Tail Gate Handle and Bumpers

The old tailgate bumper was hard as a rock. It was easy to pop out and put in the new one.

You can see in the below photo that I also installed the lower bumper. I had to remove this though because after I put the tailgate back on, I found that the gate would not close. There is no way this bumper every worked on this truck.

Here is my original handle. Missing screws and no gasket.

Here is my new gasket, screws and handle bumper.

After removing the handle screws, there are two pins to pull out to remove the handle. The bumper was not used. There should be a hole for it to go in between the handle and the handle housing, but there was not. This bumper does not fit this truck. Glad it was cheap.

I cleaned up the inside of the handle with the wire wheel.

I used some gasket silicone to hold the gasket in place.

I put it back together and below is how it looks.

New Rear Bumper and License Plate Setup

I "needed" a new rear bumper setup.

The old bumper (above) was from a 1993 or so Ford F150. It served it's purpose, but it was not the look I wanted in this iteration of my rebuild. Instead I am going for the original rear bumper. In doing so, I also need brackets and everything else that fits it.

LMC Truck has a nice schematic (shown below). I ordered the license plate screws (#7) and the bumper bolts (#3) shown in the image below. I want to make a quick comment about the LMC bolt kit (#3) below.... It is NICE! Very nice. The bolt heads are a mirror chrome finish and were individually wrapped in paper towel to prevent any damage.

The LMC Truck bumper (above) was out of stock when I wanted it, so instead I went to Dennis Carpenter to get both the bumper and the bumper brackets/bracket bolt set.

 

The first thing that I noted, the LMC Truck diagram (at top of post) shows the brackets backwards. The notches on the brackets should be facing away from each other (see above and below pictures)

I found that there was a trick to getting everything aligned correctly. NO NOT tighten any bolt/nuts until you have every bolt in every hole.

I started with the brackets to frame first. I put each of the four bolts in and put the nuts in place. I only turned the but a couple turns, no more. They will be sloppy at this point, that is good.

Next I aligned the bumper to the brackets. One at a time I put each bolt in each hole and put the nut on, just a turn or two. The last bumper bolt was the toughest. I used a large screw driver through the bolt hole to pull it in place. Once in place I held the bracket, removed the screw driver and jammed the bolt in the hole. Only after every single bolt was in place did I tighten anything. I started with the bumper first, tightened each bolt/nut and then moved on to the brackets to frame bolts.

The bumper is in place and I think it looks great! Next I installed the license plate lights.

There is a notch on the light housing that corresponds to the notch on the bumper. However, that only woks on one side. I hand to grind out the teeth on the passenger side light so that it fit in the notch.

The wiring was simple enough. The male connector on the lights fit right into the female connector that I had installed in the wire harness previously.

I installed the license plate screws and was done. Below is the finished product.

Tail / Stop Light Lens and Door Replacement and Restoration

As you can see, my light light housings needed some attention. I removed the old bulbs and scraped the gaskets off.

I used a wire wheel to remove the bits of stuck on gasket, paint and dirt. The holes that the lenses will attach to were rounded out. The screws will not tighten in these holes. To fix this, I used a punch to pound the metal back. See below, the hole is rounded out. Now scroll to the next pic.

See below, this is after I pounded the hole so it is no longer rounded. This will give the lens screws some metal to grab on to.

I then used some gasket silicone around the edges inside edges, see the photo below. This is not to seal anything, it is to hold the gasket in place.

 Below you can see that I put the house in and how the gasket is in place. This gasket will not stay in place or stay to the shape of the lens without the silicone. I also put in a new bulb. I used some electrical contact grease in the bulb and in the wire sockets behind the housing (not shown).

Here is the finished housing with new lenses and doors.