying to save myself and the painter the hassle of manhandling the whole bumper assembly by just removing the urethane cover. Does the book have a decent illustration? If yes, does it look like I should be able to get the urethane cover off without removing any of the structural reinforcing parts?

"2. Remove the four nuts and six screws and seperate the reinforcement and license plate bracket from the bumper asembly."

I don't have a license plate bracket (is that what the four nuts are in reference to?) I removed the six screws securing the bottom of the urethane cover to the square reinforcement tubing, but the cover won't budge. So maybe those four nuts are also retaining the urethane cover and located someplace much less obvious (like maybe through access holes in the square tubing?)

Thanks for your help.

Edit: OK, I think I found the 4 nuts refered to in step 2, well at least I found and removed 2 of them as suggested above (with some creative use of a mirror) - "through access holes in the square tubing". Unfortunately I can't see the other 2. My money's on that they're inconveniently located directly opposite the main bumper mounts, thus I'll have to remove the whole bumper to get at them . Oh well, at least I can make life easier for the painter if not for me.

1320stang · Sep 2, 2006

whwright removed just the cover of his I belive, you might email or text message him.

69 Rustang · Sep 3, 2006

I left my cover and reinforcement together and just refinished the bumper off the car that way. Was awful heavy, but no regrets.

Gud T.B. Blown · Sep 3, 2006

Platonic Solid said:
Hmmm...Yes, I could "remove the 4 bolts holding the mounting bracket to the frame", but I was trying to save myself and the painter the hassle of manhandling the whole bumper assembly by just removing the urethane cover. Does the book have a decent illustration? If yes, does it look like I should be able to get the urethane cover off without removing any of the structural reinforcing parts?

"2. Remove the four nuts and six screws and seperate the reinforcement and license plate bracket from the bumper asembly."

I don't have a license plate bracket (is that what the four nuts are in reference to?) I removed the six screws securing the bottom of the urethane cover to the square reinforcement tubing, but the cover won't budge. So maybe those four nuts are also retaining the urethane cover and located someplace much less obvious (like maybe through access holes in the square tubing?)

Thanks for your help.

Edit: OK, I think I found the 4 nuts refered to in step 2, well at least I found and removed 2 of them as suggested above (with some creative use of a mirror) - "through access holes in the square tubing". Unfortunately I can't see the other 2. My money's on that they're inconveniently located directly opposite the main bumper mounts, thus I'll have to remove the whole bumper to get at them . Oh well, at least I can make life easier for the painter if not for me.

Platonic, for whatever reason I thought, and quite wrongly, that you were removing a '72 bumper.
According to the illustration you should be able to remove the cover after step 1. My scanner is broken so I took a picture of the illustration however it is too big for imgshare. PM and I'll email it to you if you want later. I'm leaving for the day right now and I'll send it to you tonight.

Platonic Solid · Sep 3, 2006

pushrod power said:
Platonic, for whatever reason I thought, and quite wrongly, that you were removing a '72 bumper.
According to the illustration you should be able to remove the cover after step 1. My scanner is broken so I took a picture of the illustration however it is too big for imgshare. PM and I'll email it to you if you want later. I'm leaving for the day right now and I'll send it to you tonight.

Actually, I'm all set. Thanks alot for your help I removed the entire bumper assembly as stated in step 1. As suspected, the bumper retaining brackets were covering up the 2 access holes to the final 2 nuts that hold the urethane cover to the square reinforcing tube. End result, if you follow the instructions, then removing the urethane cover is straight forward. It's not as convenient as I'd prefer, as I was hoping to avoid playing with alignment later.

There is a second smaller square metal tube molded into the nose of the urethane which I will not be attempting to remove (that's probably the part electricgreen was thinking of). Even with the large square tube removed, I'd guess the bumper still weighs in at 65-70 lbs.

Thanks All

Urethane bumper removal on 73 Mach

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Urethane bumper removal on 73 Mach

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