[HO455]

Got busy the last two days installing my swap meet finds. Lots of visual upgrades. First up was the rear bumper remount. As I mentioned way back in the thread the rear of the frame is tweaked. The passenger side is pulled down about 3/8 of an inch. The result of that is the rear bumper fits poorly at best. (Photo 1) It also appears that the bumper is bent in the middle. Most likely from hitting a trailer tongue repeatedly when trying to hook it up. The ends of the frame where the bumper bolts to are both cracked. (Photo 2) So my solution is to remove those tabs and install step bumper brackets so I can move the bumper around and square it up to the body. It went pretty well after cutting the tabs off I had to trim the passenger side bracket to get it high enough as well as make a notch for the outer bracket bolt. After that it was just clamp the inners to the frame, bolt the bumper to them for one last check, then lay underneath and drill six 1/2" holes. While catching as many of the metal chips in my shirt as possible (saves clean up time later) The drivers side only required a notch to clear the outer bracket bolt. (Photo 3) I ended up using the outer brackets as they are slightly longer. However the outer bracket frame bolts and the center bolts for the inners I drilled ended up being too close together. I probably could of deleted the center bolts as the bumper will never have any real strain on it like a step bumper could, but the holes were drilled so I decided to use the center bolts and to make spacers to allow the outer brackets to sit over the center bolts. I put 3/16" spacers between the back of the bumper and the brackets to gain some more space in the center of the bumper and the body. Happily I was able to get it leveled out and most of the bend in the middle removed.