The bumpers on my 1955 tbird are really pitted in a couple areas. I was never a big fan of the painting of bumper, but lack of finances may make it nesassary. What preparation do I need to do to get the paint to work? Thanks
I painted the chrome bumpers on an OT 70's car 35 years ago. Scuffed the chrome up real good, applied a good self etching primer/surfacer, prepped and painted. No adherence problems. Except for a few rock chips, still good today.
Soak some aluminum foil in Coke or Pepsi and rub hell out of the pitted and rusty spots. I agree, shitty chrome is better than painted chrome
Found myself in the same position as you a few years ago. I just scuffed up the bumpers primed and painted them body color. That was in 2015 and they still look great.
If you're thinking of painting the bumpers to match the body color, but are worried about it having too much of an 80's street machine vibe, consider painting them in a contrasting color. Maybe to somewhat match the interior color, or the wheel color if it's different than the body color. Upload a couple pics of the car and maybe somebody on the Photoshop thread could rustle up a couple of different color samples for you.
Today we do have paint that looks like chrome{old stuff would fade to gray},but ya still got to smooth bumper out first,clean prime an fill. Also today we have a number of types of chrome tape that look good too,if done well. Rechrome is big $
Polish them up as best you can, buffing compound works good on stubborn rust stains, even SOS pads if they're super rusty (not recommended because of scratching, but if they're terrible already, do what you've got to do) then get a silver paint pen and just touch all of the little pit/black spots that won't come off any other way. It might look worn and not perfect up close but it'll look better than painting them. Painted bumpers on a 50's car is a bad look. Just like guys who say "my seats were ripped up and I couldn't afford new upholstery so I stuck some bucket seats from a late model car in there". Painted bumpers and late model buckets look even more cheap than old chrome and torn upholstery.
If you can’t polish them half decent. I’ve scuffed them, prime with etching primer and then spray them with the aluminum paint. It’s not shiny chrome But, and this is only my opinion better then bumpers painted body colour.
My 2cents You could remove all the chrome and polish the plain steel bumper then clear coat it. Not costly to do. Mostly just time . Perhaps an alternative to painting for the time being. One other thing. When I was building my last custom I was using 49 Plymouth rippled bumpers. I had a pair but they need to be rechromed $$$$$ I found a set on the web for sale at less then a 3rd of the cost ( including shipping) that had been redone and never used. Look around you never know what you wil find. Torchie
scan E-bay regularly, you may be surprised what you find on there. I built a large protion of my 39 sedan with parts scored off of e-bay for pennies on the dollar what it would have cost me if I bought them from a repro house or used parts dealer. just know what you are looking at when looking. There are tons of things out there that are listed completely wrong, by people that have no clue.
Funny, I didn't see where the OP asked for opinions on painting HIS bumper. What I saw was a question about prepping HIS bumper for paint. This typical HAMB bullshit of giving unwanted opinions is getting really old. It's HIS fucking car, so HE'S permitted to do whatever he wants to it. How about this? All those that give opinions send the guy some cash to pay for the chroming on the bumper you clearly think is yours. And to answer your question..... sandblasting the bumper is always a good starting point.
If you just have to paint the bumpers go to a paint store and get a quart of XIM bonding primer, it comes in white & clear, it will bond to any ferrous & non ferrous surfaces. I primed a set of wire wheels many years ago with XIM and then painted them red, I saw the car a couple of years ago and the wheels still look good. HRP
Sandblast, prime, block sand, and paint. It will stick and last as long as a body painted with the same paint. An OT bumper done 22 years ago still looks the same today as the day I painted it.
Problem is, the 55 t-bird has the exhaust exiting through the bumper gaurds, so that is a feature I want to retain.think I will just try the chrome tape and run it until I get the money for some better ones
In the mid '60s, my friend bought a '56 Bird that was beat up real good ... still had the tire hanging off the back. We threw all that stuff down in the gully behind the house & bought a bumper with the back bars from a '55 Customline. It fit, & looked better than it sounds ...
Here's a couple of pictures of a (sorry, OT) car I took recently. I actually thought it was chrome plated, till I asked the owner!
Try T-bird forums. The restoration crowd wants everything perfect, sometimes their take offs can be had cheap.
The chrome shop didn't come thru in time last week, so it got painted this past Monday so it could make Detroit Sent from my SM-F900U1 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I bought this car for not much money 25 years ago . Had 2 little kids just bought a house and absolutely no money. I traded , begged ,borrowed and scraped this ride together over a 2 year period. 25 years ago I was quoted 1500.00 for the front end chrome and 1500.00 for the rear end chrome - might as well been a million dollars. They had rusty scabs and road rash so I sandblasted them - applied zinc chromate primer and high build primer. I prepped them an applied Alsa Corp mirachrome paint. It was supposed to look exactly like chrome but it actually looks just like polished aluminum. The point is I have other cars now with lots of expensive chrome - but my wife and now adult kids have had more fun driving this old bomb around to car stuff for 25 years . Sometimes it’s about getting it on the road with what you can afford.
I’ve used the vinyl on pitted parts on my windwings and side window trim. After wiping too much and 6 years I need to replace it. Now looks like stainless which matches a lot of what’s around it.
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