Well, I have my old 48 ,and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with the front end. It has a bumper on it now, but it is very ugly and beat up. What do you guys do when you remove the front bumper? Do you just weld a piece in the are of where the bumper was mounted?

 

Cool,
Yes weld a piece is is what I did or you can replace the gravel pan without holes for the front bumper brackets.

 

Joe, I assume you welded them to the lower pans ,and not the cut off bumper, is this correct??

 

That is correct sir. Used a 16 gauge steel and my Lincoln 110v mig welder. Probably should have just replaced the pan though it was in pretty bad shape.

 

My old bumper still stick out pretty far. I guess I can just wack it off where it needs to be, then weld me a piece on the lower pan. Hey thanks.

 

I would strongly reccomend against going without a bumper. The bumper is there for a reason, for bumping. Two reasons I wouldn't go without is first, it is a major safety component of the truck. Without it your depending on the thin sheet metal to absorb the brunt of a head on accident. I know the bumper is going bend but it does absorb a lot of primary impact force. Second, in a minor connection, like when parking or when someone else taps your truck, I would rather deal with repairing a scratch on a bumper that costly repair of repairing a banged up piece of sheet metal.

Bumpers aren't that expensive, LMC has a primed front bumper for a little over $100.

That being said, here are a couple of examples of trucks with the bumpers removed:

 

Sometime after I posted this thread, I realised that I might be scraping curbs when trying to park. I had already thought about the collision thing. But I guess I have changed my mind again about removing ,and leaving the front bumper off. I will check out some websites and find one that looks better than the one I have. Thanks for the info.

 

Cool,
Make sure your state does not require bumpers to be legal before you weld her up, and I do agree with Bob. Bumpers are safer and help protect your ride but I like the clean look myself. Good luck

 

Hey Bobj got any side view shots of those panels? Still deciding how I want mine to look. Thanks

 

I know I am likely going to get strung up for saying this, but I a looking at some of the re-pro bumpers from early to mid 30's ch3v cars, some of them have a slightly different design and look a lot nicer than the bulky stock front bumpers, particularly if you are lowering your vehicle, the bumper choice will make no difference with regards to parking lot rash or head on collisions but may be useful if your 3 year old parks his tricycle in front of the truck......

I do agree that there is just too much of an expanse of painted sheet metal on the nose of these trucks and the bumper (what ever the choice may be) helps to break up the looks of the front end.

 

I have a repro (LMC) 49-50 style front bumper in cherry shape that I will be selling later in the Spring. Let me know if you're interested.

 

I was going to try and fab up a "bumper" that I could get behind the roll pan. I thought that would kind of be the best of both worlds. CHAZ