Things That Go Bump In The Night

Satisfied with the new grille opening, I decided that the original front bumper needed the heave ho. Several reasons dictated this event. First, the plastic upper and lower portions were looking shabby. The black upper was turning a charcoal gray color. Armorall and other treatments were temporary and not really much good anyway. The second reason was lighting. One thing, about this truck, that has never been satisfactory, are the factory headlights. That is giving them the benefit of the doubt. The lighting is the worst of any vehicle that I've ever owned. I ordered a pair of KC 6 inch, round, driving lamps. I do not want them on a light bar or mounted to the top of the bumper. The new bumper will have two 6 inch holes in it so I can put the lamps inside of it. To my eye, this will look cleaner. I am still going for a more heavy duty look but, again, I want to avoid the off road, rock crawler look. While I was at the metal supply, getting the material for the grille, I grabbed half a sheet of 11 gauge steel. Back in the shop, I made another cardboard mockup. The thicker steel does pose a minor problem. Unless you're Hercules, you aren't going to cut it with snips. All the cuts were made with the torch or a cutoff wheel in my power saw. I hesitate to call it a Skilsaw, since it was a freebee, off brand saw. It lasted through about 4 or 5 feet of this abuse before copious amounts of smoke belched out of the motor housing. So, back I goes to The BORG and buy a new Skilsaw. I have a worm drive model 77 but, it too, needs help because of quite a few years of horrible abuse. So, I chose a lesser model, sidewinder style. I'll try not to kill it, but I do need to repair the old workhorse. I made each piece of the new bumper with one, factory cut edge. That way, I could use that edge to align the ragged, torch cut edge of the adjoining piece and, with luck, get a nice straight seam so it would look as if the bumper was formed in a press brake rather that a bunch of weldments stuck together. So far, my plan has worked and the seams are all nice and flat as well as being straight. All total, there will be about a dozen separate pieces going into the completed assembly. The rest of the job will be pretty boring. Lots of cutting, welding and, most of all, grinding and filing. At this point, I have finished all of the cutting and have most of the pieces welded together. The welding and grinding is tedious and filthy, but I hope to have it done soon