Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

[Nothing Special]

I took it in for an alignment.  I didn't do as good a job on the caster as I'd hoped.  Driver's side wasn't bad at 6.4*, but passenger's side at 4.5* was a bit disappointing.  They said there's nothing they can do about it.  For now I'll live with that, but if I think it needs fixing I'll look into adjusting it with bushings, which at least used to be a thing.

Camber wasn't great either with 1.0* driver's and 0.4* passenger's (they say spec is 1* - 2*).  But it doesn't seem that bad either.

It definitely drove better after the alignment, but seemed worse than before.  On the highway it just didn't feel planted.  It wasn't really trying to wander, but it wasn't trying to go straight either.  So as a shot in the dark that I could take back if needed I added about half a turn to the tie rod adjuster to give it a little more toe-in.  It's a LOT better now.  Maybe not quite as planted as my pickup, but I do have the 33/12.50-15 mud tires on it too.  I still will probably add another 1/4 turn to see if I can make it even better.  But if it stays like it is now I can easily live with it.

Speaking of the mud tires, they gave me a lot of vibration at some highway speeds before.  I had them re-rebalanced now.  A nice side benefit of the F-150 axle and brakes is that there's a lot more clearance for wheel weights than there is over the Chevy brakes I had.  That gave them room to do it better this time.  And up to 70 mph it's smooth!  I was a little worried about that with a trip out to Utah coming up in 2 weeks!

On the down side, I had forgotten how LOUD these tires are!  I shouldn't be able to hear them from the motorhome while we're towing it.  And on the trails they'll be fine.  But driving around while we're out there won't be quite as pleasant as it might be.  Oh well, we'll live with that too.

I got the trans shifter boot on.  That worked out well, but sorry, no pictures yet.

The transfer case shifter boot wasn't quite so successful.  I set up the shifters as far back as I could to keep them out of my leg while I'm driving.  But the boot doesn't like them that far back.  The furthest rear position is high range, and when the front shifter is in high (to be in 4-high) the boot is spring-loading it back to neutral, and it pops out of gear pretty frequently.  So I need to adjust the shifters forward a bit.

I did get the clutch adjusted well, and have the hand throttle hooked up.

I still haven't driven it on the new front gears.  But I have spun the front driveline on the freeway (trans in gear, hubs unlocked) and there's no noise or vibration (at least no noise I can hear over the tires).

So lots of little things done, and a few little things left to do.  But I'm getting more confidence that it'll be ready for this trip!

[Gary Lewis]

Seems like you are close! Very close!  I hope a bit more toe-in will nail it, at least for the trip. But bushings might help even more, later.

And yes, tires can make quite a racket. At least you shouldn’t hear them while towing, and maybe they won’t be too obnoxious at low speeds?

Anyway, it seems like you are getting the last of the details worked out.  Well done!  

[Nothing Special]

We were driving around a bit this evening at speeds up to about 40 mph.  Lesley didn't say anything about the noise.  But on the trip we'll be driving from Hurricane to Bryce Canyon, which is over 100 miles.  I hope at least some of that drive is fast enough to make the tires loud!  So we'll see how it goes.

[Nothing Special]

I got the transfer case shifter adjusted so I can put it in 4-high without the boot pushing the front stick back to neutral, so I finally have pictures of the shifters.  In these pictures the transfer case is in 4-high (both sticks all the way back).  Most of the time of course it will be in 2-high, with the left stick (which shifts the front driveline) one click forward (in neutral).  And on the trails it's usually in 4-low (both sticks 2 clicks forward of these pictures).  2-high and especially 4-low puts the shifter for the front stick against my leg, so I would have preferred having them farther back.  But I should be able to live with this.

[grumpin]

That looks nice!

Pluto looks happy!

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, i does look nice.  And I guess the shift levers don't lend themselves t heating and bending?

[Nothing Special]

grumpin wrote

That looks nice!

