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Free '84 Bronco II Been sitting for 15+ years. Help!

Spacemonkee23

New Member
Joined
June 4, 2014
Messages
5
Reaction score
1
City, State
California, East Bay
Year, Model & Trim Level
1984
Hi all,

I am new to this forum and to the bronco as a whole. An old friend is giving me his 84 Bronco II with 150,x.. miles. It was in running condition when he parked it in a warehouse and covered it. 15+ years later he had it towed to his house and now wants it gone... Thats where I come in, I am heading over there this weekend to try and start it to get it home (15 mile drive or so). Towing is my last option if I can't get it started.

What should I do before I crank the key to start this sleeping beast.

- Drain the gas (now varnish) flush the lines, new gas.
- pull the plugs and squirt some oil in the cylinders manually turn the motor make sure its not seized
- New Battery
- check all hoses
- oil change and coolant flush
- carb cleaner everywhere in the carb(until I can replace-options- or rebuild it)
- START IT?

I would like to make it a daily-ish and trail rig.

any other help or input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

here is a pic of it.

MvczLSP.jpg
 



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Looks like one of the best "purchases" I've ever seen!

Good luck and have fun.

Dan
 






Looks great. I would call AAA and just have them tow it to your place. Then you spend some time and do it right.
 












Looks like one of the best "purchases" I've ever seen!

Good luck and have fun.

Dan

No kidding, I am excited to get started on this. Thanks!

Looks great. I would call AAA and just have them tow it to your place. Then you spend some time and do it right.

The problem is that I have no garage and it won't fit in my carport, too tall :D. This means I need to park it on the street for a little while moving it every 3 days (strict 3 day limit for street parking) :wtf: I need to register it and at least get it running at his house (he doesn't mind me using his garage to get it running). Once I have it running I will get it smog worthy for the F**ing smog reps here in California, ugh.

That's a great looking B-2!

Thanks! It was his baby, he sent me a pic of the title and registration expired in '92. He remembers when he parked it the reg expired. That means its been sitting in a warehouse untouched for 22years!!! I might have more issues than I had originally expected. I will find out on Sunday.

I will keep updating here as I get into it more.
 






The biggest issue may be whether or not that 15-22+ year old gas in it was ethanol. Straight unleaded will go bad and leave gum and varnish in the tank and lines and in the carb, sure, but ethanol will turn to goo and it's a complete mess when it seperates in the tank, not to mention how badly it clogs the lines.

If you can, drop the tank or pull the filler hose and look inside to see what you are dealing with. You can put new fuel in a varnished tank and possibly get it to start with some other prep, but if you look inside and it's a bunch of sticky slime in there, you might have to replace the fuel lines or use some very nasty chemicals to try and get them clear. No telling on the carb, if it's ethanol, you'd likely have to rebuild it.

Other than that, sure, you can probably just turn the engine (with the spark plugs out or the wires off to avoid a surprise) to make sure it isn't seized, change the oil (perhaps dumping some new oil in and letting it sit in the pan for awhile, then drain it to hopeflly get some of the sludge that's in the pan out before starting it), change the coolant (maybe new thermostat too, to be safe), check the hoses, carb cleaner, battery, and who knows.

It might take quite a few cranks to get it started until the fuel gets in the lines, but that's okay because it will build the oil pressure too so it won't start as dry. You may even want to pull the valve cover and pour the oil over the lifters and springs.

You're probably going to want to buy new tires for it.
 






Update, I went down to the house its stored at and played around with it. (sorry for the length of this read. (a couple Pics at the bottom)

TL;DR - engine runs off gravity feeding gas, clogged fuel lines and bad fuel pump, needs radiator hoses and thermostat, interior is missing dash/stereo and door panels, will be working on it more next month to get it drivable and get it home.

I spun the motor by hand and it spun surprisingly easy, felt compression on all six while spinning the crank with the socket wrench. Siphoned the old gas as much as I could and dumped a can of seafoam and a gallon-ish of fresh gas in the tank. Coolant was mostly evaporated so I topped it off temporarily. Removed the fuel line off the carb and attached a hose dropping into a bucket to see if the lines would pump any gas out/ push out any crap inside the lines. Sprayed all accessible holes on the carb with carb cleaner and went to crank it get some fuel out. I put the battery from my truck into and turned the key......... nothing! got lights on the dash and buzzer going nuts but no starter cranking.

So I figured the starter needed a nice whack with a hammer. Crawling under with a hammer to smack it around and noticed there was NO STARTER!! ugh. Found the starter in the "trunk" along with the dash and door panels :/ Found no bolts for the starter though. I quickly grabbed some bolts from the hardware store and only the top would thread in. I need to drill the bottom hole through and put a nut on it next time I go out.

Got back in the car and cranked the motor to pump some fuel into my bucket. after about 5 seconds of cranking THE ENGINE STARTED!!! with no fuel line attached, burnt off the carb cleaner I sprayed in there and it died. Roughly 10 seconds of running. SWEET the engine runs, no misfires or knock whatsoever :D

No fuel came out of the lines so I assume I need to replace the mechanical fuel pump which is a PITA to get the bolts out, saving that for the next visit. If it doesn't pump with the new one in I will drop the tank and flush the lines.

I did gravity feed the carb with a gatorade bottle and hose fired it up for about 30 seconds holding the RPMs at around 1200 or so. Runs smooth but noticed a leak in the radiator hose.

