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Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Feb. 2021 at 8:19pm
Another small maintenance/repair project completed.  Last fall when I went 'wheeling in Missouri I had a partial power steering pump failure.  I say "partial" because it worked all of the time above about 1500 rpm, but below that every so often the power steering (and power brakes since it's now hydroboost) would suddenly go away.  Kind of exciting when you're idling past a big rock and suddenly need to pull HARD on the steering to keep from veering into it!

So I replaced the power steering pump this weekend.  I borrowed a puller from NAPA to get the  pulley off the old pump and on the new.  That went pretty well.  Took a bit of effort, but everything worked out.  I also had to pull the reservoir off the old pump and put it on the new, but that went easily.

The biggest issue I had was that I had to take the brackets all the way off the engine to get the pump out, and doing that required removing two of the water pump bolts.  While they were out I had a little coolant weeping out of the seam, so I'm afraid I'm going to have a coolant leak there now.  Oh well, that might be a project for this summer.

After getting the fluid flushed and everything buttoned back up I backed the Bronco out of the garage, turned it around and backed it back in.  The next projects require access to the driver's side which I couldn't get at when it was pulled in forward.  The significant thing about that is that I did have a bit of Ford power steering pump whine.  We'll see how that goes once I'm actually driving it.  And the other thing was that it kept dying on me.  Since this was the longest it's run since rebuilding the carb I'm guessing I need to clean or adjust something there.  But it runs like crap any time it's cold, so who knows?  It might be fine once things warm up.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Mar. 2021 at 10:12pm
Another couple of small projects done today.  The shock bushings looked rather suspect when I bought this Bronco back in ~2002.  Overall I don't thing the shocks have improved in the past 19 years!  So I replaced all 4 shocks.

The other thing I did was replace the fuel tank switching valve.  Early Broncos had a dual tank option from the factory, which my Bronco came with.  The factory switching valve was a mechanical valve below the driver's seat, with a switch on the dash to switch which tank would read on the gauge.  Kind of an annoying system, so years ago I replaced the mechanical valve with an electrical one wired to the same switch.  It was nicer just flipping one switch to both change tanks and switch the fuel gauge.  But that valve went flaky on my several years ago, so I replaced it with another electrical valve.  That one started leaking last summer (not dripping on the ground, it would draw some from both tanks no matter what position the switch was in).  So today I went back to the original mechanical valve.  OK, so I have to remember to flip both the valve and the switch.  But at least it should last more than about 10 years.
Bob

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote bight Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Mar. 2021 at 11:36pm
i dunno, but there was something i really liked about that mechanical switch under the seat. when that weird realization that the engine sputtering was just the need to rotate the switch always made me feel ok. 

i don't recall a gauge switch. i just knew to head for the nearest gas station after switching to the reserve tank.

man, i really was dumb to ever let that '69 get away.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 June 2021 at 12:10am
Originally posted by Nothing Special Nothing Special wrote:

....  And at this point I've only done the passenger side, but that's how it's going to stay for a while....   So the driver's side can wait until winter.

Well, I guess "winter" meant May and June.  I had intended to get the driver's side rock rail done before the trip we took to Moab in early May, but that didn't happen.  However it's done now!

I got started in late May.  Here's the "before" picture to show the starting point:


Having done the passenger's side a year ago I had more confidence (as well as a complete plan!) as I started cutting, so I got to this point within the first day:


I did find a little more rot on this side than the passenger's side, including the license plate that I thought was welded up under the front fender.  Turned out it wasn't welded in, it was sort of stuck in with some sort of goop that was holding quite a bit of moisture.  So as fun as it was to have that bit of "character", it's gone now.  Anyway, the rust wasn't bad enough to make me change the plans.


A few more days of work and I had the tube cut, the plates welded in the top (to bolt the front and rear fenders to the tube) and the rash rail welded on.



