C2 Front Bumper bolts

[William G.]

Greetings,

I find myself looking for front bumper bolts on a '66. RSC head markings and I believe the thread size is 7/16-14. Anyone know of a source? I need five or six. If I could find a half dozen or so I believe VIRTUALLY all fasteners on this car would be factory original type--well.......save for exhaust, that is. I've tried Richard Fortier, but didn't (couldn't) get RSCs from him. I saw some on eBay seven-eight months ago and kick myself still for not bidding higher.

[Gary B.]

C2 Front Bumper bolts

William,

No one make a repro of the RSC headmark bumper bolt, and as you said Richard Fortier has none in his inventory. E-bay is your only option. A few RSC bumper bolts appear every 6 to 12 months. John Meissinger's auctions are some to follow. Also Rich P's (cappyparts). Maybe use your 50-word free Driveline ad to beat the bushes for some.

Gary

[Ronald L.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

I need some a few too, Richard & I have talked about this, more to follow as there is more than one way to get the headmark RSC on the bolt.

[Michael M.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

Ronald, I am not sure Richard would do such a thing, but other head- markings besides "RSC" are "TR", "M", "RBW", and "SBC". So we really do not have to focus on one head-mark.

[Jim D.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

Ronald, I am not sure Richard would do such a thing, but other head- markings besides "RSC" are "TR", "M", "RBW", and "SBC". So we really do not have to focus on one head-mark.

I wonder how many cars actually had all the same head markings. My 65 has all "TR" on one side and all "M" on the other.

[Ronald L.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

RSC was a 1966 thing for sure and there are many of us out that that have most of the RSC's in places if bubba did not come by with a wrench and snap them off. Most likely we will find it was a 67 thing to, I haven't pushed that envelop with the data set.

Sure there are other head marks out there but they were not original to these cars. There is absolutely no reason to put TR in there as there is any more reason to put a Home Depot bolt in there.

The 122007 RSC bolt was a 66 67 thing, and I continue to see un molested cars with these bolts intact, un touched since leaving new from STL.



On the not sure comment - I would not have posted it if I was anything less that 100% sure of BOTH possibilities, his option and mine.

[Rich P.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

Interesting part is that there are 2 RSC's. The most common headmarking has the font of the letters very large and placement is twards the center, second style has the font very small and the placement is twards the edge. (Gary thanks for the plug ). I have a few but I will be heading out starting tomorrow to buy out several old collectors/parts hoarders of thier hardware!!

Rich

[Jim D.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

Ronald, Are you saying that in 66 and 67, Chevrolet only used one supplier of bolts? I find that odd since in prior years they used up to 5 different suppliers and there was a mix of each of them throughout the model year.

[Rich P.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

To add to the year/headmark remark....this is "most" common.
63-64 WB with some TR and M thrown in.
65 TR, M, RBW.
66 M, RSC.
67 M, SBC. All years could have a mixing of others but these are a basic guide.

This is for the 1-1/4" GRADE 2 BOLTS

Rich

[Gary B.]

C2 Front Bumper bolts

My July 20 build date '66 had RSC bumper bolts and I've judged a number of '67s over the years with RSCs, so they were used both in 66 and 67. I, like William, would not consider putting on M (or whatever) headmark bumper bolts on my '66. There are already too many restored '66's out there with repro M headmark bumper bolts. Regarding using other "correct" (original) headmark bumper bolts, I know what my '66 came with and that's the way it's going to be restored.

I applaud William in his quest for original RSC bolts. Keep it original whenever feasible; if he looks long enough he will find what he needs.

Gary

[Bob J.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

My July 20 build date '66 had RSC bumper bolts and I've judged a number of '67s over the years with RSCs, so they were used both in 66 and 67. I, like William, would not consider putting on M (or whatever) headmark bumper bolts on my '66. There are already too many restored '66's out there with repro M headmark bumper bolts. Regarding using other "correct" (original) headmark bumper bolts, I know what my '66 came with and that's the way it's going to be restored.

I applaud William in his quest for original RSC bolts. Keep it original whenever feasible; if he looks long enough he will find what he needs.

Gary

I like the way you think !

[Ronald L.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

Jim,

Hardly.

