Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

[Gary Lewis]

Well done!!!!  

I like the pattern, and I like that you stuck with it until it was "right".  And I certainly like the tools.  

[grumpin]

Nice work Bob!

[Nothing Special]

Thanks!

This has reinforced my belief that this is one of those jobs that "if you have to ask if you can do it, then you can't."  It's not rocket science, new people can definitely learn HOW to do it.  But coming into it saying "I know I'll be able to do it.  What do I need to learn in order to do it?" is a completely different thing than asking "can I do it?"  You need the confidence in your abilities or you won't follow through.  At least that was the case for me as I started into this project several times before, and until installing the OX a few years ago I always bailed and had a shop do it.

Also I still see the value in having a shop do this!  It ain't cheap, but there's a reason for that!  I'm really glad I did it myself and I have a lot of satisfaction in having done it.  If I need gears set up again I may well choose to do it myself.  But then again, maybe I'll take it in and save myself all of the time and effort.  And i certainly won't fault anyone else who chooses not to fight through it themself.

[Gary Lewis]

My thinking on doing it yourself vs hiring it done has changed over time.  Early on, when I had all the time in the world, I felt like I am as smart as the people who do it for a living so I should be able to learn how to do it - whatever "it" is.  But then I discovered that on some things experience and talent make a big difference.  Body work for instance.  There's an art to that and since I can't draw stick figures I'm not an artist and I hire it done.

And now, as my time has gotten more precious, the idea of hiring it done for other things has sounded better and better.  So in the last few years I've had my engines, transmissions, and differentials built by others - although I did rebuild the t-case for Big Blue.

In other words, it depends.  

[Nothing Special]

About a week and a half since my last update.  I haven't been able to work on it on weekends, and I'm not making enough progress on any given weeknight to seem worth an update.  But after several weeknights it was time.

I was able to get the old ball joints out of the knuckles at home using a big whacky stick (aka hammer), but it didn't seem likely that I'd be able to get the new ones in without damage that way.  So I brought the knuckles to work.  I still ended up using a hammer, but with a well-fitting piece over the ball joint.

As I was carrying a bucket with both knuckles and all of the ball joints in one hand and the ~1/2" thick OX locker diff cover in the other hand I started rethinking my plan of putting all of that weight on the axle while it was easy to access on top of my work bench.  Instead I lifted it down while it was still under 200 lbs.

I decided I'd paint it, install the axle in the Bronco and then put the knuckles on.  Painting took a few nights as I had to let paint dry (I also worked a little on the cover for the shifter, but more on that after I have enough worth a report).  So tonight I started with this...


... and a couple hours later ended up with this.


The radius arms are attached to the axle and the springs are in.  I still need to hook up the track bar and the shocks, but otherwise the suspension is back together for the last time!

With the axle now held in position (but much harder to get at than when it was on my workbench) I finished installing the ball joints, putting the knuckles on the axle.  No real trouble with that.

Since I'm putting F-150 parts on a Bronco I figured there was some risk of things not going together perfectly where Bronco meets F-150.  It turns out that the tie rods are one place where that happens.  The tapered studs on the Bronco tie rods are quite a bit smaller than the tapered holes in the F-150 knuckles.  There are bushings available that let you put the Bronco tie rod into the F-150 knuckles.  But my tie rod ends have  been around quite a while, so I decided to go with a new "conversion" tie rod that has the F-150 ends on a Bronco-length tie rod.

I'm going to call and order that tomorrow.  Hopefully it won't take too long to get here.  If everything else goes well I might be about a week away from driving it!

[Gary Lewis]

Excellent!  That is really good progress!  

And I like the paint.  That shiny OX cover looked a bit out of place, but it looks great now.  And I like the idea of the larger tie rod ends.  Or, at least larger stems.  So now you can use stock F150 ends, which are quite common.

PROGRESS!!!!  

[Nothing Special]

I'm definitely excited about the progress!

As to the OX locker cover appearance, under my Bronco it gets to be a pretty good fit pretty quickly with oil leaking on it and road dust coating it!  But the reflective yellow letters were never my taste, so since I was painting the axle I figured I'd do the cover with it.

