Saturday I decided to get the Jeep put back together.   Splash apron looks like it has leprosy but at least is not rusting as fast.

I did a hardware store run and they had two different sizes of tinnerman nuts.  One was bigger than the originals and one was smaller. So I bought both just to be safe.

The smaller nuts were too small so we will use the larger.  These fit nicely.

The holes in the splash apron were oversized when new and have only gotten larger with rust.  So I used these comically large fender washers.  Nobody is going to see it anyway.

Apron is now firmly attached and a LOT better supported than it was.  Too bad about the black paint but stopping the rust was more important to me than looks.

Just for giggles I tried to straighten the bumper with a BFH.  This did not work at all.

Instead I just bolted it back onto the car.   I used new bumper bolts I scored off eBay for about $2 each.  The number of bolts used seems a bit much.  Two would probably have held it just as well.

You can see here how kinked the bumper is.  YouTube is full of videos of people fixing this using a chain around a tree stump.  I decided to try something gentler.

This is what I came up with.  A pipe wrench with blocks of wood to protect the bumper and spread the load.  It actually worked a bit.

Still not great but better.  I was starting to twist the bumper so I stopped.   With the fresh hardware I can pop this off when I get access to a press and do this right.