Bill -
I took your advice to repair the bent / crushed pipes on my heater core. It was too easy! Thanks for giving me the encouragement to make the repair.
I gently drove a deep 3/8" socket into the pipes to round the ends and to remove the dents. Then pecked on the pipes with the socket inside to finish the job. I polished up the tips to make sure that nothing was hiding under the oxidation. I sat the heater core in a pail of water and puffed a little air pressure into it. No bubbles.
I'll connect the hoses to the pipes with flat spring clamps instead of the gear driven clamps that I used before. The spring clamps are in the pics below. Not looking for a lot of heat with my 160deg thermostat, but at least antifreeze won't be dripping onto my wife's foot.
These pics are a pretty dramatic change from the pics in my original post:
> Crushed pipe repaired> Pipes repaired end view> Pipes repaired> Pipe repair in progress
