Front bumper angle question???

[Tim Herald]

Just got this truck and don’t understanding the angle of front bumper. It’s not like it was hit and bent. It’s attached like this and solid as a rock. Maybe the attachment brackets are bent, not sure but if so, it almost seems purposeful and both sides are the same. I would like to straighten it up if anyone has suggestions.
In one photo you can see where there were hood spacers that created a gap in the windshield end of hood. Previous Owner said that was for ventilation/cooling in FL. I have removed those, and it’s lined back up (24 degrees here in KY today so don’t need extra cooling) but didn’t know if this bumper could be some modification I don’t know about like the hood was (and I know the bumper isn’t for ventilation )

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[jpoole]

Brackets are bent. Bumper top should be further forward with a relatively even gap between the valance and the bumper all the way from fender to fender. The bumper wings should be close to the bottom of the fender flares with the top edge of the bumper wings parallel to the bottom edge of the flare.

You'll need to remove the bumper and then straighten or replace the mounting brackets. It's pretty easy to bend the brackets and do test fits of the bumper, repeating until it's right, so personally I'd go that route (vs. replacement) unless there are cracks, rust or other issues that can't be easily straightened out. If you really want it to be right you could just buy new bumper, brackets, etc. assuming they are still available.

Once the brackets are back where they go the bumper looks like it also needs re-shaping, though possibly not much. You can likely push/hammer the bumper back into shape if you know what you are doing but "close enough" will be a lot easier than "perfect". Avoid sharp edges and creating little dents/etc. as you can make things a lot worse and hard to fix easily if you start hammering on the bumper skin, which is fairly thin. You can read up on techniques and tools to use but larger surfaced tooling without hard edges will be better than smaller/hard edged tools for moving the bumper metal around.

 

[Tim Herald]

Brackets are bent. Bumper top should be further forward with a relatively even gap between the valance and the bumper all the way from fender to fender. The bumper wings should be close to the bottom of the fender flares with the top edge of the bumper wings parallel to the bottom edge of the flare.

You'll need to remove the bumper and then straighten or replace the mounting brackets. It's pretty easy to bend the brackets and do test fits of the bumper, repeating until it's right, so personally I'd go that route (vs. replacement) unless there are cracks, rust or other issues that can't be easily straightened out. If you really want it to be right you could just buy new bumper, brackets, etc. assuming they are still available.

Once the brackets are back where they go the bumper looks like it also needs to re-shaping, though possibly not much. You can likely push/hammer the bumper back into shape if you know what you are doing but "close enough" will be a lot easier than "perfect". Avoid sharp edges and creating little dents/etc. as you can make things a lot worse and hard to fix easily if you start hammering on the bumper skin, which is fairly thin. You can read up on techniques and tools to use only but larger surfaced tooling without hard edges will be better than smaller/hard edged tools for moving the bumper metal around.

Thanks.

 

[Rusty Marlin]

I should still have the brackets off my stock bumper. If you get stuck beating yours into submission PM me.

 

[Tim Herald]

I should still have the brackets off my stock bumper. If you get stuck beating yours into submission PM me.

If you would consider shipping, I’ll be happy to pay for it just so I don’t have to try to get it right bending. Just let me know and thanks.

 

[Rusty Marlin]

I'll look in the metal pile in the daylight and see what jumps out. hopefully not a copperhead LOL

 

[Tim Herald]

I'll look in the metal pile in the daylight and see what jumps out. hopefully not a copperhead LOL

Hopefully it’s too cold for that. Thanks