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bats 88 Bronco II Build Up aka Project Second Chance

The first few times I started it after the head gasket job it just had the usual lifter tick exactly like it did before I took it apart. Never had a knock until now. No clue where this came from.
 



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time for a.....

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:D
 






So many pullies! I don't think that would fit without a ridiculous hood scoop. hahaha

If none of those cheap fixes work I'm either pulling the plug on it altogether or less likely, do the V8 swap. If I go that route I'm going carburated. There's enough tech articles out there on how to tune a carb for steep driving.

I do have that 65 Riviera rotting away out back. Body is gone but drive train has like 65K on it. Can you say Nailhead Bronco II?
 






I'm back, baby!

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The little ******* is back and running like a top. The knock is completely gone! I put a half a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil in the crank case and let it run for a half hour. Blipped the throttle some and it simply faded away like it was never there. I can't freaking believe it.

Also put a quart of injector cleaner in the tank. Fuel gauge stopped working though. Good thing I have my access panel. For all I know it might have been running on that.

I took it for a spin but it seems like something is holding it back. The CEL isn't on so I'm attributing the lower power to crappy gas. It sat for a few months and I topped it off with a can that was sitting for a while.

So where does that leave us? The truck is now running, beautifully. It still has all the 'features.' Squirelly steering, tons of road noise, bad exhaust. Things that can be taken care of if I'm willing to put in the effort. Which I think I will. I also decided against the SAS because it would make it almost useless for me. The amount of actual trail riding that I do just doesn't warrant the expense and time required for an SAS. I'm thinking 3 inch James Duff lift and call it a day.

The Bronco lives on to terrorize the neighborhood another day.
 






it has also gone threw a few "body mods" since i saw it last. wounder if jay would be pissed if you painted it camo. glad to know your misery knock is gone, cause i am sure you didnt want to do a motor pull
 






A single color of paint and some rust busting was on the list at some point. In the very least primer to hold it together.

I went to start up the truck for some snow fun this weekend aaaannnnddd.... the knock is back. Not quite as severe as before but still noticeable. The Marvel Mystery Oil definitely freed something up in there. Still has the lifter tick. I really don't want to pull it apart again to replace lifters. Rocker arms... maybe.

General consensus is that it's a normal noise for the engine, especially as it age. Starting to regret not replacing the heads when I had the chance. Next step is to do a cheap-o oil change with 5W-30 and replace one quart with ATF and then do a real one. Not sure what I'm running now but I'm long overdue.

Got tired of troubleshooting and played with the snow a bit. Truck runs good enough to climb hills and get unstuck but won't go past 55. Doesn't hesitate or buck, just feels like that's all she's got captain! Again, this may be ****ty gas and running mostly on fuel injector cleaner.
 






I haven't driven the Bronco much until today. There was an incident in the garage following the knocking that involved a flying hammer with a not quite attached head... Needless to say I needed a new windshield. That kept me off the road more than the noises.

Had it replaced this morning and switched vehicles on lunch. Drove it to work, through some evening traffic, baja'd through my favorite little shortcut home and the truck didn't even hesitate once. I did the lower weight oil change last weekend and it greatly reduced the knock. It's still there every so often but nowhere near as severe as when I first started it up.

At this point I think it is safe to say the head gasket job was a success and that the knock is stuck lifter. Truck runs beautifully otherwise. I will keep an ear out but I think it may just be another one noises that adds to the charm of the truck.

Now with the engine stuff out of the way I will probably be focusing on some cosmetics. The rattle can paint job is finally showing its age and the rust is coming through in a bunch of spots. I've been doing patches with spray primer but it looks like ****. The roof needs a fist sized whole sealed and if I reach back from the driver's seat I can tickle my rear tire.

Not sure how much wheeling will happen this year but I'm happy just to be able to drive it again.
 






Drove the truck all week. Pulled out of my driveway one morning and it wouldn't go into drive. Figured the shifter cable just needed adjustment. Next day I checked the antifreeze and it looked like Christmas in there. Checked the transmission juice and it was bone dry. Lucky I didn't drive very far.

Replaced the radiator today. Yup, the transmission loop blew in there and my antifreeze looked more red than green. Have to replace the lower radiator hose tomorrow because it was starting to wear on the sway bar bracket.
 






I don't know what this feeling is. Elation? Sadness? Joy? All I know is I crossed the final item off the needs list!! The lil ******* is once again a complete running driving stopping offroad machine!

The head gasket job was supposed to take a month but escalated into a bunch of other little things that I've been ignoring for a while. Now I can get to all the fun stuff like actually wheeling! Treating myself to a descent night of sleep before planning the next phase...
 






