The mods of the driver seat are going very well. The driver seat did sit way to high on the stock mounting brackets. First, I pulled the cover & all the padding off. When the padding was off I realized I could retain the power seat back motor & the inflatable lumbar support! Sweeeeeeet! I'll loose the front & rear height motors & the motor that slides the seat forward & back, no biggie.

I cut off the lower mounting brackets & motor rack with a plasma cutter, and mounted my bronco sliders to the seat bottom. I just had to use some different pieces of square stock to make spacers to mount the sliders flat. Already bolted them in for a test fitting & it turned out perfect, just about where the stock seat height is. Tomorrow I'm going to clean up the sliders & oil them, recover & mount the seat, then I'll tap into power from the radio in the center console for the motors.

Chad

Sorry, doing it between jobs at work, didn't bring the camera. I'll try to remember to bring it tomorrow.

Chad

Got the soft top installed yesterday. It looks real GOOD. Planning a short trip into the mountains next week to see what else I need to fix. I also ordered front shoulder seat belts. Jayson

Alright, here are a couple pics of the 96 Merc Mestique seat. I got the driver seat bolted in today. I need to add power to get the motors working. There is trim panel that has the seat control buttons & a change pocket. It needs some trimming to fit. The old Bronco sliders work great. I can even push it back further than I would normally sit. With the seat pushed all the way back, I cannot push the clutch in completely.

First are a couple of the bottom of the seat after plasma cutting off the original motor assembly & mounting brackets.



Driver seat installed:

Very nice!! Good work!:)

Thanks,

I forgot a couple things, the Mestique is the same car as the Ford Contour. I know of 3 Ford Contours and none have electric seats. Just in case you run into one, the seats make a great donor. The seat width was actually about 1" narrower than the Bronco's. And the stock sliders bolted right through the remainder of the braces I cut off, in the back, the front of the sliders bolted through the front of the seat pan. You can see my pink marker on one brace, right near the holes I used to mount the sliders.

It is so comfortable, compared to my almost 40 year old driver's seat. It was way over due. The best part, the seats were FREE.

Find another set and I'll let you do the same for me...:) No power anything needed. Nice work!

The driver side turned out easy. We'll see about the passenger side. I'm not holding my breath.

Chad

I changed the oil for the first time. It was gross and definitely needed to be changed. Went with Mobil-1 Synthetic 10-30 and Mobil-1 Filter that was at least an inch longer than the one I took off. Thanks to ZOSO for helping find where to put the new oil. Expect him to change his phone number soon

Have the oil pan and valve covers off, removed old gasket material, prepping for paint and reassembly! Woo hoo.

Welded broken window frame...welded piece of steel to rear tire carrier latch so it doesn't move so much...removed and painted. Dangit...didn't realize the screws went into a bracket inside the tailgate that is not attached. So after dinner I will be ing with a magnet to get the bracket back to where I can attach the tailgate latch...how the heck are you supposed to get that in there and positioned? The only thing I can figure is to lay the tailgate down flat and bit around with a magnet. I don't plan on ever unscrewing it once I get it back together!

Remove the tailgate handle and you can push it into position, just watch the rods that connect to the latch, they can be a pain.

Yeah...I ended up putting tailgate down and laying on my back...took the latch handle off and used a magnet to get it close...and then a screw driver. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Also rewelded my rocker that welds had broken on close to the door post...really helped make everything more solid and door closes better.

Let's see....

Roll-on bedliner on the interior.
Painted the tire rack, bumpers, roll bar, and grill a nice white.
Fixed the stalling situation again.
Installed a stereo AND 6x9 speakers (in boxes).
Installed Bronco emblems on fenders (Thanks to my wife, anniversary gift).
Installed arm rests.

Slowly but surely.

MWL

this week end I removed the tint from the door glass............gonna do the hardtop glass soon

just took my kiddos to the sonic for M&M blasts

Worked on the doors, got hardware back into the lower hinge plate so both doors close properly now and don't feel like they're going to fall off when I open them. Tore apart my column to see if I could help Zilla out with the part he needed and to get my turn signal switch replaced.

Steering U-joint - I really, really need to replace that rag joint on mine.

I patched up the soft top with a vinyl adhesive kit. Actually turned out pretty good. I glued up both sides and didn't even use the supplied color and texture match items.

Drove it to work and had the light switch fall out. I had a he** of a time getting the lights to turn off. I then filled it up with gas and the *************** gas gauge quit working, again. I ordered a new light switch and will get in this weekend. I do like this thing but it has driving me everywhere but where I need to go. Jayson

Drove mine to work today for the first time and smiled the whole way. On my way home from work, I picked up my daughter from school.

Picked up my HP king pin Dana60 front and matching rear. Now the real work begins...

Got a bunch of little things done in the last week. Opened up both doors and replaced the window regulator bushings. Replaced the rear track in the driver's side door. Fixed the incompetent (by current owner, this time) wiring on the cigarette lighter. Took out the old radiator, got the mounts installed for the new one. Gave it a bath, starting with a hosing of the interior. As much as I'd like a quieter truck, I really am glad I don't have carpet.