I hope I'm getting a boost in serviceability with the tie rod, but I'm afraid I might be taking a step backward.  On the Bronco the driver's side "tie rod end" goes about 90% of the way across the vehicle.  There really is no "tie rod", just an adjusting sleeve and then the passenger's side rod end.

The conversion piece has a tie rod with adjuster sleeves on both ends and shorter toe rod ends outboard of that.  I'm hoping those are standard parts, but I don't know for sure.

[Nothing Special]

... and on to plan B.  The conversion tie rod is on back order.  They hope to have them in a few weeks.  I did order one, but in the meantime I'm also getting the bushings so I can throw it together with my old tie rod for now.

[Gary Lewis]

That may be a better solution anyway.

[Nothing Special]

My old tie rod is worn enough that I want to replace it.  That's why I back-ordered the conversion tie rod (it's the same price as ordering a new Bronco tie rod).  But it will be more putzing around, and possibly an additional trip to the alignment shop.

[Gary Lewis]

Where I have my vehicles aligned and get my tires they'll check the alignment for free.  And if it is w/in 6 months they'll reset it.  So you might find some place that that where you could take it back after swapping the tie rod.

[Nothing Special]

One step forward, one step back, a step sideways, a couple steps forward, back and to the side again...

After not being able to get the tie rods hooked up I moved to the spindles.  The seal surface is all chewed up on the spindles that came with the junk yard axle, so that's on a pause while I wait for new spindles to come (tracking says by 7:00 PM on Saturday).

So then I switched to a bunch of little putzy things that I figured I'd leave to the end.  The track bar and shocks are hooked up and the Bronco is sitting on it's own suspension again!  The transfer case vent hose and the air line to my pressure tank are hooked up again, as is the speedo cable.

Putting the oil drain plug in took about an hour   The custom exhaust crosses over from the left bank between the oil pan and the bellhousing.  When it was new there was plenty of room to get the drain plug in and out, but as time goes on it's been shifting forward.  I don't know how that works, but I had to pull on it pretty hard to get the drain plug out several months ago.  Now there isn't even clearance for the head of the plug much less room to put it in.  So I had to take the exhaust loose to get the plug in.  I was hoping to get it all the way out so I could beat a little clearance in, but that's not happening without a sawzall.  So after I pick up some new doughnut seals I'll put it back together as best I can.  It's probably going to the exhaust shop before the next oil change.

I replaced the U-joint at the diff end of my front driveshaft and installed the driveshaft.  I'm leaving the rear shaft out for now so I can drive it on the front gears to break them in.

And I started putting the aux fuel tank back in but realized that I need some new rubber lines.  So that's on hold now too.

Lots of starts and stops, but all things that need to get done before I can drive it, so in spite of not seeming like a lot of progress (to me at least) I am getting there.  Slowly!

[Gary Lewis]

That's certainly progress.  Lots of little things come up at the end of projects like these, so that's to be expected.  But you have a way forward on each of them, so you'll get there.

And getting it back on all fours is great!  Such a good feeling!  

[Nothing Special]

It's not on "all fours" yet as there are still no spindles, wheel bearings, hubs etc.  But now the jack stands are under the axle instead of the frame, which makes it a lot easier to work on the steering, and just starts to de-clutter things a bit.  If the new spindles come tomorrow as scheduled I hope to have it on its tires by Monday.  Maybe even driving it!

[Gary Lewis]

Good point.  Without spindles it is hard to have wheels.  Hopefully they'll arrive today and you can drive it tomorrow or Monday.  

[Nothing Special]

Nothing Special wrote

.... Now I'm "gonna have to get crafty on it" to figure out how to get boots there to stop hot air and road spray from coming through.  I think I'll end up making a sheetmetal box to cover it up to the top of the tower and put a boot on top of that.  But I'll have to see how that works out.

I posted that about a month ago.  Over the past couple of weeks I've been poking at it a little, and as I still was waiting for spindles that was my main project today.

