Ricks Bronco: 1and 1/2

[lifeguard379]

it looks great

 

[Burns]

The Bronco II looks awesome.....

 

[rookieshooter]

Thanks Burns and Lifeguard.

Do you believe this, I can't even get into my new garage . 3" body lift + 33s + roof cage = 1 damn inch to high to clear door.

Now enter high speed grinder with cut off wheel + drill + one big hammer = 2 inches less

I was at a car wash yesterday and the manager comes over with his jeep buddies. They liked the uniqueness of the truck and invited me with them on some trail rides. They go to Sleepy Creek state park that is only 1/2 hour away from me. It encompasses 20,000 acres of mountains terrain with some wild trail rides. Lot of rocks. This is not a bunch of timid guys that are afraid of getting banged up.
I just need to get another spare tire and tire rack in the back first. Most have winches so that's nice. The hard core trails are closed during the hunting season since this park is managed for Deer, Bear and Turkeys and don't want a lot of traffic during that period. So it may have to wait afterwards. I can't wait to see how this will do against those jeeps.
Would love to have a locker installed before that
I thought it was nice to be invited with nothing but jeep guys.

 

[410Fortune]

Jeeps guys are typically cool, run what ya brung!! The nice thing about Jeeps is everyone has one, so the holes on the trails are dug out in Jeep wheel base spacing, so your BII will have tires just outside the holes...if you pick the right lines you can get through where they dig in

So did you modify the garage or the truck? cannot tell from the pics

Looks great!

What kind of locker are you considering?

 

[rookieshooter]

Jeeps guys are typically cool, run what ya brung!! The nice thing about Jeeps is everyone has one, so the holes on the trails are dug out in Jeep wheel base spacing, so your BII will have tires just outside the holes...if you pick the right lines you can get through where they dig in

So did you modify the garage or the truck? cannot tell from the pics

Looks great!

What kind of locker are you considering?

Thanks for the tip on the wheel base spacing.

I cut down the brackets on the roof cage, so now it lays allmost flush with the roof.

 

[rookieshooter]

Hey I really do use these lights , there not all Bling. They really shine during the early morning and late evening trail rides during hunting season. No pun intended. Don't want to run over Bambie and her mother.

Those rear located Hella work lights come in real handy when getting all your coats and gear together. And those those front roof cage Hella driving lights really light up the Forrest floor.

 

[rookieshooter]

Love it! Fist time in the snow.
Went out hunting and getting firewood on my hunting property that I lease with some other guys.
I figured that I would have to air down the tires and keep a full or near full tank to get traction to the back wheels. But after that it went fine. Now in this pick it just started snowing. We only had about 5" of snow. The deeper it got the better it handled.

Now here she is bringing home the bacon, or should I say venison with a small load of firewood. The firewood is an added bonus on this farm. They let me have all I want for my wood burning stove in the basement as long as I get the old timber that has already fallen. And there is a lot of fallen timber on the 400 acres. No cutting of live trees. I have a floor grate that lets the heat flow upstairs. This beats turning on the electric baseboard .
After the hunting season it will be full bore on the B2 again. One person couldn't belive that I loaded the back up with fire wood and a dead dear. "Hey this was not built to keep clean buddy". It was built for a work truck also.
People in this area just love this little truck. I've had so many people that i don't know stop and ask me about it. One women came over with her husband and asked me do I want to sell it and where did I buy it. HA HA. First I told her it's not for sell and that I built it. Then she said to her husband I want you to build me one I just can't get over how sweet that guttural sound of that HI Per. 302 sounds. There is no such thing as a soft **** with that B&M shift kit installed. It's just Verooom blam, Veroom blam.
I still need to get another rim and tire like I have on the four corners for a spare before doing any serious trail rides come spring. But this gives me plenty of time to get her even more ready. I'll mount the spare in the rear bed slightly angled up on the cross over bar that supports the rear out board shocks.

 

[rookieshooter]

Now to report on the John Deer Blitz Black paint job after 5 months of bouncing around in the woods. This is a utilitarian paint job if there ever was one. This is one tough paint and has handled those tree rubbing trails well. It has a satin black sheen and adds to the toughness of this little truck.
With this said I highly recommend it for its usefulness. Not much on bling but it still stands out on the street but more importantly stands up against rubbing and scratches.

Here it is backing up thru all that scrub getting to that fallen down Shagbark Hickory to cut up for fire wood.

 

[rookieshooter]

Was out bouncing around on some trails with a load of firewood and I thought the rear end felt a little squirrelly.
During my haste to get this thing tagged and on the road. I forgot to finish welding the driver side outboard shock tabs to the upper spring plate. Both were just tacked on. I'm getting ready to weld the inner tab on now. The shocks are directly over the leafs. Oh well, it was a nice day to weld outside anyway. No need to weld in garage if I don't have to.
Just waiting for some $$ to turn loose and I'll be back at fabbing some stuff to the little beast. I really miss all the fabrication work. I'm just as pleased building on this as wheeling it.

 

[rookieshooter]

You are looking down at the rear bed of the B2. What you see after I took off the access plate is the top of the gas tank with the combo fuel gauge sending unit and outlet tube.
I knew at some point I would appreciate this access cover that I made. Did not like the idea of draining and pulling tank to get to this unit. Well now was the time, but what happened next I did not expect.
My Autometer gauge was not reading right so I wanted to inspect the sending unit. No biggie just remove cover and pull out. . . Wrong!
When removing unit I hit the side of the tank with the float. Splash.
Last thing I saw was the float, floating away.