Things slowed down for a bit then as life got in the way for a week or so.  But then I was able to fit in a long evening of work on it.  Not a lot of visible progress that night, but a lot of progress none the less as I got the cap on the front of the tube )(picture below) and some welds ground down (no pictures of that).



Then a long Saturday got a lot more progress with the riser welded to the top of the tube (to "reach up" to the door sill) and the rear end capped:


I also got the holes drilled and tapped to attach the fenders to the tube and to get the fender flare fit back on.  The new rail doesn't hang down quite as far as stock, so the flare has to swing forward a bit to not hang down below the rail.  That required trimming the fender out a bit more.  Anyway, here's the rail fit in place as I was getting everything lined up.


I also got the underside cleaned up and sprayed some weld-thru primer on it that day.  So the next day I got a whole bunch of holes drilled...



... got the tube clamped in place...


... and got it welded on!




A few more evenings of grinding...


... and painting and it's done!



It doesn't look professional, but it looks good and I did it myself, so I'm happy with it!  Now both rockers are done!  Even with the life delays this side took a little under a month, so still quicker than the first side.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Aug. 2021 at 9:27pm
Not a project, but still fun, today I got the personalized license plates I ordered a couple months ago!



For those that don't get the Disney reference, Disneyland and Walt Disney World used to have ticket books you had to buy to go on the rides.  The A tickets were for the least popular rides on up to the E tickets.  They were for the best rides!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar. 2022 at 6:15pm
Today I finally got started on this winter's project Embarrassed. I'm a little afraid that I'm biting off more than I should, but the end goal here is to improve my ground clearance.

When I bought this Bronco a previous owner had lifted it, but not done anything to correct the caster. It actually had negative caster. Surprisingly it drove pretty well, but when I flat-towed it the steering would turn the wrong way on corners Shocked. I corrected the caster the cheapest and easiest way I could, by dropping the radius arm brackets. But now the radius arm brackets hang really low and I get hung up on them a little too often. You can see how far they hang down in this picture



So the first thing is to cut off the dropped radius arm mounts and go back to stock mounts. That will give me a bunch more clearance (probably ~6").

But it also pushes a snowball down the hill, and that snowball gets a lot bigger as it rolls! Once the radius arm mounts are out of the way the Atlas transfer case becomes the lowest point. So the plan is to notch and plate the frame so I can clock the transfer case higher.

But my homemade transmission mount is in the way of that, so I need to make a new trans mount. The intent is to also incorporate a transfer case skid plate.

The reclocked transfer case will kill my front driveshaft U-joints (they're maxed out now). There are two plans to address that. One is to lower the vehicle. It currently has ~3.5" lift (maybe more?) and has room for at least 35" tires if not 37s. I only have 33s, with no plans to go bigger so about a 2.5" lift will lower the vehicle a bit and I think be a better fit for me.

But that won't help the U-joint angles enough, so I plan to cut the wedges off the front axle to rotate the pinion up. Along with reducing my U-joint angles that should also help with the front driveline vibration I'm having.

But that will kill my caster. Of course just getting rid of the dropped radius arm mounts will kill the caster, but this will make it a lot worse. So the next plan is to cut off the inner C's and rotate them back.

So like I said, I hope I'm not getting in too far over my head!

Although I did finally get started today, all I got done was removing the transfer case and transmission. Getting the trans out wasn't really necessary for the plan above, but while I'm in this far I'm also going to do something about the ring gear that the starter won't always engage. And while I said "all I did was...", that was definitely enough work for one day!


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote otto Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar. 2022 at 7:06pm
Do they still make "C" bushings for the front axle that have some caster built into them? I remember installing these into an older Ford 1/2 ton that had coil springs in front.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar. 2022 at 9:57pm
Yes, that was the first thing I tried before I dropped the radius arms.  The max degreed C-bushings I could get got me very slightly positive caster, but still well out of spec and it still didn't steer reliably when being towed.  I'll be a lot farther out now after raising the arms and tipping the pinion up.  I figure I'll aim for nominal caster with 0 degree C-bushings, then I can adjust it either way as needed using degreed C-bushings.