As you can see in the pictures above (you might have to click on "show rest of quote"), both transfer case sticks were straight.  But they were too far apart for the twin stick boot I bought, so I bent one of them to bring them closer together:


I also cut out a new sheetmetal plate to cover the big hole in the side of the tunnel, with a much smaller hole for the tower and sticks to come through (although it got a lot bigger, more on that later):




Then I built a sheetmetal box to cover the hole and provide a horizontal surface to mount the boot to.  The big rectangular hole in one side is where the shift levers go through (and the boot will cover).  The open side will be against the plate shown above.




(I only welded it in the outside, what you see in the second picture is just the penetration)

Then after grinding the welds smooth I tacked it to the plate...




... and then took it out to weld it up


While I was welding it I realized that I'd made a really nice place for junk to accumulate.  Any road spray that gets up through the smallish hole in the plate won't be able to run back out.  So I cut the hole out bigger, to go across the entire bottom of the "box" so there's no place for water to puddle.


After that I treated it with Ospho and am letting that dry.  Then I'll paint it and put it on for good, and get the boot installed.  But the spindles came tonight (late, they were supposed to be here by 7:00, they didn't get here until 7:20 ) so tomorrow's project will be working toward getting the front tires on.  The shifter boots will have to wait to get finished.

[Gary Lewis]

That welding looks great!  And the box is going to work out perfectly, especially with the hole cut out bigger at the bottom.  

But man, you really can't count on those delivery people!  Twenty minutes late!    ()

So tomorrow is spindles, bearings, hubs, and wheels.  Driving time!

[Nothing Special]

That was the first welding job I've done with this welder where I didn't love what it did on the automatic setting.  I felt like it was a little cold, the beads were kind of sitting on top of the metal.  And the beads were bigger than I wanted.  So I tweaked the voltage up a bit and the wire speed down and got this.  So I'm still really happy with my welder, but I guess it's not perfect.

And I'm still waiting for the tie rod bushings.  They were supposed to be here today too, but haven't shown up yet.  So I won't be driving it tomorrow (kinda hard to do with no steering!).  But I do hope to have the wheels on it by this time tomorrow!

[Gary Lewis]

I think you got it dialed in just right.  Those beads have become part of the metal!  They look really nice.  I don't think I've ever gotten mine dialed in that well.

Hope the bushings have gotten in and you can put it all together today.  

[Nothing Special]

Well, the tires aren't on it yet.

Today actually went well.  I got the shiny new spindles on with no drama, ...


... got the wheel bearings in and the hubs on pretty easily, ...


... and got the brake calipers and locking hubs on with only a little fight.


One of the junkyard hubs was a little dented in, making it a light press-fit to get the body of the locking hub in.  No big deal there.

And back on April 24 (page 18 of this thread) I mentioned having to trim a weld bead someone had put on the passenger side caliper bracket in order to get the caliper off.  That bracket is pretty boogered.  I was able to get the caliper on, but I don't think it will be as free to move side-to-side as it should be.  I've got it together and I'll live with it for now at least.  But I might try to get a better bracket to use the next time I have this apart.  Or I might not.

So with the wheel bearings and brakes done why aren't the tires on?  It's always the little things.  Brake hoses in this case.  The disk brake conversion I had on this used Chevy calipers and front brake hoses.  It looked like I probably could've attached the Chevy hoses to the F-150 calipers, but the hoses didn't look great either, so I went to Napa to get new F-150 hoses.  I'll have to stop back at the store to pick them up tomorrow.

And as I started looking at brake lines I realized I'm going to have a little adventure getting them attached.  Both the '71 Bronco and the '77 F-150 have a hose come down from the frame to the top of the diff, with hard lines T-ing off to each side (much like a rear axle).  But the threads in the axle housing are different so I can't use the bolt/vent nipple from the Bronco, and I don't have a vent nipple for the F-150.  It won't be a challenging problem to solve, but it'll take a little more effort than expected.

And the steering parts didn't come yet either.

But on the plus side of parts ordering, the conversion tie rod came in, so it should ship on Monday.  I'll probably still put it together with the bushings first (unless there are enough other hold-ups that I don't get to it before the tie rod is in).  But I'll have it soon enough to have it in when I take it to be aligned.

And I got the hoses I need to install the aux fuel tank ordered.  I'd guess they'll come on Wednesday or Thursday.