Looking into the tank waiting for float to float by. I tried everything to make that float come by. No way, just heard it hitting side of tank. Used coat hanger and even an air hose. Just too much fumes also. I had enough. And I was not going to drain and drop tank. That float can float in there until the cows come home.

Here is the sending unit less float.

After a short ride to Autozone where they all know me by first name. Wonder why. I showed Dave and he said we don't have any floats, most people don't need new floats. HA HA. But for $90 we can get you a new unit. Now this is already a new unit as is the gas tank and damn if I'm going to buy another one. I told him since I don't drink anymore I'll just un-cork a bottle of my Moet Chandone and use the cork. But as usual Dave came up with an idea, a carburetor float. Just snipped off the brass hinge and wrapped the wire around it and Bingo, back in business.
Oh ya, one other thing. It was just a simple grounding problem, not the unit.

 

[Nick26]

My Autometer gauge was not reading right so I wanted to inspect the sending unit. No biggie just remove cover and pull out. . . Wrong! When removing unit I hit the side of the tank with the float. Splash.
Last thing I saw was the float, floating away.
Looking into the tank waiting for float to float by. I tried everything to make that float come by. No way, just heard it hitting side of tank. Used coat hanger and even an air hose. Just too much fumes also. I had enough. And I was not going to drain and drop tank. That float can float in there until the cows come home.
Here is the sending unit less float.

Does the float have anything steel on it? I've attached magnets to the end of a coat hanger before to reach screws I've dropped in the engine bay and stuff like that.

 

[rookieshooter]

Was out bouncing around on some trails with a load of firewood and I thought the rear end felt a little squirrelly.
During my haste to get this thing tagged and on the road. I forgot to finish welding the driver side outboard shock tabs to the upper spring plate. Both were just tacked on. I'm getting ready to weld the inner tab on now. The shocks are directly over the leafs. Oh well, it was a nice day to weld outside anyway. No need to weld in garage if I don't have to.
Just waiting for some $$ to turn loose and I'll be back at fabbing some stuff to the little beast. I really miss all the fabrication work. I'm just as pleased building on this as wheeling it.

Welding broken shock tab. Well had I not forgot to arc weld it after just spot welding it in, it would have not broken if first place.

What a difference that made. Now back to floating over those bumps. I'm using Rancho shocks.
.

 

[Turdle]

Yeah yeah-excuses--:


What is with the "honda tuner for life"?

 

[rookieshooter]

Yeah yeah-excuses--:


What is with the "honda tuner for life"?

Was wondering when I was going to get asked that.HA HA

I'm using my sons photobucket. He's a certified Honda technician and works for a Honda dealer in Gaithersburg Md.
In some of my build pics you can see a black Honda and one Yellow convertibe. He's sold the black Honda sense then and bought the R something one when he landed that job at the Honda dealer.
Hope I didn't scare ya.

 

[rookieshooter]

Thinking of making my own web tail gate so when I remove the metal Ranger one I'll have something back there. I looked at some for small pickups but I would still have to modify them and the ones I saw where not that strong looking.

I have some of this really heavy nylon webbing that I thought I could use. I just have it clamped on right now for some ideas. Was thinking of making loops at each end and then have some round metal rod that would go thru loops at each end and fasten somehow to sides. Then I would also have some vertical webbing spaced evenly along the 3 horizontal ones. Maybe like 4 or 5. The only problem is that I don't have a commercial sewing machine.
My idea would be to use small bolts to where the vertical and horizontal meet. Might not look bad at all. It would give it a tuff look. I could heat up a small rod and burn the right size hole in nylon. This would keep it from fraying. This thing would be completely removable also.
Any thoughts.

 

[Mike Draper]

Hmmm...maybe use button head pop-rivets with a back-up washer.

Or...trim this to size. http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=2008020114223705&item=1-2327-A&catname=

http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=2008020114223705&item=1-2327&catname=

I'm looking at getting a couple, at $10.00 each, hard to go wrong.


Mike

 

[rookieshooter]

I would have ordered that netting in a heart beat had I not had all that webbing laying around. I bet someone else will jump on that.

Starting to take shape. I looped the ends around some 1/2" tubing that you can see at each end. I drilled a 1/2" hole in the bed of truck and slid the tube down into hole. It goes about an inch and rests on part of the frame.
At this point I was still uncertain on how to attach the top. I think the Vise grips at one end and bungy cord at other would look a little tacky

This is how I connected all the loop ends and crossovers. Just heated a scratch awl and then used a finished looking bolt. It has a flange that's integrated with the bolt head.

Done, other then to paint the metal tubing.
I went to Tractor Supply and looked at the hardware section and decided on a little steel hoop and a spring snap ring. The hoop is mounted to top of bed rail and the snap ring is attached to the tubing by small piece of metal rod about an 1/8" dia. that I just bent to wrap around tubing and then into the the other end of snap ring.
The trick was to get enough tension on the netting so it won't flap all around. You have to really pull the netting with some force to snap the rings in place. This netting will come in real handy when I start cutting wood again.

Oops, just noticed in pics that I have to trim some ends off. BTW I used a cut off wheel to cut all webbing. It is really some tuff stuff.

Can't wait to start on that spare tire carrier in rear of bed. It ought to look look cool with that netting.

 

[FROADER]

The gate turned out good. :smoke:

 

[rookieshooter]

Thanks Froader

Starting to install my CB radio. The radio needs some mounts made up to install at bottom of dash but does work. Got this 102" stainless whip antenna at Radio shack.
For now just got the end stuck down inside my snorkel

I also ordered another Black American spoke rim for my spare. Should be here in 1 to 2 days.
Going to start making spare tire carrier in back.

 

[Burns]

Now that is creative. I like it alot. It looks very good.


my dad has the same antenna