Edited by Nothing Special - 26 Mar. 2022 at 9:58pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Scratch Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar. 2022 at 10:13pm
That's a super nice looking Bronco!  I love that early Bronco look.  You don't see them around much anymore.  Nice job!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Apr. 2022 at 4:46pm
OK, finally a little progress.  It took me a little while to be confident in what parts I needed to fix my starter gears.  In the end I decided on going with all stock Bronco 302 stuff.  Then it took a while to get the parts in.

But this week I finally got to removing the old ring gear.  That went easy enough.  I cut most of the way through it with a cut-off wheel in my Dremel, then whacked it with a chisel a couple of times.

Getting the new ring gear on was a bigger chore.  It had a pretty sharp edge on the inside, so I had to grind a better lead-in on it.  Then I heated it with the oxy-acetylene torch at work until it would start on.  Finally a bunch of whacks with a big hammer and a punch and it was seated on the flywheel.

So today I put the flywheel back on, as well as the clutch, bellhousing and starter.  Laying on my back while lifting all of those things into position tired me out enough that I decided to call it quits for the day rather than try to put the trans back in (which is the next step).

I did try turning it over with the starter and it cranked over nicely, with no weird noises or anything.  So far so good!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 Apr. 2022 at 6:21pm
More progress today.  I got the transmission back in.  It takes a lot less time to type that than it does to actually do it!  That wraps up the starter gear replacement (since the trans wouldn't have come out if I wasn't doing that) and it brings me to where I can actually start on the real project.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Apr. 2022 at 9:49pm
A lot of work with a little to show for it. I decided the first thing to do would be to make clearance to clock the transfer case up.  The Atlas 2 transfer case has 4 sets of holes for the mounting studs.  Putting the studs in different holes will rotate the 'case up or down.  When I first installed the Atlas I found that it had to be clocked in the lowest position to clear the frame.

That hasn't been a huge issue with the dropped radius arm mounts because it was still higher than the arm mounts.  But now that I'm going to be raising the radius arms I want to get the transfer case higher.  Here's an out-of-focus side view showing the current situation.  The tape measure is showing 15.5" clearance under the lowest point on the transfer case.


I started off cutting as little as I thought I could get away with, then tried fitting the transfer case in with the studs moved to the second position.  I kept finding where it was hitting and gnawing off a little more metal until I could fit it in position 2.  Here's the hole in the frame I ended up with...


... and here are the places where more material needs to be removed if I'm going to go any higher



I don't really want to cut much higher on the frame, and I'm a little afraid that I might need to even go through the top of the flange to get to the third position.  And opening up the hole more to the front would require moving the trans cross member mounting holes which gets a little challenging.  (This last picture also shows the original radius arm mounting holes above the current dropped location).

On the plus side, going up one position won't require making a new trans cross member (it would have to go below the front driveshaft rather than above if I go up another step.  But on the minus side, I only gained about 1/2" under the transfer case


My original plan was to finalize where the transfer case was going to end up and then reinforce the frame where I cut it before moving on to other parts of the project.  But I decided to put the transfer case on hold for now.  I'm not at all sure that I want to do what it will take to go up another step, so I'll get the radius arm mounts back to stock height, get the wedges cut off the axle and rotate the pinion up to see how the front driveshaft lines up.  At that point I'll see if it looks like clocking the transfer case higher will gain me enough to be worth the extra work.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 May 2022 at 8:27pm
It's been a few weeks since my last post, but I haven't been idle. I just never made enough progress in a single weekend to seem to be worth an update. But now with several weekends worth of progress it seemed like a good time to add something here.

One big direction change happened in this time. I decided that I would swap a high pinion axle in. Through some discussions on another forum I decided that it seemed likely that I would have enough clearance with my current lift. That does mean that my wife won't get the lower step-in height she was hoping for (because I'm not putting a lower lift on it now). But it did feel a lot more comfortable cutting an axle up when I still have the stock axle in its stock form. So if I screw up completely I can at least put the stock axle back in and drive it to a shop that can bail me out. Much better than possibly ending up with a Bronco with no front axle stuck in my garage!

