After having the episode with the front bumper earlier due to the damage that was sustained on the inner bumper before I ever got the car, I had to do some things to ready this bumper to be installed again, in as straight a manner as possible. There were a couple of things I had to do in order to do this. The first thing was to cut/clean the threads on the two stud plates since they were covered in surface rust that made it more than difficult to screw down the nuts. This was done with a simple die and some WD40. I had to also straighten the edges of the bracket where the studs were located but I cut the threads first since the die holder was too big to be rotated between the studs. Once the studs' threads were cut, I straightened out the tabs and made each bracket ready to be reinstalled. As stated before, the front bumper comes in two pieces. The inner bumper was the problem area, and the heaviest of the two. After separating the two bumper sections I took a sledgehammer and beat the shit out of the inner bumper at the spot where the brackets sit in order to straighten the inner bumper as much as possible. I knew I wouldn't get the inner bumper completely straight, plus the mounts in the car's frame were also compromised due to the accident. Because of this I figured I'd have to add some washers on one or more studs for spacers to mount the inner bumper at a level point across the front of the car. To help make things easy to hang the inner bumper with the bumper I went ahead and tack welded the passenger side bracket to the inner bumper. I did this to hold the bracket in place while still giving me the option to break the small welds if need be to move the bracket. I centered the bracket on the slotted holes before welding the thing in place. I then hung the inner bumper from the passenger side bracket, holding it in place with a couple of nuts. I inserted the driver's side bracket and held it in place with a couple of nuts. I had to add some washers to one of the studs on the passenger side bracket. Tightening the top nuts on the studs was plenty to hold the inner bumper to the mounts with the bottom nuts being just a small addition to the support. One of the brackets doesn't have a nut on it due to not having enough nuts in house. After tightening everything, the inner bumper was pretty solid. Now it was time for the outer bumper. Unlike the inner bumper, the outer bumper wasn't distorted nor were the mounting points on the edge of the inner bumper. This allowed me to just slide the outer bumper onto the inner bumper and lined up the bolt holes, starting with the carriage bolts. I had five new carriage bolts to insert, spread across the bumper evenly to ensure that its in place solidly. Only one carriage bolt didn't line up perfectly and needed a little reaming with the drill on the inner bumper hole to allow the bolt to fully insert. With that, the nuts and washers on each bolt went on and secured the outer bumper to the inner bumper. Afterward the row of regular hex head bolts were screwed in place through the outer bumper into the snap on thread pieces on the inner bumper. With that I had the outer bumper fully secured to the inner bumper, lined up properly, not leaning or otherwise uneven. Other than the rubber strip that goes on the bumper, I will be ready to move on. As can be seen in the pic one of the signal light fixtures will need a new lens, not a big deal but it is something that'll need to be addressed. From here I'll be moving on to the tailgate to see if I can get it mounted. I would've mounted the rear bumper but I don't have the bumper mounts/brackets for the rear bumper so I'll have to try and source a pair of mounts to hang that piece. Until then I'll try the tailgate. If I can't find any mounts for the rear bumper I may have to fabricate a pair from some heavy angle iron or even a pair of mounts removed from another truck or older car.
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May 2023
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