The weather was awful today, with 34 degree temps and a stiff 20mph wind, but I still got to work on the 'ol beater. I spent the last few days cleaning and detailing some of my wrecking yard parts, and today I put them on.
The first thing I did was to remove both broken hood hinges and replace them with the 2 excellent ones I bought for $9 each at Pick-A-Part. Then, I installed the front marker lights that I paid $8 each for. I buffed the lenses and straightened out the bezels and hit them with some double-o steel wool. The hood opens and closes sooo nice now.
Then I moved to the rear and installed the $51 tailgate and the $6 taillights. The girl at the counter at Pick-A-Part felt bad for me and discounted the taillights because the bezels were wasted. After about 40 minutes of hammer and dolly work and some steel wool, they look pretty decent.
I'm still working on the grille, so I wasn't able to install it yet. I pulled off one of the fender extensions and plan on doing some welding on it to fix an ugly area where the camper support struts went through it. Plenty of things to do!