Good news, mostly

As previously mentioned the lil' ******* was in dire need of some body work. I was shooting it with whatever rattle cans I had to keep it together. This weekend I cleaned up some of the Bondo boogers I used to patch up holes but never got around to sanding. My original plan was to use rattle can primer but my dad wouldn't let that happen. He shot many a car back in his day and even won a few car shows. I did all the prep work and let him shoot. For a quick scuff and shoot, it's a 10 footer. Simple hot rod flat black primer until I can decide on a final color scheme.

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Took a ride out to Montauk, LI too. Approximately 150 mile round trip. Bronco didn't even wince once. Me on the other hand....it rides like a kid on a sugar high. Bouncy, shakey and like it wants to crawl up a wall. I was in the zone and didn't even stop get out and stretch once.

The lifter tap is still there but there's no lack of power or anything. Solution? Open the windows and turn up the radio.

One other thing I noticed is that the oil pressue gauge is semi-sporatic. When I come to a stop/idle it goes down to nothing but comes right up. And at times it's shakey. From what I've read I think it is due to the lower weight oil I used. 85% of the time it reads normal. Aftermarket oil gauge is next on my list.

I'm finally content with the truck. Next mods will be some miscellaneous bits and bobs I've wanted to do for a while. (Basically everything in the first gen sticky section.)
 






hey um...if your looking for a bodyman, i know one! he tells me you would have to fly him out there. best time for him to be there is the first 2 weeks in june :D
 






Played catch up with my projects this weekend. Was traveling the past few weeks before ending up at Carlisle last weekend. Slept through a lot of it but was good to see some of the north east crew back together.

Didn't get any goodies for the lil ******* at Carlisle though I did manage to snag a T5 World Class for my Volvo 140. It's a shame how much of a Mustang show AFN's has become but I digress.

A few weeks ago I removed the spare tire carrier since it was starting to split the fiberglass hatch. Plus I like the cleaner look without the spare. Spent a lot of time figuring out where to mount my spare 31. Decided to go with a rear hitch and fab up a hitch mounted fold down carrier. Ordered the hitch and maybe I was tired but couldn't get the holes to line up right. Frame rails sagged probably just like when I was installing the Duff arms. Wasn't crazy about how low the hitch sat either so rather than mess with it I got a refund. Started doing research about and landed on strapping the tire to the rear cargo area. It lays flat in the rear cargo area and is held in with a Y ratchet strap that I got from Poison Spider offroad. Thing is beefy and the tire isn't going anywhere.

Although I lament the severe loss of cargo space I don't travel with much anyway.
 






It's been a good few weeks for the lil *******. Summer's here which means beach time. Got out twice this weekend alone. This morning I headed out before sunrise to beat the traffic. Sipping your coffee from the drivers seat while watching the red sun rise over the sand dunes is really something.

The truck is running amazing despite continuously blowing off the overflow hose. Solved with a snug hose clamp. Ran it up and down the highway to around 85. Tracks straight despite the wonky TTB alignment. Driving on the beach is another story.... the bump steer is ridiculous even when aired down and at 25 MPH. Not sure if it's a steering box thing or an alignment thing but it's god awful. Since I'm sticking with the TTB I might look for a Superrunner type steering setup.

On the other hand, my tires rock. I love the General Grabber AT 2's. Great all around tire. Absolutely have to air down for the beaches around here. We have the sugar sand and you'll dig yourself to China before you move an inch. Drop them to 15 PSI and no complaints what so ever.

Figured out the new photo upload feature so here's a few.

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This is going to be a long post since I actually have something noteworthy.

Summer is wrapping up here and I had planned to moth ball the truck until the snow falls It's supposed to be a pretty terrible winter here and I figured this truck would be better than ruining the 01 Sport. Funny how quickly plans change.

Last Thursday one of my Jeep buddies texted me and asked if I wanted to hit Wharton over the weekend. He'd never been there and wanted to get some trails in. I agreed. Cue last minute packing and panic. Friday night I wired up a bunch of stuff, re-organized my camping gear, replaced some hoses and got about 4 hours of sleep before hitting the road Saturday morning at 4 AM.

We made good highway time except for the Cherokees having to occasionally stop for overheating. (We did this all weekend. No catastrophic failures though.)

Wharton was kind of disappointing vs my previous experiences there. Was very much dry and sandy like the terrain we have here. The lack of rain just made everything a dust bowl. Regardless, we spent two full days on the trails and camped out under the stars. (Pictures in a later post.)

The Little ******* did awesome on the trails. That TTB is awesome for hitting all the bumps and ruts. The speed limit in the forest is 35 but we stayed closer to 20. The solid axle jeeps drove like they were drunk in the bumps and my worn out suspension kept bottoming out at higher speeds.

