The rear bumper is installed. I've been working on this car for so long now, I sometimes forget how much went into the car. I have several hours into cleaning things up, removing, or at least improving, some of the dings or dents as well as removing overspray paint, a little polishing, and general clean-up.
I actually have three bumpers for the wagon, the one it came with which had nice chrome, but had been hit and needed work. A second one I picked up off of a parts car that was in better shape, but not by a lot. And a third one which was listed as NOS, but I suspect was just rechromed at some point and then left to sit. This third bumper is the one I have opted to use in spite of the fact that it does have numerous pits in the chrome as it shines nicely and is straight.
The bumper brackets were in good shape with just light surface rust, so they were sanded, primed with Eastwood Rust Encapsulator and then painted with Eastwood Extreme Chassis Black which I've had good success applying with foam brushes.
The back-up lights and license plate lights all needed to be cleaned and polished up. Everything was caked in Texas dirt and most had overspray where someone had painted the car a darker blue, but must have taped off almost nothing.
One of the really cool additions was a set of NOS Ford over-the-counter bumper steps. I picked them up years ago and it's great to finally see them on the car.
Before I could install the bumper, I also had to clean up the bumper fill panels, a 3-piece set of anodized aluminum trim that actually cleaned up pretty nice. The main center piece took more then an hour to clean off oversprayed primer and paint that was down into the ribber pattern. I also decided to add the door handle while I was at it, and will be adding the door lock/rear window handle shortly so I can finally reinstall the rear glass. Inching closer.