If a specific bolt was Corvette ONLY usage you can just about bet that there was one supplier per year, now that may have changed over the years, but no way is a bolt supplier who can kick out 1000 bolts an hour going to take a fraction of a low volume production business.

On the other hand, a bolt that was used all over GM, good chance you had multiple suppliers. Pretty much guaranteed.

Here is the problem looking back at these cars 50 years later...

How many were restored with what ever was out there in the 80's and 90's?

By now if that car sat through one abusive mid west winter, 30 years later it looks like an un molested car.

How many times have these cars been:
1. Repainted?
2. Restored?
3. Hit-wrecked?

In all these cases bumpers are taken off in a high percentage and with these low grade bolts...they snapped. Broke.

In the late 70's 80's while 99% of all these parts were still available from GM, I went to GM parts, Flint, and bought them back then based upon the part number in AIMS, so what did I get?: the Service Part Supplier; NOT the supplier that sent boxes of these to the St Louis Asy plant in 1966/7.

So our research has to be on well known documented un molested original cars that the bolts have never been removed.

I have those in my car in all the hard to get at areas and I also need a few RSC's where a bumper was taken off and junk bolts put it.

I know from looking at bolts that have never been touched they had ONE bin of bolts and they were feeding RSC to bolt on the bumpers in 1966. And I have seen this on no less that 4 66 cars in the last year that were not messed up as per the above.

You'd have to poll the previous owners of those cars with other head marks, many were restored in the 80's and 90's where LIC P and CC were essentially the only choices - does that mean the bolts sold there are correct?

NO WAY!!!

I want all you guys to go out and look at where this bolt was used:
3846202 its on the hood latches, park brake, conv deck lid latch and conv lid springs, front a frame bumpers among the few.

Point is not one of the repop houses sells the correct fastener, and the same goes for the battery tray secure - they could not be further wrong than wrong itself! So what do we have? 20 years of people using the wrong bolt and now trying to make it real.

Point is they will sell you these things as being correct and the bolt configuration is NOW WHERE near what the print shows for those bolts.

There were engineering reasons why certain applications have a captured lock washer, why other applications have a captured large flat washer, this just wasn't random well put that in because that's what were have 20 years ago.

Every single part on these cars had a print and a specification. That's where we need to start.

Now - on this same car, not ONE of those bolts have ever had a wrench on it to "remove" them. And they are all the same head mark - one box - one supplier.

The way you have to look at this is it was a car assembly plant and bolt heads and suppliers did not matter so you just can't say that every car we have left was built with multiple supplier head marks.

Looking for reasons why several variants exist to get Top Flight, not true to how the car was built.

Nor is this possible statistically: 25000 cars a year are built, a pallet of bolts this size boxes of 250 each - perhaps 10000 on the pallet. This short bumper bolt - 16 in the rear and 12 in the front, 28 per car - that means that pallet of bolts lasted a couple of days. Now if you had 4 boxes of bolts, one for each side on the rear and each side on the front you are going a week or so before you have a stock change.

[Russ S.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

My July 20 build date '66 had RSC bumper bolts and I've judged a number of '67s over the years with RSCs, so they were used both in 66 and 67. I, like William, would not consider putting on M (or whatever) headmark bumper bolts on my '66. There are already too many restored '66's out there with repro M headmark bumper bolts. Regarding using other "correct" (original) headmark bumper bolts, I know what my '66 came with and that's the way it's going to be restored.

I applaud William in his quest for original RSC bolts. Keep it original whenever feasible; if he looks long enough he will find what he needs.

Gary

My original bumper bolts on my 66 are all M No RSC. I have owned the car since 1979. It is a no hit car and it appeared to be original paint when I got it.

[Rich P.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

The 7/16-14 thread 1-1/4" long grade 2 bolts were also used on other GM cars. I have gotten them from bumper brackets and supporting brackets of big GM cars.
Next I have been blessed to have worked on MANY MANY untouched original cars over the past 30 years. I always paid special attention to the hardwae. Of the dozens of 66's I worked on I would say it is an even split between M and RSC.
I also have seen mixed headmarking bumper bolt and for the most part the differences are side to side. (as in all rsc one side and all M the other side).

Rich

[Ronald L.]

Re: C2 Front Bumper bolts

Russ,
What is your build date? 1965?