Hey guys,
I'm in the process of removing my tow bar, got the spacer plates off to find it held in place by what seems to be the bumper. Do we know where abouts exactly the remaining bolts are/spanner sizes etc.? I've had a look at a few threads but not found anything that's made much sense.
The rear bumper brackets are held on (each) by 2 bolts that go through the chassis rails above the rear of the leaf spring shackles. If its a saloon there may also be a stabiliser that bolts into the section under the light clusters. All the nuts will be very difficult to remove, removed some recently can't remember the size, but you need to clean off the threads well, wire brush on drill, as much as possible to have any hope of removing them without snapping.
Yeah the rear bumper bolts are very long and will be very dirty/rusty. You'll need to clean off the threads very carefully and then put WD-40 to soak, then clean the threads off again! Then you can wind them out keeping your fingers crossed that they don't snap. If they start getting stiff, then wind back in to free off and then use more WD-40 and brushing to move the dirt again. I think the size is 13mm.
I never bothered removing the brackets from the car at first as the bolts didn't want to know so I unbolted them from the carrier bar instead. Can you not just do that?
I needed to clean the underseal off the legs though so yesterday i took the plunge and removed them. They weren't as bad ad made out. Three out of the four bolts snapped but imo that's a good thing!
It means I can replace them with something that's not 28 years old!
If the back of your car looks mine it is a bit easier to swing the ratchet though!
slide your hand horizotally in from the wheelside; easy acces to the nut and you can use a normal wirebrush to clean the threads a bit.
unbolting speaks to itself, use a wrench on the outer sides and a ratchet on the inner sides. easy peazy, don't really understand why this keeps giving problems (at V3C aswell) i might have broken a few of the bolts on the ones i took off a car (at least 13, 14 maybe even 15 bumpers) but they all went off without too much hassle or problems.
ahh cheers people, feeling confident enough to commit to it now i recon lol the cars an '84 but not even 50k on the clock so hoping the bolts will be in better shape than on other 360s..hoping...
I'll let you know what happens
ok so i got it all off no problems what so ever! BUT, the plastic bumper will now not go on as it was pretty much just the towbar holding it to the car, there are the two slidy bits on both rear wings that go in but they dont hold it on properly is there a part im missing that was replaced by the towbar when it got put on or am i just being retarded? guess i'll have to drive without a rear bumper for the time being. HALP!
nah they are fine:s are you sure? theres noway it can be held on by two small slidey clips on each side, there's nothing supporting the middle atall, surley i'm missing an original bracket or something?
The middle of the rear bumper has some 12" long metal spikey bits that go under the boot floor... take a picture of what you took off and we can point you at them
hmm i guess im missing them then I mean it'd be pretty obvious if they were there lol. here ya go, all that i had was towbar (which has two sort of brackets that go and bolt under the car) and the bumper, the wires hanging down are the number plate lights.
you'll need a rear bumper without towbar for the brackets holding the middle section up. it is mounted on the same place on the chassis beams like the towbar
why do you want to remove the towbar? simplest solution would be to bolt it back together, you could allways cut the towing arm + ball off so you're left with the beam and the mounting points
is there a part im missing that was replaced by the towbar when it got put on or am i just being retarded? guess i'll have to drive without a rear bumper for the time being. HALP! 
