Thank you.

I've stated 100s of times that a person has to know what they want their vehicle to do or be so they can build it to meet their expectations. This truck has 2 specific goals.

#1, Its going to be my primary winter driver (we have ice, snow, and they heavily salt the roads here). It will need to survive under those conditions. There is a reason it is a functioning 4x4 truck.

#2, I want a cool old truck to drive. If I can get 15 years out of it, it will probably outlast my driving time. I really don't care what shape it will be in when I get done with it.

Those goals place some pretty hard challenges on this build process. The things some people feel are important are not with me, and some very important things that others wouldn't bother with really need to be done with this truck. The last installment I had a functioning radiator and radiator support, but the front sheet metal was propped up on cement blocks and wood. Can't really drive it like that, so the next step was to attach the sheet metal to the radiator support. Unfortunately, I don't have any really good pictures of that radiator support, so you get to see a few mixed up pictures that should give you the picture of what that looked like.
Pic 1, You have seen this one already. A few other things I want to point out. The headlights in this era of trucks (and cars) are mounted to the front sheet metal by the use of headlight buckets that were screwed to the fender, head light assembly, or in this case, the front panel. Usually, the back side of those buckets resided in the wheel well and were not protected from road debris or things like the salt used on current roads during the winter. Usually those buckets received a lot of damage over the years, and finding good replacements is difficult. Its is kind of hard to see, but the passenger side of the front panel on my truck was damaged at some point in time (probably the same time the roof got damaged). That damage has distorted the opening in the front panel, and probably destroyed the headlight bucket on that side of the truck. I only had one headlight bucket. For a Dodge truck, used replacement headlight bucket runs $100 each, when you can find them. In my case, even if I found one, the opening is so distorted, it wouldn't fit anyway. Then I wasn't real happy about the idea of no protection for the bucket or the front panel, given this truck would see a lot of winter driving.
One more thing I want to point out from this picture is inside of the grille opening, beside the aluminum radiator on the left side (of the pic). You can see a sheet metal panel standing vertically behind the front panel. If you look, you can see a vertical row of 3 bolt holes on each side of the grille opening, the side on the left of the picture has a bolt in the top and the bottom hole. That original panel you see through the grille opening was bolted to the front panel and that was bolted to the radiator support to hold the front panel on the truck (there is a piece like this on each side of the radiator).

About the time I was pondering how I was going to do this, my son conned me into going to the nearest LKQ pull a part to help him find stuff for his project. I was looking for seats for the 49. What I found was a modern CJ Jeep. Interestingly enough, I discovered the headlights in that Jeep were mounted on plastic buckets that were bolted to a flat panel behind the bucket. Those plastic buckets had the adjusting screws attached, and the headlights were the same size as the headlights in my truck. $7.50 bought both headlight buckets, and all the mounting hardware. I didn't see any reason I couldn't do the same setup in my truck. It would protect and mount the headlight, make it adjustable, and protect the front panel sheet metal in one step with modern stuff I can still buy.

Pic 2, I reversed the order, sorry. #2 shows the flat sheet metal behind the headlight opening in the front panel. That piece of sheet metal is a separate piece then the new sheet metal shown inside of the grille opening. The piece inside the grille opening is a replacement for the original piece that was there. All 3 vertical bolts hold that piece to the front panel. There is a similar piece on the other side of the grille opening. At the bottom of the grille opening you can see the original bottom filler panel bolted in place. Those bolts are all 1/4" bolts in original holes in the front panel. Originally those were probably screw head bolts, and would have been covered by either chrome or painted grille bars. On the vertical piece you can see it is plug welded to a black painted part, that part is the original lower section of the Dakota radiator support. Both sides and the bottom pieces bolted to the front panel and are all welded to the radiator support.
Pic 3, This probably should have been posted 1st, but anyway. This is the best picture of the radiator support and the headlight inner cover. Of course, this pic is the inside of the drivers side of the front panel, with the fender off. The vertical piece with the formed holes just to the right of center is the Dakota radiator support. The radiator mounting bushing that is used to bolt this through the hole in the frame is on the front side of that structure, and the bottom section wraps around to the other side. The headlight cover is formed sheet metal that is about 2" inside of the outer surface of the front panel, that is the depth of the plastic headlight holding bracket. That keeps the headlight in pretty much the original depth as the original Dodge truck was. That headlight panel is also welded to the radiator support. At the very top of the picture you can see bolts screwed into same holes that the fender uses to bolts to the front panel. The fender mounting bolts sandwich this sheet metal between the fender and the front panel.
Pic 4, This pic was taken much later, but it shows what the bottom of the radiator support looks like from the top. The two holes towards the right of the pic are where rubber plugs sat in those holes and the plastic studs from the radiator fit into the rubber. The top of the radiator was held down to keep the studs engaged into the holes.