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The what did I get myself into 1971 Restomod - BUILD THREAD

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Audifan

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Keep hitting it with the PB Blaster every couple of days then after a couple of weeks use a 5 lb hammer with the impact driver. Doug

Thanks Doug, will do.

I ordered new striker plates and screws today anyway....just in case ;)
 

DirtDonk

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And make sure you're hitting it from the backside through the wheel well. If you're just doing it from the front it might not snake it's way though as effectively.
Both sides count!

Paul
 
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And make sure you're hitting it from the backside through the wheel well. If you're just doing it from the front it might not snake it's way though as effectively.
Both sides count!

Paul

Thanks for the tip.


Also Paul, just ordered a ton of stuff from you guys today....new gas tank, pump, direct fit steering column kit, and a whole lot of parts.
 

DirtDonk

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Fantastic! Thanks for the support.
Let us know if you have any questions about any of it before, or during installation.

Paul
 

sprdv1

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Thanks for the tip.


Also Paul, just ordered a ton of stuff from you guys today....new gas tank, pump, direct fit steering column kit, and a whole lot of parts.

Always love to see bunch of boxes at the front door...

Good luck
 
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Always love to see bunch of boxes at the front door...

Good luck


Me too, in this case, the Cat and I thought they looked pretty good in the house, but the wife wasn't impressed...
 

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Well the Bronco "To Do" list keeps growing and I also keep avoiding the topic of "you really should take the body apart and paint everything before doing anything else", Cuz I really don't want to be without a drivable bronco for that long.

So instead of being smart, I'm just gonna keep doing stuff to it....really hope it doesn't bite me in the ass later.

The next short list of things to do...

1. Floor mats - Done...from WH and they fit great, not as cool as weather tech's but the best I've seen for broncos.

2. Billet taillight and side market light guards...debating powder coating them satin black.

3. Bferrari's Volvo S80 Door Stop mod....I hate that the damn doors won't stay open.

4. New rear view mirror with homelink garage door buttons and compass

5. WH Tunnel cover - gonna play with this as I have ideas for a custom console.

Not pictured:

6. Newport Electric wiper kit

7. WH M1A1 stainless gas tank, pump and skid plate (gonna have the plate powder coated) Can you powder coat the stainless gas tank? any reason not to?

8. WH Ididit Direct Fit Column Shift steering column kit - getting rid of the lokar floor shifter.

And I've got a few other cool tidbits showing up hopefully today.
 

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Great build, I'm interested in this S80 mod. Do you have any more info on it? Thanks

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Full Disclosure, I have not done this yet, but I saw that Ben did it on his Bronco and said it was fairly straight forward...full disclosure again...hes insanely talented...so it might just be easy for him, not mortals.

But I figured what the hell, I've been hit with the door one to many times so why not give it a shot.

Here is Ben's build thread:
http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234723

Basically He used Volvo S80 front door stops from an early 2000 donor.

I found mine on eBay for $20 a side.

Here's a few pics I stole from his build thread to help me figure out how to do it...
 

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DirtDonk

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7. WH M1A1 stainless gas tank, pump and skid plate (gonna have the plate powder coated) Can you powder coat the stainless gas tank? any reason not to?

Thanks Audifan.
There's nothing in general that says you can't powder coat stainless steel. But it sometimes takes more finicky preparation to achieve the best results. Whether or not you need the "best" results might depend on some other things. Unknowns in my case!

I once powder coated a sensor buoy that was being deployed in the Antarctic region and was to spend a year at a time in the ocean.
The government regulated specifications called for the stainless to be passivated first. I actually forget what all this process involves, but I believe it's a chemical (acid?) removal of the surface oxide layer to remove the last of any possible impurities that could promote rust. Or in the case of coating, I'm guessing they just didn't want anything left under the surface that could bubble up the coating.

I'm pretty sure some basic coating does not require full passivation, and there may very well be stainless-specific powders that resist little defects like that nowadays too. Just not sure, but your coater should know I would think.

Even if they just wiped it, or blasted it, or otherwise roughed up the surface, I'm guessing that a decent coating would last a long time.
Personally though, I would just coat the skid plate and leave the tank showing all it's glory.
And this way you don't even risk any deformation of the nice flat side plates. I don't know if this is even a problem or a concern, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Paul
 
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Audifan

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Thanks Audifan.
There's nothing in general that says you can't powder coat stainless steel. But it sometimes takes more finicky preparation to achieve the best results. Whether or not you need the "best" results might depend on some other things. Unknowns in my case!