And speaking of the TTB, it amazes and terrifies me. I really got to see up close the difference in angles between solid and TTB. I went down a steep embankment for a water crossing and felt like I was going to tip over at any moment while the others looks fine. I was the only one that actually got IN the water. It started coming in the door and then I backed out. My rusted ass muffler filled up with water and choked the engine once or twice.

All in all a good trip. My ears are still ringing from the highway driving though. I had earplugs in most of the time and the CB cranked up. This is also the first trip in which the CB radios all worked. It added to the adventure.

Even for being pretty flat I still flogged the truck pretty hard. 600+ miles in two days. A lot of that being highway. The rocker noise is horrendously loud on the highway. Sounds like a bunch of marbles banging around when under load. Road noise is terrible and the steering is pretty loose. Definitely did wring it out in some of the straight aways and locker + sand = some wicked fishtailing.

So where does that leave us? I've known for a while that the suspension needed work. It's sagging and bottoming out over regular speed bumps. The fenders are slicing the tires. Random things are banging. The rockers are literally disintegrating. Oh, and apparently I lost most of my tranny fluid somewhere. And the t-case is humming.

The truck will probably sit for a while while I decide where to take the build next. Fear not, I plan on keeping it alive but it needs a lot of attention. (More than usual.) I like the TTB for what I use the truck for. It's just scary when flexing. I've ruled out SAS and am probably leaning towards a D44 TTB swap. 8 extra inches of track width should help some.
 












Here's a couple of pics to keep y'all interested.

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Early morning lineup at the first rest stop. Two out of four hoods were up just after this was taken.

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Pulled out a Cherokee on 35's. Dug himself up to the body and there was nothing around to use jack boards.

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Poser shot after going swimming. Can almost see the waterline on the door.

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The one road fix. Checked it out today and I think the clamps were just not tight enough. Removed valve and routed hoses right into heater core. Deal with it in the spring.
 






Welp, that didn't go as planned.

Spent my Christmas bonus amassing parts for the upgrade. I'm too shot to try and be secretive about it, and also pretty excited.

Front end plan:
Superlift drop Brackets (Reinforced of course)
4 Inch skyjacker Coils
F-250 shock towers
Shocks - Undecided. Maybe throw some cheap Ranchos on there just to get driving
James Duff extended Radius arms - Already installed

Rear:
4 Inch skyjacker Softride leaves
Shocks still unknown
I will see how the rear settles. Right not I have the Chevy lift shackes back there but may have to replace with the stock ones once I get it all bolted up.

The goal here is to have an all around truck. I liked the way the TTB hits the terrain at high speed vs a SAS. Even with a wonky alignment it still drove great. I had decent amount of flex in the front. It did what I wanted too, I just want a little bit more without going crazy.

I shopped around and pieced everything together vs going with kits. Too many wasted parts plus some are still using a single plate for the passenger side drop down vs an actual drop bracket.

Originally the goal was to go cut/turned/extended beams. There's still that voice in the back of my head saying I should have done that from the get go. Maybe I should have, maybe I should have gone SAS. Who knows. This was the easiest way to get something done to the truck. I plan to drive it under it's own power to Carlisle this year and I wanted to have all the kinks worked out by then.

So enough soap boxing. Jacked up the truck today and started cutting stuff off. Had the passenger side coil bucket off in an hour and another hour of trimming to have the f-250 bucket where I wanted it. Using the lower mounting hole from the original coil bucket as a guide. (Pictures next time.)

Need to replace the TTB bushing so the entire assembly is coming out. Fckuing coil retainer bolt too three hours, a torch and a can of PB blaster to get out. Figure may as well do a complete R&R on the beams if I'm going to take them out. Also, the JD arms are starting to flake from being the in the salt water so much. Need to seal them up too.

One thing leads to another but do it once, do it right.
 









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still waiting on the 302 swap :popcorn:

Someday. 302's are relatively plentiful. Still kicking myself for not buying my friend's Mustang. Solid drive train with a 5 speed but frame rotted out from sitting so car was undriveable. Never have the funds when you need em and can't find what you're looking for when you have cash.

Once the snow stopped today I went out and cleared it off the hut. Wrenched on the Bronco for a bit and did a lot of staring. Looks like I should replace everything steering wise from the steering box down. I cross threaded the pitman arm nut a while back...

Balljoints are getting wiggly, rubber boots on the draglinks, brakes nearly down to the pads, breather hose to the front diff nearly worn through from the front driveshaft and the truck definitely went swimming on the last trip. So replace everything.

She started right up even after sitting for a month and a half. Can't wait to be on the road again.
 






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