Next time out I will change the oil, address the fuel issues (maybe drop the tank), radiator hoses and thermostat, flush out the cooling system, and bleed the brakes/clutch and hopefully it will run under its own power. Oh and the shifter has a LOT of play so I need to swap the stick out for a better one, I think its a TK5. I wont be able to work on it until next month due to a business trip but I will update as I get moving on it more.

Then onto tires and reinstalling the dash and door panels. Oh and I will be installing a subtle sound system too ;)

Thank you for the info everyone!

TQvWJlH.jpg

R5NTBLa.jpg

l59pnU7.jpg

LWRiMHf.jpg
 






Alright here is a short update.

My last trip out was successful. I dropped the tank, cleaned it out and installed a new sending unit. Changed the oil and flushed the cooling system. Got a sweet grill guard for it off a ranger at the bone yard. Got the tank back in and did a quick run over the entire truck.

Needs a master cylinder and a little TLC but overall it runs great! Next up are some new rubbers and registration. Then interior work will begin.

It was stored away in 1992. Drove it under its own power for the first time in 22 years.

PICS!

vqvvzNx.jpg

Clogged sending unit replaced.
qIpMgtr.jpg

Brush guard installed! Looks sweet!
7DuatAi.jpg

Needs a bath.
aS4R1m8.jpg
 






I'm not sure how I missed your thread, shirking my responsibilities. That thing is freaking sweet, makes me wish I had a closer to stock bII to run around in.
 






Thanks.

I finally went to pick up the Bronco II yesterday. Drove it about 15 very sketchy miles on streets. Lets just say it was a scary, nerve wracking drive.

The master cylinder is leaking something fierce causing a majority of the braking to be done by the front left! There was a moment where I had to brake a little heavier than I wanted to and lets just say, I occupied two lanes (not by choice) during that stop. Fortunately there was very little traffic on the route I chose. I have a new M.C. on its way to fix that issue. Its a little smokey when I takeoff from a light but other than that it drove pretty well and stayed at a decent engine temp.

The tires scared the S#!t out of me (So many cracks) the steel belts were showing on the left rear. Filling up the rear tires (mostly worn out) I was watching even more cracks form in the sidewall as the pressure increased. They only had about 10psi in them - I filled them to about 30psi. This was the most treacherous part of the day, filling the tires praying that they didn't explode in my face! The entire drive I was prepared/expecting a blowout but alas, I made it to the house without major issues and gave it a quick rinse.

It is going to be sitting for a little while during my teardown of my other truck. Meanwhile, I have a couple pics of it in the correct driveway.

R3JEJwn.jpg

uNaGJLY.jpg

bgrqOVj.jpg

cPeM0V1.jpg


I will be out of town for the next two weeks. Hopefully when I get back I can start putting in some hard work on the Bronco.

Until next time!
 






Nice little rig! I've always liked the old square style B2's
 






Congrats on bringing new life to an old BII:chug:
 












this maybe the best looking bII i have ever seen. i really like the look for some reason. how much lift and tire size?
 






Awesome! Reading your thread kind of makes me want one. Just wondering how things are going with it.
 






I know this post is older than the hills but I was reminiscing about my B2 and how bad I missed it thought I would look at some other members B2's.
Spacemonkee33 first off you completely stole that B2 . . .yeah you had to do a lot of work on it but you gotta admit it was a labor of love. . lol
My B2 was a 85' with the 2.8l and the completely worthless A4LD. The worst problem for me was passing the California smog Nazis testing OMG what a nightmare! I sucked it up and jumped through every hurdle they threw at me and passed. Then once it was up and legal I started to enjoy driving it then one morning I was headed to the lake to go fishing and suddenly the rear end started skidding and the A4LD showed its true colors. Not wanting to replace a ridiculous pos with another pos I found a wrecked 84 B2 with an manual trans and swapped the entire trans/ clutch everything bolted up nicely. This was one of the best things I did to the B2. Work related changes had me moving to Montana . . . . Ohellyes! Now I could rip all the insane smog devices off the 2.8 and duraspark it. Oh yeah I got a lil crazy and put a comp cam and weber carb and headers let me tell you that this outfit jumped like a scared deer when you gassed it! These little trucks are so much fun to drive and in 4x4 it went everywhere i pointed it and in the snow it was great too. . . can you tell I miss my B2?
I had a lil mishap one day when a deer jumped in front of me and I got a lil airborne and smashed up some sheet metal and its been sitting ever since (4 years) The engine and all the mods I put on it only had about 20,000 miles on em so I been thinkin bout finding another B2 with a blown motor and getting back into a fun daily driver . . not that my 97 exploder isnt fun to drive it's just not a B2.
Here is a pic
B2.jpg
 






Nice little wheeler. Did you register it before driving it on the highway? Get a one day trip permit from DMV if you are going to drive it on the street again. Its not worth getting caught and having it impounded until you pay all the 22 years of back fees, plus penalties. You will basically lose the B2 if you get caught driving it on the street. You can register it now as a non-op vehicle and defer the smog inspection until you restore it to driving condition. Have the gifter fill out a bill of sale and a short declaration stating it was stored off the highway for the past 22 years. It will help with registration.
 






Listen to BKennedy he knows what hes talking about the state WILL impound your B2 and hold it for ransom.
The State of California has gone mad (not so much the people as the government)
example: I had a 2005 Ford F350 and my Calif. registration was $785.00 per year
When I moved to Montana the registration was $189.00 and it was Permanent!
and not like the Calif Permanent that expires in like 8 or 10 years.

Lets talk license tax's Calif. over $8.6 BILLION collected in 2012
Montana a little over $300 million

Its your money use it the way you want
 






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