Greetings everyone, I'm currently working on bringing an '83 Camaro back to life and have a question about the front impact bar. At some point in the past the car was involved in a low speed collision (car was stopped and hit by another car in a parking garage) on the left front. This collapsed the part the impact bar mounts to and bent it upwards, some how the bumper still fits on the car though. Ive checked over the frame and core support and other then some rust everything seems to be straight, thankfully.

So my question is, can I temporarily remove the impact bar from the car while I work on other things and not compromise the structure of the car? The cars still a driver while I'm working on the suspension, body and interior. I know ill need to fix the mount before the v8 goes in, but can the car get by without it for a while?

 

A nice heavy chunk of steel solidly bolted to both front frame rails with no less than 8 8mm bolts, and you're asking if it's structural? It's there to keep you from dying in a collision. Your call.

 

Absolutely I know what its there for, and believe me I have no intension of leaving it off the car or driving it much without it. Mostly moving it around and possibly to the body shop. Question is will it damage the car moving it around without it. Figured id ask and see what others think. Its definitely going to be repaired, and I'm honestly disgusted that a body shop thought leaving it like this was ok. Apparently the body shop her insurance paid for thought throwing a new bumper cover and header panel on was "good enough".

 

You might be further ahead to pull the damage with the bumper in place. Moving the car without the impact bumper shouldn't be a problem, but I probably wouldn't drive it that way. It's tying the front frame rails together the same as other structural members of the car.

 

Thanks for confirming that for me, pretty much what I thought but wasn't entirely sure. So ill be moving that up the priority list and planing out a way to repair the mount. Always an adventure what we find in these cars isn't it?

 

Just to clarify... What I mean by pulling the damage before removing the impact bar is that if the bar was pushed back on one side, it probably tweaked the other side too. Your goal to fixing the damage is to reverse the forces that created the damage. If you remove it before pulling the bar back out, you'll have to pull the frame horns separately, and try to make them line up with the bumper again when it goes back together. Vs pulling the bumper before hand, in theory anyway it should be easier to reverse the damage and the bar will bolt back up . Theoretically. FWIW.