[roger1]

Originally Posted by gtohurstjudge

A couple of things to consider.......first of all, the factory fit on the
rear bumper was a little lower than the way you have it on your car. If you lower it
a little it will look better because then the gaps between the light bezels and the deck lid, the light bezels and the bumper, and the bumper ends and the quarter panels will all be pretty much the same......it should look like this picture......second, although everybody seems to paint the master cylinder cast iron, they were painted black from the factory. Your car is looking gorgeous! I'm
glad I was able to help on the master cylinder washers.

Like all the rest of the gaps on the car, I adjusted the bumper how I thought it looked the best to me and didn't even look at the specs in the assembly manual.
After your post, I looked up the specs for the bumper to body gaps and you are right, the minimum gap from the deck lid to the top of the bumper is .55 inch while mine is about a 1/4". The next thing I did was search photos of '69s with google and noticed that probably half or more of the photos I saw looked like they would have less than 1/2" at the center.
So then yesterday I went out and studied the look of mine more for a while. Here's photos I took of the top gap at eye level with the lens of the camera set at normal with no wide angle or zoom:







I then dug out an old photo of the rear of the car as it was when I bought it. I don't believe the bumper had ever been off since it left the factory. At least it had never been adjusted anyway as there were only a single set of washer marks where the frame bolts were.



It may have been set just a bit lower than I have it now but barely and certainly still well less than 1/2" gap in the center.

But the bottom line for me is how I think it looks and I think I like it better the way I have it than if I lowered it for the center gap to be .55 to .67 in spec range.
When looking at the bumper while standing up and looking down at it, I tend to see the top of the tail light bezels above the chrome strip and judge the gap from that. So to my eye, the gaps look more consistent across the entire bumper with having about 1/4" at the center than it would set at 1/2". If I were to lower the bumper, I wouldn't move it any more than 1/8" for sure.