Next I pulled the heater assembly off the truck as it was full of mouse-nests, and had a leaky heater-core. From the day I bought this truck in May, I noticed that there were two holes in the passenger inner fender, but didn't know what they were. Until today! Looks like old-Roy had removed the heater core once before. (No need to remove the inner fender...Not the best way to do it, but certainly easier.)
I'm not sure HOW he made the holes in the inner-fender. Looks like bullet holes! LOL
The heater assembly is still sitting on my work bench, so no more updates on that for now. Next I moved onto some smaller items, the first of which is the reverse lights. I had ordered some new wire pig-tails from LMC to replace the mouse-eaten original ones, but they didn't fit. After many phone calls and emails, LMC finally admitted their error and refunded my money. I ended up ordering a set of replacement reverse buckets (with the wires!) from Classic Parts.
Bingo!
After the lights were working, I figured it was time to straighten the bashed in front bumper. I don't know what happened to it, but it looks like this thing was used as a battering ram. Because of that I decided to use a highly precise and patented method of straightening metal...
I don't have any pics of the final stage, but once the front bumper was as straight as a wet noodle, (LOL) it needed just a bit more tweaking, so we "nudged" the passenger side a couple of times against a big ash tree. It actually didn't come out too bad. After that it also got the acid wash/clear coat treatment. If you look closely at that last pic, you'll see how the passenger side of the front bumper hangs down a bit more than the driver's side. It doesn't do that after the tree-nudge...
Ultimately I may replace the front bumper and repaint the rear bumper, but for now they look TONS better than they did before.