Rear Bumper Brackets

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Originally Posted by jasinger01

Last night I confirmed the brackets are indeed the coil style brackets with 5" hole spacing. They holes had already been elongated slightly to get some bolts through the frame, but not slotted enough as I've already learned in this thread.

I worked on just the inner brackets first by slotting out the holes and also notching for the inner frame rivet on the leaf hanger. With the slots and the clearance for the rivet, I was able to pull the bumper in closer but also rotate it further up towards the tailgate which I think helps with the appearance. Previously, the rivet was interfering and causing the bumper to angled down towards the ground.

This is the spacing I ended up with ~1" back from the tailagte/bedsides. I could probably wiggle the bed back a little to make up some more of the gap. But looking much better already.

Figures. Welcome to my world, though mine worse. I bought my truck in my 20s (1989) and didn’t know anything about these trucks, just lucky destiny. I’d do oil changes and such, no desire to do more, wasn’t raised around it, and perhaps feared that kind of work. Anyway, I go to a wrecking yard and see a 71-72 blazer and pulled the brackets. Geez, looks like my truck, those must be my brackets.

The set had the longer inner bracket, the one’s vendors claim to work on our frames. Not even close, but I didn't know that. I hired some cool guys I knew to remove my step bumper (oh no) and install the brackets, which they did, kinda. 25 years later I see they didn’t have the right tools for the job, the brackets wouldn't work anyway, but at least they didn’t assault the frame. I even installed a receiver hitch, after all, sold the step bumper for $40 (oh no). Again, the frame wasn't assaulted, thank the lord.

My mom had bought me a rechromed sport bumper for my Bday. Probably paid $100, that was a long time ago. I installed that bumper onto the wrong brackets, where the inners couldn’t possibly work. Between that and bolting the bumper on last it left quite the distortions (oh no). I didn’t know what I was doing, and it showed. The bumper was refinished last year.

Anyway, good to see you got your brackets figured out. I was lucky, found NOS short inners, and my outers suited the purpose for mod. I didn’t actually modify my brackets. The guy who helped build this truck (e.g paint, body etc.) did the work. I only determined the plan, additional slots in places, sanded edges smooth, then off for blast & powder.