What have you done to your Bronco today? (v.2)

[Gunnibronco]

Thanks guys. I'm really happy with it. It's drying overnight & we'll drop it into the truck tomorrow, and put the hardtop back on.

The half-cab Bronco is not mine. It's my friend's. Their family owned a Ford dealership in Center, CO. The owner (the oldest living Ford dealership owner) passed away a few years ago. That 66 Bronco was the parts truck for the dealership. The also have a model T & a 21 Lincoln from the estate.

[Peter Werlin]

I was just looking at a 10-12 page brochure from 1966 that talked about how great the Bronco was going to be as a parts truck and construction supervisor truck among many other uses. Really cool. Thanks, p

[Jesus_man]

Cage looks nice Chad! And that stocker cream puff :drool:! What is the last name of the folks who owned the dealer? Center wasn't really my stomping grounds, but there's a chance I may know them as we have family who live out there.

Peter, the bolts will surface soon! Always the last place you look... :-)

[Gunnibronco]

Delbert Bevan was the dealership owner's name. Nadine is his daughter's name (there are other children, I just don't know them). Seems like if you are from Center, you'd probably know everyone from Center.

[Jesus_man]

Doesn't ring a bell with my, but I'll bet my Uncle and my Dad know 'em. Yeah, Center isn't all that big. Probably 33% of Gunnison.

[Gunnibronco]

Got the cage and top back on the Bronco, but not bolted down. I warped the cage a bit. The last thing I welded was the 6x 45* gussets at the middle of the cage. I was tired of welding, it had been a long day, and I should have slowed down. I did alternate sides frequently, but really should have stopped & let it completely cool a few times. The middle uprights are now higher than the floor of the truck, and it pulled the front & rear legs towards the middle. Basically, it bowed the long side hoops at the middle cage upright.

I played with my Port-a-power a little and I'll easily push the cage to where it belongs, just hope it doesn't pull on my floor too bad. I'm going to cut some heavy backing plates to bolt through, instead of using washers under the truck.

If its too bad, I might have to take it to the bodyshop and see if we can bend it with the frame rack or maybe chain it to the floor and use pull posts or jacks. I hope that is not necessary.

[Gunnibronco]

Got the cage temporarily bolted in place last night. I'm going to the hardware store to buy all the hardware today, and I have to make a couple more backing plates. I had to use my Port-a-power to push the front & rear legs to their proper place. Pushing the front & rear legs into place, pulled the middle legs down closer to the floor. I was able to bolt the middle legs down without a shim.

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Then I bolted the top down. I realized the right side of the cage was sitting too close to the top, near the top of the passenger door frame. So I set my Port-a-power pushing across the front of the cage. I did some "stress relief" with my favorite BFH, and let it sit overnight. My truck is pretty out of whack from being rolled, and having broken & homemade body mounting points. But all in all it came out nice. I'll see how far the cage moved overnight. Or I should say, I'll see how my tub moved overnight. My door gaps have changed, and my doors were actually opening & closing better with the Port-a-power inplace last night.

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[Kinder]

I do believe I need a port-a-power now.

Dropped about 40lbs from BSD's overall weight, hard to believe I know, I removed the muffler tonight and added the 3" van exhaust I picked up a while back with the nice bends and side exit. Hopefully the turbo will spool faster now and I just might eke out a little more MPGs.

[Gunnibronco]

Port-a-powers are awesome. You won't need it often, but when you do. I'm going to have to trim the top a little so the cage doesn't bang on the passenger side. I'm not sure what happened, but there is only 3/8" clearance, I know it will hit on the dirt roads.

Today, I finished bolting in the cage with new hardware. I need 2 longer bolts I'll grab tomorrow. Also got my seats, new seat belts, center console, hi-lift, shovel & axe, speakers, and ammo can storage bolted/strapped in. Welded a cracked window frame. Finally, I reworked my rear gate shock brackets, hopefully they won't hit, its close.

Now on to the gas tank. Elk season starts Saturday!

[Peter Werlin]

Located 4 seatbelt bolts along with the rubber and metal washers that come with them for the 1967! Could never find them at a Bronco supply place so went the Mustang route. They came off an older mustang and are the hex bolt type. Glad to finally get them. Peter

[Rox Crusher]

Installed some dynamat and some other super high tech adhesive backed high density cellular foam insulation sheeting on the inside of the top to cut down on noise and help with insulation.

A HUGE THANKS TO LANDSHARK FOR DONATING THESE LEFTOVERS FROM HIS INCREDIBLE 76 RANGER BUILD !

Took it for a spin and can already tell the difference and still need to add the headliner.

[Gregg]

Beefed up the horns with some patch welding and then some 2x4 1/4" steel tubing. Then ped on some recovery hooks. Now guys can pull me out/up stuff without using my axle housing. I did box myself out on attaching the bumper nuts. However, I can drop a long bolt from the top and it'll go through the bumper, tubing and through the bottom of the bumper. It's not going anywhere.

[Rox Crusher]

Shawn, those look great !

[Justin]

Agree, very clever solution. I'm glad you were able to keep the stock bumpers, they look good on your rig.

[Jesus_man]

They look great with a stock bumper! I'd keep an eye on the bottom of that frame just to make sure they stay in place after some tugs.

