Is this factory? 1974 fixed bumperbumper

[jos51700]

While under the car for a k frame swap, I looked up and noticed this fender mount extension is a different color. The hardware appears to be oem style bolts.

The front bumper is a fixed mount, no shock absorbers. Would this car have had bumper shocks from the factory? Frame rails show evidence of a hit but front clip is straight and I see no repaint indicators.

I'm not a body person, so I don't look this stuff too often.

 

[74Dart318]

It looks like they added a couple inches to push the bottom of the fender out possibly

 

[72bluNblu]

Nope, not factory.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the original fender to bumper brace was damaged in the accident, because that's not a fender to bumper brace. The brace itself looks like it could be a fender to cowl brace to me, but at the least I don't think it's originally a lower fender to bumper brace, which would explain why it wasn't the right length. Could be off of something totally different too. Or maybe a wiper linkage? At any rate, doesn't look like the original fender to bumper brace. The extension is not factory, that just looks like a chunk of metal they had laying around.

The original fender to bumper braces should look like this, the original is on the bottom (I extended the top one, to push the fender further out to clear my 275's up front)

As for the bumper, '74's were weird. They started out with shock mounted bumpers and only the single mounting hole in the frame rail (for the shock mount). Then around December of '73 there was some kind of production issue with the shock mounted bumpers, and the factory switched back to standard brackets. Those cars came with all 3 bumper bracket mounting locations, the standard 2 up front as well as the 3rd one for the shock bumper bracket. They were that way for the rest of the production year, having all 3 mounting locations but equipped with standard, non-shock bumper brackets. So, whether or not your car came with a shock mount bumper is dependent on when it was built. Based on the fact that it has a standard bumper on it now, it probably didn't come with the shock mounted bumper, but if it was wrecked they could have swapped frame rails or added the mounting locations. Either way, it has the standard bracket mounting locations on it now.

67-73 cars only have the front two locations (standard bracket mounts), early to mid '74 model year and 75+ only have the shock bracket mount, and mid-74 until the end of '74 has all of them like shown.

The other styles of rails, the later one is labeled incorrectly, it should be early '74 and then 75+ for the shock mount only

 

[jos51700]

Thank you for clarifying what is obviously a mess! i noticed this morning that the brackets are loose So it's good i didn't put jack stands under them.
which leads me to..... my '75 valiant has the bumper shocks. Any easy way to toss that garbitch and get the old school mounts? I'll assume I need a '74 bumper, and brackets, but adding the holes?

I'm tempted to swap this bumper and brackets onto the '75 and put the shocks on this car

 

[72bluNblu]

Thank you for clarifying what is obviously a mess! i noticed this morning that the brackets are loose So it's good i didn't put jack stands under them.
which leads me to..... my '75 valiant has the bumper shocks. Any easy way to toss that garbitch and get the old school mounts? I'll assume I need a '74 bumper, and brackets, but adding the holes?

I'm tempted to swap this bumper and brackets onto the '75 and put the shocks on this car

The '75 frame rails won't have the mounting points for the non-shock mount brackets, that will be the toughest part.

It's not just holes either, there are nuts inside the frame that are welded in. So, to mount the standard brackets on a car that doesn't have the standard bracket mounts you'll either need to open up the end of the frame rail and weld the captured nuts into the frame rail, or drill completely through the frame rail and use long bolts so that the bolts go completely through the rail so you can put the nuts on the other side. Problem with that last method is that you could crush the rail if you over tighten the bolts, unless you add a tube inside the rail. So if I was going to do it that way, I'd locate where the holes need to be for the brackets, drill the holes all the way through the frame rail, and then oversize the holes so that I could slide a tube through the frame rail. Then I'd weld the tube so it's flush with the outside of the rail, and then you could use the long bolts that would pass through the rails and put the nut on the other side of the rail without worrying about collapsing the rail if you over tighten the bolts, or worry about them ripping out of the frame rail in an accident. Given all of that, it might be easier to just locate the holes with the brackets, then open the end of the frame rail and weld in the captured nuts.

Also, be careful about buying the '74 bumpers. The shock mount bumpers and the standard bracket bumpers have the bracket mounting holes in different spots, so, those bumpers aren't interchangeable. So if you buy a '74 bumper the ideal thing would be to buy one that has the brackets with it as a single package, so you'd know you're getting the right one.

My '74 non-shock mount front bumper (I sold this awhile back, fyi)

Another '74 bumper. I assume this is for a shock mount, although it's a picture from eBay. It was from a '74 Duster though, and you can see the holes for the brackets are in a different spot.

 

[jos51700]

Dude, that's an amazing write-up. Thank you for taking the time to do that!