[Mods: feel free to move this to the diesel forums if it makes more sense there, I assure you my feelings won't be hurt]
Yeah, my goal will be zero bondo. It is, coincidentally, time for me to learn lead work.
Actually, I'm only half kidding on that.
I've been to South America (close to Central America--Peru/bolivia) and I'm not surprised what I found here. It's absolutely amazing where and how much bondo they used. On a perfectly flat apron, I picked off a piece no less than 1/8" thick. That's more work to get the bondo smooth than I can imagine! At least the bondo worked as a sort of body armor.
Speaking of scary repairs, on our old dump truck we are about ready to send the frame out. When I took the rear spring off the drive axle ont he left side, the front hanger had literally no steel holding it together. The pin was rusted into a cracked hanger and that somehow held the thing together. What's truly amazing is that this truck spent it's life working on a gold mine in Utah, and was retired because the engine blew a piston. From the looks of the wear, it soldiered on for years with that front spring hanger messed up. I know that empty it had around 12,000 lbs on that drive axle.
Nomis: those are "Multi Mile" "super traction" tires. I know they don't make them any more, but the pattern was sold to someone else. We bought a new one less than six months ago. I'll have to go check who the new manufacturer is, but I think we would have been able to get it through a Big-O.
Dan