Charger 500 Headlight Bucket Vertical Brace

[CornDogsCharger]

HELP!!  I'm putting the Mr Norm Charger 500 together and I have run into an issue.  Does anyone have access to a headlight bucket vertical brace?  I need a measurement on what it should be. I am re-using the ones that came out of the car, but that seem too long. You have to spread the grille frame to even make them go in... and even then, they spread the opening a little more than I am comfortable with. I replaced the grille frame with an AMD piece because the one that was in the car was very rusty and bent badly. So I'm not sure if the brace is the problem or the grille frame. Anyways, the braces that I have measure 9.5in long and 2in wide. Thanks for the help!! 

Justin
"CornDog"

[hemi68charger]

Justin,,
You can give me a call.. The bracket is VERY simple in design.. Nothing to it as Creative probably also thought.. 

I sent you my phone #

Troy

[RallyeMike]

Jeff - Confirmed mine are 9.5" x 2".

I think I see the problem - the bottom grill frame steps up quite a bit more than mine. Check it vs. your old rusty one.

Mike

[CornDogsCharger]

Thanks Mike.  I'll check it out in the morning when I'm back at work.  It's driving me crazy because everything else fits so nice.  Instead of taking a hammer to the freshly painted header panel, it would probably be easier to make a new vertical brace... only shorter. 

Justin
"CornDog"

[red69superbee]

can you get new 68 coronet headlite buckets for that? or do you have to re use what you have?

[CornDogsCharger]

I checked on the headlight bezels and they were not reproduced.  The grille and bezels that I am using are originals and were sent off to Shine on Me Trim in California where they were restored.  I really need to update the restoration thread here but I always forget to 

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

Sorry, I just re-read your comment.  The buckets are not reproduced either.  You will need to find donor '68 Coronet fenders and cut away the headlight buckets.

Justin
"CornDog"

[red69superbee]

ok thanks, i have a coronet for parts, just would use new ones if i could. You sure doing a fantastic job on that blue one!!

[ws23rt]

HELP!!  I'm putting the Mr Norm Charger 500 together and I have run into an issue.  Does anyone have access to a headlight bucket vertical brace?  I need a measurement on what it should be. I am re-using the ones that came out of the car, but that seem too long. You have to spread the grille frame to even make them go in... and even then, they spread the opening a little more than I am comfortable with. I replaced the grille frame with an AMD piece because the one that was in the car was very rusty and bent badly. So I'm not sure if the brace is the problem or the grille frame. Anyways, the braces that I have measure 9.5in long and 2in wide. Thanks for the help!!  

Justin
"CornDog"

This post caught my attention because my C500 has no vertical braces in the location shown in the picture. Only diagonal braces.
Also the lower frame member is shaped differently in that the step up portion (just below where your finger is) on mine steps up to the left as opposed to stepping up to the right as in the pic.
In my case their are oval holes that are in that approximate location that could accept a brace as shown. Those holes on my car show no evidence of ever having had a bolt tightened on them.
I've had my car since it was 13 years old so it could well be that braces (if any) that were there were nixed but I should still be able to see evidence that they were there at one time.

The grill frame that you replaced?  Was it the lower?

[CornDogsCharger]

Ok, here is what I have come up with. I took cross measurments between the AMD panel and the original grille frame.  All of the measurements that I took were very close to each other. The best that I can come up with is that Creative Industries actually bent the lower bar downward to accept the bracket.

Here, you can see the AMD panel were the lower bar is pretty much straight across.



Here are a couple pictures of the original grille frame and you can see where the lower bar was bent downward right at the notch on both sides.





I hope Allen doesn't mind me using his pictures but you can clearly see that his lower bar was bent the same way. On the second picture, disregard the yellow arrow. He was commenting on where he found a hidden magnetic key box. Haha.





Does anyone else have a good straight-on photo of an original C500 grille frame? I wonder is all 500s were bent this way. Thanks for all the help!!

Justin
"CornDog"

[CornDogsCharger]

Here is one more of Allen's frame.

[Troy]

Wow! So it's easier to whack the lower grill frame into submission than to modify the skinny new brace? Way to go Creative! That's messed up...

Troy

[hemi68charger]

When I did the fitting of the bracket for my Y2 ( now Allen K's ), my grille header wasn't bent... When I messed with my former T7 C500 (Dana), I don't recall the bracket feeling like it was "forced" into position. I would say the AMD header is what it is and thus, make a vertical bracket to fit it, it is only 2 90degree bends after all with three holes drilled in it. The original header should have the holes for the attach points already.

[RallyeMike]

This is courtesy of another member here who sent me documentation photos because mine had some incorrect hardware installed. I'm a little befuddled about Creative bending stuff to fit, because this photo shows everything looking quite straight and clean. Mine looks the same as this one. 

[Charger-Bodie]

My guess is that the bracket fits tight on some ,tighter on others. And then guts adjusting carbs and changing thermostats did the rest.