Pluto looks happy!

Thanks!  And Pluto usually looks happy, that's partly why he's my favorite Disney character! (he also hangs from the Bronco's rear view mirror)

Gary Lewis wrote

Yes, i does look nice.  And I guess the shift levers don't lend themselves t heating and bending?

The left lever for the transfer case (that shifts the front driveline) and the transmission shifter have both been heated / bent.  Is there a direction you'd recommend bending them from where they are?

[Gary Lewis]

I was thinking that bending them to the right would get them off your leg.

[Nothing Special]

Looking at the picture now I see that too.  But I haven't seen it as a good option when I'm in the vehicle.  I'll have to look into that at some point.  But it won't happen before this trip!

[Gary Lewis]

I understand that position.  It works, and that's what is needed.  

[Nothing Special]

Well, our trip to southwestern Utah is in the books!  As I said in my motorhome thread, in addition to being an adventure in itself it also involved both the motorhome and the Bronco.  So I'm covering it in three separate threads with the motorhome and Bronco threads focusing on how each vehicles did and the trip thread being about the trip in general.

So how did the Bronco do?  Really well!  I never got hung up on my radius arm mounts, and I'm sure I would've before, so the main goal of that big project was a success!  Otherwise I didn't really notice anything from all of that work, which is a good thing!  The new gears just worked quietly as they should.  The OX locker worked just as happily in the new axle as it had in the old one.  While it isn't as "planted" on the highway as my crew cab F-250, I didn't get overly fatigued driving it 120 miles each way to Bryce Canyon.

The tire noise was certainly noticeable on the road, but it really ended up fading into the background and wasn't all that bothersome (but I still won't recommend the ProComp XTreme M/T as a highway tire!).  And while they aren't as smooth running as the excellent Michelins on my truck  there certainly wasn't any problematic vibration, and I had no trouble towing it.

It did take a little damage.  A poor line choice on one obstacle resulted in a bent front bumper:


And while I said above that there were no side effects from my project, that wasn't quite literally true.  Turns out that with the high pinion axle there wasn't quite enough clearance between the front driveshaft U-joint and the exhaust cross-over.  But the U-joint was able to solve that problem!


And just wear and tear with age, but the top fabric ripped pretty badly at both ends of the windshield.  Some Gorilla tape got me home, but it needs a new top now.

Another issue is that the "toad" brakes aren't as strong as I'd like, or as I remember them.  I've changed the rear brakes (from Chevy car disks to original Bronco drums), the front brakes (from Chevy car disks to '76 F-150 disks) and the master cylinder (from aftermarket vacuum boosted to Chevy Astro hydroboost), so it's not too surprising that things changed.  The brakes work great while driving, but they don't do much to help slow down the train when I'm towing it.  I'll have to see what I can do about that.

And of course the Bronco drew lots of attention just about everywhere we went.  Jeeps and side-by-sides are a dime-a-dozen on the trails, but an old Bronco is noteworthy.  That does make it a lot of fun to drive!  (not that it isn't fun to drive anyway)

So I'm really happy with how the Bronco contributed to the trip!

[Gary Lewis]

Congratulations!  Glad things worked out that well on the changes, and the u-joint bit seems par for the course as I had some of that as well.

But it is a bummer about the bumper. What’s the plan there?

And I’m sure you get lots of attention. Being able to drive it on the road awa on the trail at its age is an accomplishment.

On brakes, do you not have an adjustment on how much brake gets applied?  How does that work?

[Nothing Special]

I don't have a plan for the bumper yet.  I'll probably try to pull it back straight by chaining it to a tree or something and backing up.  But if I don't do something to reinforce it it'll just happen again.  I haven't thought about how I can / want to reinforce it yet.