I was able to find a complete axle (locking hub to locking hub) from a '77 F-150. But then the junk yard decided I didn't want that axle (it had some water in it) so they were preparing to send me a '78 F-150 axle instead. I REALLY didn't want that axle (where the wedges are cast as a part of the inner C, so you can't adjust angles). But they had already disassembled the '77 axle and didn't want to try to figure out how to ship me the loose parts. So they shipped me the '77 housing (knuckle to knuckle) and the complete '78 axle (locking hub to locking hub). That gives me all the parts I need, but it does give me a big heavy hunk of scrap metal I need to deal with.

After disassembling the '78 axle to get the parts I need from it, and pulling the knuckles off the '77 housing I pulled the existing front axle out. Then the next progress was cutting off the dropped radius arms mounts off. I was able to do that without damaging the stock mounts which was nice. Now I don't need to do anything to put stock mounts back on

Here's a picture I posted before, showing the dropped mount in the foreground.

And here is after cutting the dropped mount off


Then this weekend I got to work on the high pinion housing. Here it is (in back, with the stock Bronco axle in front)


I couldn't get at the inner Cs with the wedges in the way, so I cut the wedges off first. A cutoff wheel made most of that pretty easy, but the inner C was in the way to be able to cut the weld all the way. So an air chisel slowly took care of what was left.

I tried cutting the passenger's side C off next, but after trying to cut the weld away I still couldn't get it to budge. So I gave up and cut the tube off flush with the inside face of the C. Then I could use a hack saw to cut the piece of axle tube that remained in the C into several sections. I was then able to knock the sections out with a hammer and punch.

Having to "cheat" that way on the passenger's side wasn't bad because I'm going to have to cut 6" off that tube anyway. But I guess I'll only be cutting 5/8" off the driver's side so I couldn't do that side the same way. In getting the sections out of the first C I realized that I hadn't cut back into the C enough to cut through the weld penetration. So I tried to cut in deeper on the driver's side. I still wasn't holding out a lot of hope, but after cutting it I took a few swings with a big hammer and saw a faint line start to show up! It took a lot of swings, but it did come off! So now the axle looks like this.


Still a lot of work to do, but this is the part I was dreading most and it's now done!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jeff J Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 May 2022 at 9:49pm
I gave up a good Kaiser CJ5 in favor of a Bronco in about 1990. Drove it to Alaska and back. It always did what I asked of it to include pulling out several GM products. I paid $2500 for it. I sold it (1997?) just as the internet was becoming a thing for $2500. I found out later I could have sold it for $7,000 and today maybe $50,000 minimum. Original 302 with 3 on the tree and the 353 gearing. The dual tanks were nice too. I couldn’t fit hunting and camping gear along with a deer in the CJ5.  The Bronco took it all plus a buddy and went everywhere I wanted to go around Tucson, AZ. I can think of 2 bad things in that Bronco… the vacuum wipers and the Dana 30 front end. I personally had my hands on three Bronco Dana 30 axles and 2 of those had bent housings. The 2 bent ones broke when the shop tried to straighten them. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 May 2022 at 10:43pm
I bought this one for $6000 in about 2002 (meaning I've now owned it for abut 40% of its life!).  Now that it's worth ???? I get asked "What does it take to 'wheel a collectible vehicle?"  My answer is to not think of it as a collectible vehicle!  It's just an old trail rig I paid $6000 for!

And my '71 came with electric wipers and a Dana 44 front end.  Yes I'm replacing the front axle now, but other than that it's easier to do what I'm doing on a second axle and that the high pinion will improve my U-joint angles I really wouldn't have needed to.  The stock 44 is pretty good (but this one is stronger!)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 May 2022 at 9:07pm
Originally posted by Nothing Special Nothing Special wrote:

....  I'm not at all sure that I want to do what it will take to (clock the transfer case) up another step, so I'll get the radius arm mounts back to stock height, get the wedges cut off the axle and rotate the pinion up to see how the front driveshaft lines up.  At that point I'll see if it looks like clocking the transfer case higher will gain me enough to be worth the extra work.

