She's just an older Vette Dog. Your Dad had fun driving it like he stole it. Be proud it was not a "garage queen.":thumbsup:

 

You do have the AIM? That'll help a bunch.

 

unless it is different from a '69, there is a bracket in the center that mounts to the (rad support??) via 4 holes- 2 with welded nuts on top, and two with welded nuts on the bottom. as for the sides there is a braket that should have a hole right in the corner of the inside of each side of the nose. those are your side mounting points. if you look where the bumper mounts are on the bumper, you with be able to figure out if the brakets are there or not
haveing someone else to hold the bumper while you align it is helpfull other wise you will end up with a nice scratched up nose

 

I would be concerned that the underlying support structure was bent.
You can see the chrome frame around the side grill has been pushed
upward a noticable amount. You might have some bracket bending ahead of you
to get it in straight. Looks like you got lucky in the sense that the
fiberglass did not take much of a hit.

Good luck ... between the members here, the AIM, and common sense ....
it will all come together.

:buhbye:

 

I got the bolt set today, so I gave the install a whirl. The bolt set 2 long skinny bolts, that I assumed were for the outside corner of the bumper. There were 8 big thick bolts, that I'm guessing are for all the support brackets basically, and 20 medium bolts that seem to be for everything under the sun. I got loads of bolts



I was able to get the two center bolts on the bracket above the license plate. I got the two that go on the the bumper guard. I got one of the outer corners (I had to push it in quite a lot, but it's in), but when I went to the other side for the other corner, its got a really big gap now, like 3-4 inches.

It would seem that I am going about it wrong, or that the bumper needs to have a sharper bend to it. Or I have underlying bent stuff that will need to be unbent. I don't see anything that looks wrong, but it wouldn't take much, I'm sure.

If I was to rip the entire front end apart to check all the parts dimensions, is there any way to know if they are actually bent or not?

My next thought it to loosen up all the support bolts so the whole system has a bunch of play to it and then see if it gets a bit better.

I seem to recall someone saying the best way to get a bumper to fit properly on the car was to start with the bumper, and build the rest of the car around it

 

It's probably safe to assume that some of the underlying support bracketry is bent. When I have to bolt any thing together I start with all the bolts inplace by hand. If some parts have been stressed it should show up as "wrinkles" in the paint and/or the bracket. From the picure it appears that the damage is between brackets. Can you easily start the bolts in the ends of the new bumper first? If you can the mounts on the new bumper will give you an idea where the bracket's matching hole should be. Hope this helps.

 

Also if you also notice, the left side bumper guard appears to be bent inwards, so much so that you can see the bumper bracket that should be right behind it. The right side lined up no problem, bet I had to really work the left.

I'll try to remove the bumper guards and really loosen the center bolts and work on getting the outside ones in first. I tried to loosen the bolts that hold the bottom of the bumper guards, but they are rusted solid currently. I'll PB them all week