For the "toad" brakes* the variable voltage from the trailer brake controller in the motorhome is the signal to a proportional solenoid in the Bronco.  That adjusts the air pressure going to an air cylinder that pushes against the brake pedal.  So from the motorhome's perspective it looks just like any other trailer with electric brakes, but it's actually using air pressure to mechanically apply the Bronco's hydraulic brakes.  Since the Bronco's engine isn't running there's no power assist, but the brakes still work without it.

However I think the vacuum assist power brakes worked better without the assist than the hydroboost brakes do (also without the assist).  Again, no plan on how to deal with this yet.  I'm already maxing out the air pressure the proportional solenoid is supposed to handle (100 psi).  So maybe a bigger air cylinder?  That's a problem for another day.


* in the RV world a "toad" is a vehicle that's "towed" behind a motorhome.  Cute, huh?

[Nothing Special]

Oh, and the rear view mirror fell off the windshield.  Hardly a major break down, but it is one more thing I need to fix.

[Gary Lewis]

On the mirror, don’t forget to check that the piece that goes on the windshield is flat.

And yes, if you don’t reinforce the bumper it’ll happen again, and at some point it might contact the body.

As for the brakes, now I understand. And IIRC hydroboost brakes have less mechanical advantage in the pedal so it makes sense that with the engine off they’d be less effective. A larger piston would give more pressure.

[Nothing Special]

I'm running the same pedal and push rod assembly that I had with the vacuum system, so it's not due to any mechanical difference there.  But it could be that this master has a larger piston than the old master, which would give less pounds per square inch of hydraulic pressure (or more directly, MORE square inches per pound, which is the same thing).  Anyway, that's a future concern.


And another thing I missed, the transfer case sticks HAVE TO move.  They aren't bad in 4-high (which is where i drove it before the trip as I was breaking in the front gears with the rear driveshaft removed).  And they're no problem in 4-low.  But in 2-high the knob for the front driveline is hard against my calf.  That gets really annoying.

Also there's very little clearance between the knob on the front shifter and the stick for the rear.  i knew that but thought it would be OK.  It's really not quite OK.  I managed to mash a finger between them several times.  No real damage, but really not pleasant.

So I need to try to bend the front stick over a bit and the rear stick even more.

[Gary Lewis]

It makes sense that the new master might be the issue.

And I’m not surprised by the problems with the sticks. They certainly looked both close and far to the left. So bending them away from you awa each other makes sense.

[FuzzFace2]

Sorry a lot late on this but on the 4 hi shifter popping out can you use a bungie to hold it in gear?
When I raced Jeeps off road we used bungies to hold the shifter in 4 low.
Dave ----

[Nothing Special]

I keep remembering other little issues.

I need to adjust the steering stops.  Turning to the left I get rubbing on the radius arm, so turning that stop out a bit might be good.  And while I don't get any rubbing at right lock, someone watching from outside thought I wasn't turned all the way.  It seems to me that it turns plenty sharp to the right, but maybe there's something to be gained.


The other thing I remembered isn't really a failure or a needed adjustment.  But it was a new negative.  Broncos with dual tanks came with a manual valve with the handle on the riser in front of the driver's seat.  Long ago I had replaced mine with an electric valve that would switch with the gage from a switch on the dash.  But after two valve failures, last year I went back to a manual valve in the stock location.

Twice on this trip I ran out of gas, even though there was gas in both tanks.  Both times the switching valve handle had moved to where it wasn't selecting either tank.  I just put it back on the tank I wanted and it started up again, but it was rather concerning the first time it happened (until I knew what I needed to do to restart it) and a bit annoying both times.

I assume I bumped it with my foot both times, but I don't really recall putting a foot there.  And for what it's worth, this didn't happen on our trip to Moab last year.

I don't really plan to do anything about this, but thought I'd mention it here.

[Gary Lewis]

Teething issues are also par for the course with major changes.  And the fact that you are getting down to them means you are ticking off the other, more significant ones.

However, running out of gas could be a significant problem at just the wrong time.  So maybe that one isn't so minor?