I once powder coated a sensor buoy that was being deployed in the Antarctic region and was to spend a year at a time in the ocean.
The government regulated specifications called for the stainless to be passivated first. I actually forget what all this process involves, but I believe it's a chemical (acid?) removal of the surface oxide layer to remove the last of any possible impurities that could promote rust. Or in the case of coating, I'm guessing they just didn't want anything left under the surface that could bubble up the coating.

I'm pretty sure some basic coating does not require full passivation, and there may very well be stainless-specific powders that resist little defects like that nowadays too. Just not sure, but your coater should know I would think.

Even if they just wiped it, or blasted it, or otherwise roughed up the surface, I'm guessing that a decent coating would last a long time.
Personally though, I would just coat the skid plate and leave the tank showing all it's glory.
And this way you don't even risk any deformation of the nice flat side plates. I don't know if this is even a problem or a concern, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Paul

Thanks Paul. Appreciate the reply. I have no NEED to do it, was just thinking since I'm blacking out everything else on the bronco and powder coating the skid plate...why not do the tank too.

I'll take your advice and just leave it alone.
 
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Kids had a snow day today, so I decided to play hookie part of the day as well.

Snuck out into the garage for a few hours to work on the striker plates a bit and do some more planning, measuring and overall scheming on upcoming mods/fixes.

My daughter came to hang out with me and after she got bored helping dad she decided she wanted to build her own Bronco while I worked on mine.

Once that started, I spent more time smiling and watching her "work" than I did working on the bronco, but I loved every minute of it.


Also my WFO speaker cans came in and these things are bad ass.

The PO jury rigged some cheap speakers up in the front roll bars and while they work, I hate them.

I also don't care for the wake board boat tower speaker can look you get from the clamped on pods.

While I was researching how to build a custom soundbar, I stumbled onto these welded steel speaker cans that you can WELD right to your roll bar wherever you want.

For $100 bucks it was worth buying a set to checkout...and they are pretty damn awesome. Great construction, only need basic prep to be ready for paint and are just plain cool.

Here's the link to their site:
https://www.wfoconcepts.com/pr/Roll-Cage-Speaker-Can-6-5-Speaker/3202/3855
 

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sprdv1

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Nothin wrong w/that.. good luck..

Full Disclosure, I have not done this yet, but I saw that Ben did it on his Bronco and said it was fairly straight forward...full disclosure again...hes insanely talented...so it might just be easy for him, not mortals.

But I figured what the hell, I've been hit with the door one to many times so why not give it a shot.

Here is Ben's build thread:
http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234723

Basically He used Volvo S80 front door stops from an early 2000 donor.

I found mine on eBay for $20 a side.

Here's a few pics I stole from his build thread to help me figure out how to do it...
 
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Audifan

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Finally got around to working on the Bronco again. I have HUGE pile of parts waiting to be messed with, but decided to focus on the new steering column.

The column is the new/newer Wildhorse/Ididit Direct-fit Kit they sell for Automatic column shift.

I was leaning towards a flaming river, but I like the gang over at WH and the fact that I could click one button and have everything I knew I needed sent to me was a big point in their favor as well.

The column and parts quality is top notch and the finish is very nice as well, although it looks like the black coating is fairly thin and might chip, but only time will tell.

I also love the steering wheel design. I wasn't sure I was gonna like it when I ordered, but it was the best of the options WH had. But after seeing it in the Bronco, I think its exactly the look I was going for.

Install of the column and parts was a very straightforward and relatively painless process and everything bolted up/fit right.

We also completely re-did the shift linkage as the previous owner had used 1/4 all thread which was both rusting and flexing...now it shifts a million times better...before it was so bad I thought the transmission had a shift kit in it.


Uninstalling the Lokar Floor shifter the PO had installed through the hole where the 5speed used to be, has not been a piece of cake.

Mainly due to the fact that the PO built a super thick diamond plate skid plate to cover the tranny and linkage...and instead of bolting it in place, they welded the damn thing in place with some of the sloppiest welds Ive ever seen, but good enough we can't get it loose without some major cutting.

