New to me 78 NYB on its way but please Don't tell my wife

More bumper fun:

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3/4 corrected view. The filler panels between the fender and bumper will help make the end look more tucked in.

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Bumper Guard will fit perfectly and completely hide the cut and weld.

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Opposite 3/4 view of bumper.

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Work in progress. The bumper will have all the bolts tightened up when I’m completely happy. Then the bumper will come off for re-welding of all cut material. The mounting holes will be adjusted to allow for a bit of vertical movement when we replace it. And then after it is all set up and torqued where we want it to stay, we’ll be done.
 
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Designers intent:

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Looking a little more Pontiac than Chrysler, this front end study did establish the prominent center peak theme of a defined and separate grille extending into the hood surface. This was a 180 departure from the ‘69-‘73’s which were loop bumpers with flat inset grilles. Here also was firmed up a lower full bumper as much about tying the design together as it was about meeting the foreseen crash bumper standards to come.

Finally, the center peak meeting the bumper at a separate elevation from that of the grille was an idea that actually made it into production.

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Twin “waterfall” grilles make an appearance that, when married to the earlier study, really start to come together in the later clay studies.

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This clay study is 90 percent of the final established design. I think it was as much a preproduction engineering study as it was a design presentation model.

Variations from production are the cornering lights and bumper projection past the end of the front cap (needed to protect the body). Likewise, this bumper has the license plate bracket on the passenger side versus final production placement on the drivers side. Finally you see that the transitions from the fender peaks to the hood plane are much more abrupt/sharp than the smoother curve adopted by production. The same thing is happening at the sides of the grille as the body comes up almost too sharply to meet the upper hood grille plane.

I’m not completely sure, but I feel that the grille itself is also a bit larger than the final production version. The curvature changes I mentioned would have necessitated its reduction. A slightly smaller grill was needed in order to keep the final design intent (presented here) intact in translating it to actual production.

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The final and last results of actual production; the 1978 Imperial/New Yorker.... now corrected to reflect the original design intent.

Nobody but us would ever be able to tell the difference.

Just before this shot, I started to play with adjusting the ends up just a hair to tighten the whole thing up and give her a bit of a Mona Lisa smile. You can see it on the passenger side. It still looks dead straight but the end is up slightly..... like 1/16”. Look closely.

Nature, architecture and industrial design abhor absolute geometric perfection.

The Greeks invented entasis for use in columns to make them appear straight by correcting our eyes’ tendency to reverse fisheye distort what we see. Likewise, they curved the entablature of the Parthenon and leaned its outer columns in slightly so they would look straight.

If anything is perfectly straight it actually looks odd.

Parallel lines that don’t come together slightly (in accordance with our expected understanding of perspective) appear to be askew.

I think she’s “happy” now and she reflects better how I feel when I see her as a designer.
 
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One more bumper design observation.... the punched holes under the grille that were introduced in the 1975 model are completely useless from a cooling point of view. The openings are almost completely blocked by the bumper reinforcement. In my opinion the openings were an engineering justification for a design idea to get into production.... by somebody in upper management.
 
Jav, I am truly humbled. You fixed the factory flaws in the bumper stamping.
You are a very, very, strange man. I am glad to have broken bread with you.
 
Need a favor....

Seems like we lost a bit of trim somewhere...

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it’s the script “Chrysler” emblem that goes on the driver’s side headlight door.

Please PM me if you have one you’d like to part with.

thanks.

j
 
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Progress last night. Hadn’t been to the shop at night in over a year. But the quiet time really allows me to focus. Here’s some of those results.

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First time out in the sun since she got her new paint. Coming together. Nice to see both mopars in the sun.

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Got the roof trim on but need to call Mr Fastener for some new clips as the ones on there are just too old.

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Right rear door outer sweep in. What a PIA to get it to look good. Painted the little triangles too.

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Ran the seals a little longer on the rears to close up the gap some. I had the material so what the hell. One more custom detail on the beast.

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Put the trunk lock cover and rear name plates in.

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Right rear door. Door handles should be coming in next.

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Drivers side from the front.

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New look really working it in the sun.

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Bird’s eye view over the hood of my beeper. She looks rightfully proud.
 
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I'm probably the only person in the world who would casually look at the front bumper and think, Hmmm... something wrong there.:lol:
$2,900.
 
More progress:

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Door handles in on both sides and inner dot panels on in the front pair

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We lost the partial charge we put in last month so I’m vacuuming out the rest and recharging to look for any leaks

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Really happy I painted the hood. Really adds to the car’s overall engine compartment look. .... once I clean it up.
 
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Lucked out again. After hunting at a few paint shops, I found an almost exact match of the pinstripe decal for my NYB proto Salon edition...... at Discount Auto Parts.

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I couldn’t have found a closer match if I tried.

Now to make the ends....

luckily I have a good set of reference pictures from this thread.

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One side.....

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Self explanatory

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Start. Used 3/4” masking tape to set space/offset for stripes. Not really liking it very much but it does look correct.

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More

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More..... almost there

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And.... one side done.

Before I head home for dinner break, some observations.

Rear quarter actually tapers about a 1/4 inch down to duck the side marker lights.

Bottom of fender is, of course, a subtle curve to accentuate both the skeg line and the outward bulge. Hard to hold a diminishing curve at arms length.

Believe it or not I found that to be the hardest part. The curve at the bottom of the rear door was pretty well defined and short enough that I could hold a pretty even offset at working arms length. The rear fender ended up having to be done twice as I messed up some and had to start again.

Cleaned and re-installed the front fender “New Yorker” emblems before I left.

More later.
 
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