Today was a day for me to start off with a load of gravel once again, still working in the garden, trying to cover up the bare ground so hopefully next year I'll be well off where I won't have to worry about trimming any grass within. I also need the gravel down so when I expand the raised beds to other areas of the garden, it will be easier to work around if there's already gravel on the ground and I don't have to spread any around existing raised bed, like now. From there I turned my attention to the El Camino. After removing the different hardware from the engine bay I wanted to try and hang the front bumper on the car. That was fun. But before that I took a few moments to add a couple of bolts to the right headlight housing and on the top body piece that goes over the grille. I wouldn't know the official names to these body parts, all I know is they needed some bolts put in to mount them solidly. The bumper has two four stud plates that go inside the bumper and are supposed to be held on by lock washers that have teeth on the inside. From there the studs would slide through two end plates on the frame that have four holes in them for inserting the studs and securing with nuts. The bumper is actually two separate sections bolted together: the inner bumper that is the heavier part that bolts to the frame and the outer bumper that is chromed out and goes on the outside for appearance more so than actually being effective. Once I was able to get the bumper up enough to line the studs up and in to put a few nuts in I stopped to look at the bumper. The bumper was pushed in from a front end collision. Being at a downward angle I would have to do some jackleg crap like shimming the bottom bolts holding the bumper up or just redo everything and be done with it. First thing I did was remove the four stud brackets, then remove the top bolts that were really easy to get to. Looking at the surface where the stud plates went showed clearly that the inner bumper metal was compromised. From here I knew I was in for a real treat. In order to remedy this mess I would have to separate the inner bumper from the outer then take a sledgehammer and beat the crap out of the inner side of the inner bumper n order to straighten out the metal enough that when I rehang the thing it won't be at a downward angle. I had to remove the heavy rubber strip from the front of the bumper in order to expose the carriage bolts that held the bottom portion of the bumper together. Another thing that showed signs of physical damage were the two mounting brackets coming rom the frame. After looking at them I determined that the effort needed to get these two places out would not help as they appeared to be secured with some kind of stud and large lock washer, plus they're in a bad spot where I can't easily beat them with the sledgehammer. While I may not be able to do anything about the frame mounts for the bumper, I'll be separating the bumper set into the two sections so I can take the inner bumper and beat the hell out of it to straighten the metal out. From there I have to use a die to re-cut the threads on the stud plates so the nuts will go on properly. Afterward I can attempt to re-hang the inner bumper, possibly having to use washers as spacers/shims to level off the inner bumper. Lastly I can re-install the outer bumper and put the bolts on afterward, having to reach around the inside to get to where the bolts would be poking into in order to apply the nuts to hold everything together. More on all of that next time.
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