I wrote that a month ago. This past weekend I got the high pinion axle housing cleaned up and shortened and I was able to put it in the Bronco to see how things lined up. With it sitting at ride height and the transfer case clocked to the second position I had only gained 1/2". But the bad thing was that my double Cardan U-joint was going through a 26* angle at ride height. I tried at full droop and it wasn't binding, but I wasn't comfortable with that.

So I put the transfer case back to the first clocking position and tried jacking up the transmission. The limiting factor turned out to be the front driveshaft hitting my home-made trans crossmember. But the good news is that at that point I had gained another 1/4" of clearance under my transfer case and reduced my U-joint angle by about 3*.

That's as far as I got this weekend. I did modify the trans crossmember to hold it there, and I might end up going with that. But next weekend I'm going to pull the crossmember out and see if I can go any higher. If I can I'll be able to make a new crossmember to go under the front driveshaft. But that's for another day.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 July 2022 at 10:36am
A lot of time has passed since my last post.  I've been busy, both on the Bronco and with other things, so keeping build threads up to date has slipped.  So I'll try to catch up a little here.

I ended up making a new trans crossmember that went under the front driveshaft and held the transfer case up against the floor, so it ain't goin' no higher.  That gave me 1.75" more ground clearance under the transfer case than where I started.  Cutting off the radius arm mounts gained me about 4" there, so I've done pretty well on the primary goal of this project.

With the axle rotated forward I now have the pinion pointing up 11*, the driveshaft is also at 11*, the transfer case is pointing up 4* giving 15* in the double Cardan joint at the rear of the driveshaft, so I did pretty well on that goal as well.

Raising the transfer case affected my rear driveshaft angles as well, increasing the angle of the double Cardan at the front of the shaft to 13*, which is still fine, and reducing the angle at the single Cardan at the rear to 4*.  I'm a little surprised I have that much angle at the rear, but I set the rear pinion angle two transmissions and one transfer case ago.  I haven't had any vibration with it before so I should be good now.

And I didn't need the hole in the frame I had cut so I patched that.

Raising the transfer case did poke the shift linkage up higher, now coming through the floor.  So I'm going to have to re-do some stuff there.

'Nuff talking, here are some pictures.

Here is the new trans crossmember and some pics of it installed.






Here's a side view showing the new ground clearance


And here are a couple of pictures showing how close the transfer case is to the floor and how much the linkage comes up through the floor.



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nothing Special Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 July 2022 at 11:05pm
Catching up on the axle, after getting the transfer case bolted into its forever home I put the axle in, lined everything up and tacked it together.  I ended up taking it to work to burn it in as my welder doesn't have the power to get decent penetration on the 1/2" thick axle tubes (at least when plugged into 120V, it should do better on 240, but I don't have that available yet).

Then after getting it cleaned up as best I could (the inside of the tubes was the biggest challenge) I got to set up gears!  I'd done half of that job when I installed the OX locker a few years ago, but since I wasn't moving the pinion that time I didn't have to do that half.  This time, with the old OX going into the "new" housing with a new ring and pinion I needed to do the entire job.

I won't bore you with the details, but I ended up pressing the inner pinion race in and out 3 times to adjust the shims for the pinion depth, the pinion nose bearing those 3 times plus 3 more to get the pinion preload set, and the diff went in 6 times, with several shim adjustments to get the backlash set.

The net result was 13 lb-in pinion torque-to-turn without the pinion seal, 22 lb-in total torque-to-turn without the seal (26 lb-in with the seal) and .0065" backlash.  And here's the pattern

Drive side


Coast side


I'm happy with that!  It took about 10 hours of work over 4 nights.  But I was expecting a lot worse!
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