[Eck]

Got the hard top put back on and ready for the snow. I was also able to get a small list of things accomplished the last few days to FINALLY get it driveable again:

1. Replaced the U Joints and CV joint on the rear drive shaft that had broken off. With a new flange from Viperwolf1, re-installed the rear drive shaft.
2. Replaced the inline fuel filter and put gas in the tank. I also moved the inline fuel pressure guage and I am getting around 7psi now. I also installed a new mechanical pump that JEGS swapped out for my burned out Carter P4070. I haven't driven it too much since, but I have been able to drive it a couple miles without stalling!
3. Replaced the shifter bushings on my 3 speed shifter. I was getting some grinding going into 2nd and it now shifts very smoothly.
4. Adjusted my doors so that I don't have to slam quite as hard. Hoping that eventually, the new door seals will soften up.

At this point.. I am just glad I can drive it. Still have a couple of little things to clean up and get fixed before I probably start in on the wiring harness, dash rebuild, and stereo install in December.

[Jesus_man]

Nice work Eck! With a little help from someone who has a little know-how, you are going to be getting your hands dirty more often! Plus, the money you saved over paying someone can go towards some cool upgrades instead!

[hockeydad4-22]

When I first got everything back together, Drews rig ran fine, but smoked and seemed to burn a lot of fuel, then weds evening she crapped out so tonight I ran the trouble codes and found out that the vacuum was not connected to the MAP sensor....

Slipped the vac on and now she runs like a top.

So I put some clamps on it just to be on the safe side

[Jesus_man]

Greg - is that the solution to all the recent power problems?

[Rox Crusher]

installed my refurbished wiper cover, visors, and rear view mirror with map lights

kind of considering this instead of the cardboard headliner. what do you think ?

http://www.broncohut.com/Home/tabid/39/ ... fault.aspx

I saw it in person yesterday and the craftsmanship is top notch as usual

[Rox Crusher]

oh yeah, scored a set of seats from 1987 Mustang GT on ebay

trying to decide which way to go with upholstery

I'm thinking the blue explorer pattern would look good with my rig ?

explorer interior.jpg

[Eck]

Rox- that headliner is real nice. Definitely a step up from the cardboard. I say do it!

Today I drove down to Kinder's to have him help me do a once over in the Bronco. Good news is I made it there and back without stalling. I think those woes are behind me finally!

Kirk was able to help me with a couple quick fixes, namely the heater. After looking things over, I've got a short list if things to do but overall not much.

The one thing that needs attention soon are the bushings. Need to replace the C, radius arm, and trac bar bushings. Would anyone be interested in a tech day on this? I'd be glad to host- probably some time after the first of the year.

Thanks again for your help Kirk!

[Justin]

I'm happy to help if you set something up!

[akaFrankCastle]

I drove it for the first time in six months. A couple quick pumps of the skinny pedal and three short cranks later it fired right up. I gotta tell you, I had a huge grin on my face at 5:30am driving I-25 home.

I then used my 42 year old Bronco to haul the batteries from my 10 year old Super Duty to the parts store for a trickle charge. Dang thing was as dead as could be when I went to fire it up.

[ZOSO]

yep gotta love super dutys for that.



Welcome home!!!!!!!

[socofn]

Drove the crap out of it for the last 8days during elk season. Did not take and elk but had a great time. The guys ridding 4wheelers were jealous when it was 0 outside. JP

[Justin]

I drove it for the first time in six months. A couple quick pumps of the skinny pedal and three short cranks later it fired right up. I gotta tell you, I had a huge grin on my face at 5:30am driving I-25 home.

I then used my 42 year old Bronco to haul the batteries from my 10 year old Super Duty to the parts store for a trickle charge. Dang thing was as dead as could be when I went to fire it up.

Welcome home! Good to have you back!

[Rox Crusher]

I have been wanting to do this for a long time but just got around to it.

As several others have done, I made some inserts out of 2"x4" rectangular tubing. These go in the end of the frame to strengthen it. The inserts are about 8" long and on one end you have to cut and re-weld it so it will match the countour of the bottom part of the frame.

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You also need to make some shims to take up the slack between the sidewalls of the frame and the vertical walls of the insert. I used 3/16"x2" flatbar, drilled a half inch hole, and then welded them to the outside walls of the inserts. These shims keep the sidewall of the frame from collapsing onto the insert when you tighten the hell out of the horizontal mounting bolt.

Then I made a stiffner bar out of 2"x2" heavy wall square tubing. This got welded between the inserts where the frame is notched for access to the original bumper mounting bolts. The inserts already eliminated access to these bolts so I decided that adding this stiffener couldn't hurt.

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Then I mounted some chrome tow hooks from mid 90s F250/F350.

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One thing I would do differently next time is to weld nuts on the inside floor of the insert so that you could just thread the mounting bolts in.

As it is now, you have to drop the rear mounting bolt for the tow hook down from inside and put the lockwasher and nut on from the bottom.

This is because you have to put the bumper on and drop a carraige bolt all the way down through the bumper, frame, insert..........and out through the bottom.....................which of course eliminates access to the bolt head so you can't tighten it. I got lucky and one is real tight and the other is kinda tight so I will have to keep an eye on it.

I am now ready to pull all my neighbors' 4 door Jeep Rubicons out of the snow banks this winter !

[Gregg]

How does it feel to be a "one upper"? The chrome tow hooks don't look as gay as I thought they would and I like the shim idea over the stacked washers. Also, that crossbar should make up for the other areas lacking in craftsmanship. Nice work Rox.

[Jesus_man]

I like it Rox and the added cross-member can't be a bad thing. You sure you want to scratch those shiny tow hooks?