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Peter's 1973 Ford Bronco

RFR2212

Typing Police
Joined
April 10, 2000
Messages
5,249
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City, State
In the mug by Chitown
Year, Model & Trim Level
95 JEEP Wrangler
So I begin a new journey... This time, with a vehicle 9 years older than I. I have a 1973 bronco, produced in 1972. It contains a 302 v-8, c-4 automatic, dana 20 transfercase and it has a dana 44HP drum brake front end and a 9in rear end. In addition to this, it comes with an unknown 3.5in lift, Kuhmo 31in M/T's homemade bumpers, Holley 4bbl carb, and an Offenhauser intake. Overall it's an excellent start to a dedicated wheeler. The downside, it has manual brakes, drum brakes all around, some leaks and a whole lot of rust. I began this week working on the doors which were not installed and fix the rusty bottoms.
2150pass_door_bottom-med.JPG

This was much harder than expected and did not turn out as I planned. So I tried to hang the passenger door and could not get it to latch. Temporarily it is held shut with a ratchet strap because I want to keep the weather out of the splendid interior.
2150driver_front-med.JPG

After the door difficulty, pops and I decided it best to continue on with a focus and a goal. This goal was to turn the truck into a wheeler, and just that. There will be little body work from this point on. Though the floorboards are rusty, they are solid, for the time. The goal is to save the hood and grille as they are in good shape and worth it. A new original grill is about 450 bucks. So, I sprayed the hood with Zero-Rust. It's similar to POR-15 but it's what the local auto body supply sells.
2150Pass_side-med.JPG

2150front-med.JPG

Painting will begin tomorrow, and then the truck will see storage for a little bit. When work begins again, I will be installing a cage, and 2in body lift. Though I dont want a body lift, I've read it greatly helps out on the EFI installation which will come in a few years. Why do it now? Because I will be tying the cage into the frame. So I don't want to redo this in the future. The other problem is I have a leaf spring which has a broken leaf. So, I figure start with a fresh suspension lift. Most likely this will be picked up from www.cageoffroad.com or www.bcbroncos.com. Cage offers a 3.5 and a 5.5in lift. The 5.5in lift is only 10 bucks more. So because of cost, I believe I will be getting the 5.5in lift, which means I'll probly be running 37's. At that, I'll be running them earlier than I planned. I figured to heavily modify in about a year, but I suppose it will come earlier. What are the final plans?
5.5in susp lift
2in b/l
cage
lockers
gears
rock rails
bumpers
winch

We shall see where this goes, as im on a tight, tight budget and going to grad school. So this is where the journey of this truck will continue.
Hope you all enjoy.
Here are a few other pictures.
2150pass_rear_well.JPG

2150pass_rear_well_2-med.JPG

2150driver_rear_well-med.JPG

2150driver_rear_well_2-med.JPG
 



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That's alot of Rust :eek: I'd say just get a fiberglass tub a call it good. Less weight too :D

Of, corse I'm not use to rust here in So Cal :D
 






Stic-o said:
That's alot of Rust :eek: I'd say just get a fiberglass tub a call it good. Less weight too :D

Of, corse I'm not use to rust here in So Cal :D

Sounds like a great idea! But, I don't have 3k to drop on one, and I know I'll be hitting trees... Metal bends, fiberglass cracks. I'm sticking with the metal.
 






I just rednecked it and replaced the floors in my K5 with 1/2" plywood, good to go!
 






vervepipes said:
I just rednecked it and replaced the floors in my K5 with 1/2" plywood, good to go!

I don't know why the second to last owner did it, but at this point, I believe removing it will cause more harm than good... So the plywood is staying in it.
 






I just did it because its a 500$ truck I didnt want to put any money into and didnt like everything in the back getting wet, i knew I was going to be parting it out soon anyway too
 






Here is todays work. A dark blue rattle can paint job. This might change as I've found info on turning the front into a tube frame. My inner fenders and other parts need replacing, so this might change that and cause me to re work some of these body panels...
 






Today's work wasn't much. It was rust removal, plywood removal, and covering bare metal as the truck sits outside when not being worked on. So I cleaned out the back end and watched alot of football.
2150cargo_area-med.JPG

2150cargo_area_1-med.JPG

After I get new sheetmetal covering the holes, I've got rhinoliner ready to be painted on. I'm not worrying about removing the seat for now. I'll pull that, and the plywood once I get a cage and new seats. I'm also going to lower the floor there to allow for more headroom with the cage. That's not comming till spring. :eek:
 












Subscribing to watch progress!
 






sounds like itll be sweet! cant wait to see how it turns out!
 






man an EB is probably my dream trail rig.

im jealous! cant wat to see the outcome!
 






Its really not bad at all. Good choice on the 73 :thumbsup:. You got some cancer but what do you expect this part of the country. All in all its not too bad. Hard to tell from the pics but it looks pretty square which is more than I could say for my 73 when I brought it home.

Please put the real parking lights back on the grill :eek:

You do have some work ahead of you but these things are easy to work on and you will enjoy it. As for the body lift helping the EFI swap, I'll let you know here in a month or so or whenever I drop mine in.

If you need any parts give me a yell, I have a few misc. little stuff laying around wasting space and a buddy of mine up the road has a TON of crap (some good, some bad). None of your major body panels or anything, but misc little stuff here and there.

When you replace the floor pans the ones from Jeff's are about the best for your money. Your close so shipping is cheap and fast and Jeffs are from Denis Carpenter so they are the same thing everyone is selling and there are different arrangements of patch panels you can put in. The hardest panel you mentioned in your PM was the Door post and kick panel, not that they are hard, but they are key structural points so you just have to take your time and make sure its all supported before you cut them out.

in case you don't have the full link here are all my buildup pics of all the various BS and it might give you some idea how things are pieced together.

http://www.haughs.net/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album01

I'll keep my eyes open for any disc brake conversion stuff cheap for ya if your gonna go that route, it pops up once in a while when you are not looking. There are also some cheaper routes for a brake booster than I went, I forget what the guys use but search around www.classicbroncos.com. Think maybe a pinto booster or something??
 












Yeah I knew i'd be asking him questions, but I didn't know that he did the amount of body work he did. I must have missed that part in his pictures. But, I'm going to rack his brain to help shore up my body. Here is this weekends work. The passenger rear well is half taken care of.
2150DSCN3165-med.JPG

2150DSCN3166-med.JPG

2150DSCN3168-med.JPG

2150DSCN3170-med.JPG

2150DSCN3171-med.JPG

2150DSCN3172-med.JPG

2150DSCN3173-med.JPG

2150DSCN3174-med.JPG

I'm going to repair the same portion on the drivers side probly in two or three weeks. I've got school papers to take care of first. Then, I will replace the front of those wheel wells afterwards as i need to remove the bench seat.
I've got all winter..... :confused:
 






Looks real good. Mine was patched by a PO with license plates. I kept one in there for nastalga sake. Once covered in fiberglass and herculined can't even see it. thats a pretty common rust area.
 






Awesome! I love EB's. Subscribing. :smoke:
 






Not a huge update... I have patched some holes, and cut out some rust... But today I picked up these.. Disk brake swap parts!
2150DSCN3221-med.jpg
 






Glad you were able to find them! :thumbsup:
 



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Grad school still, but that doesn't mean I can't buy stuff! :D Next week, I'm picking up a near new set of 33x12.5 TSL swampers! And in the mail is my Astro hydroboost unit for the brakes. So, it's slowly comming together... I'm going to need to build some vacation, because I'm gonna need alot of time off to build this sweet truck!
 






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