Yes, I have begun to love the truck too. I think I made a pretty good buy and I have already made some good progress on it.

About the rust. We have been having some pretty darn bad west coast weather and I have not been able to sand and epoxy prime the truck. I have been keeping it covered and the slight rust that is starting to show through the primer is still very minor. I checked a small area underneath and it will be very easy to sand it off in preperation for the primer.

About the step bumper. Maybe they were a west coast thing. I have seen many old trucks with similar custom bumpers as mine. It is obviously made to fit just on that truck and is quite functional for towing. Though I will enlarge the bolts it is attached to the frame with, they seem a bit small for anything but a small trailer right now. But it is a fact that I have not seen any fixed up trucks with the step bumpers on the web. Anybody here have one besides me? I thought maybe you guys were taking them off opting for the smaller rear bumper, but maybe it is rarer than I thought?

These bumpers seem dealer options to me. I have seen too many that look the same for them to all be custom jobs.

54 3100 with 235
62 flatbed dump C60 with 261