And for that reason the floor shifter is still in the hole and just flopping around till we can get it back up on the rack and start cutting.
 

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Finally time for a new update.

1. Steering column is 100% in and is AWESOME. So happy I pulled the trigger on this and got rid of the floor shifter.

2. WH M1A1 stainless tank and skid plate are installed, along with new fuel pump. We also replaced all the old rubber fuel lines with metal tubing run along the frame.

I was gonna leave the tank stainless, but I expected the skid plate to cover it more, so now I gotta figure out how to black out the back side of the tank so it doesn't stand out so much.


3. Replaced the trailer hitch wiring, replaced it with a better plug and welded it to bumper.
 

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I also finally got my Amp Research side steps installed.

These things are BAD ASS. I've had them on several other trucks in the past, and while they were cool, they were always very visible...almost like side skirts.


Not at all the case here. You can't even see them when they are tucked up and extend down to a perfect height to easily step in with my lift. Way easier for my kids than the nerf bars were.

As a plus, with them tucked away it makes it look even taller.

I bought the already modified steps from NorthEast Classic Ford parts along with their custom mounting brackets.

Installation was a breeze.

I will say, that I mistakenly assumed that the custom mounting bracket would mount to the frame, but that is not the case, it still just mounts to the rocker.

And while it does stiffen it up a ton (I could not imagine mounting the steps straight to the rocker....yikes...the flex), it was not enough for me, so we fabbed up an additional piece to tie the brackets into the frame which made it rock solid.

For the plungers we decided to mount them down by where the aux fuel tank would be with switches that compress against the inside panel of the door. We had much better contact with that, and it still looks good.

All in all, I could not be happier.
 

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Finally completed what I thought was going to be some fairly straight forward "little" projects on the EB. But as it turned out they were quite a bit more involved than I anticipated when I finally got everything apart.

Found out the original color of my bronco was RED...found that out by the AMAZING attention to detail the PO had when he repainted it gray...as I found when I folded down the windshield.

Found red paint and rust. That wasn't on the agenda, but first thing was dealing with the rust and then sealing, priming and painting the red areas to match the gray.

Then I drilled some extra holes to allow me to run wire looms down the inside of both sides of the winshield, as I've got a ton of wires to route down...wiper, dome light, speakers, Rack lights, ect.

I tried the coat hanger trick first and that was a pain in the ass. The secret sauce I found was to take one of the thin wires out of a piece of thermostat wiring (the brown stuff) and heat shrink the end of that wire to the wiring/loom I wanted to pull through the winshield....used the thin wire as the guide/snake and it worked perfectly. Once I figured that out it only took me 10 min to run the looms on both sides.
 

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Once the wiring was in place and the windshield was taken care of I started installing my Newport Wiper system.

Overall, I like the system, but it certainly did not fit the way they claimed it would, and took a fair bit of tweaking to get it to fit and cycle properly. Not 100% happy with it, but to dial the fit in perfectly will have to wait till we take the windshield off when we do body/paint.

Few little annoyances...
1. the instructions flat out sucked.
2. Wiring loom is at least 5 feet to short and has spade connectors already attached so you can't route it down inside of anything without cutting them off.
3. No weatherproof plug up near the motor to disconnect the wiring harness.
4. No plugs/end caps on the end of the tube.
5. Motor cants down lower than necessary
6. They don't offer wiper blades in black or anything but stainless.

Despite those, I still am happy with the system.

While working on the wipers, I also wired in a small LED light to the underside of the newport housing to serve as a front dome light.

And I hate having to keep track of garage door openers, so I bought a Gentex auto dimming Mirror that has a compass and homelink built in, so I can program the garage doors to that. Works like a charm.
 

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Since the new wiper system does not play nice with the old (and ugly) stock sun visors, I upgraded to the totally awesome and worth every penny Rosen Lexan visors.

Installation was very straight forward, the only hard part was getting the mounts level/square before screwing them in.

Also, I first drilled and tapped the mounting holes to work with the supplied Rosen screws. But wasn't impressed with the way they were fitting, so I swapped them out with some metal screws and that tightened everything up nicely.

Let me say again...I LOVE these things. The quality is outstanding and the range of adjustment as well...plus they are just COOL :)

(and no, I did not buy them from ICON, I went straight to Rosen.)
 

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