1970 Build - For the Next Gen

[grant_71]

You said you used the Harbor Freight Bead Roller? Did you get the 12" or 18", i see that Eastwood has a 17" for $180, and the HF 18" is $150, both come with the same mandrels, the HF does have a shear die however. Just wondered how you liked it so far.

Grant

Now on ebay i find the Eastwood one for $100, from Eastwood...hmmm

 

[Past_Miner]

You said you used the Harbor Freight Bead Roller? Did you get the 12" or 18", i see that Eastwood has a 17" for $180, and the HF 18" is $150, both come with the same mandrels, the HF does have a shear die however. Just wondered how you liked it so far.

Grant

Now on ebay i find the Eastwood one for $100, from Eastwood...hmmm

I bought the 12" one because the 18 was out of stock. Surprisingly, it is very sturdy and it works well, except for the shear rollers. They would probably work okay on real light gauge, maybe 22 or something. I can't get them to cut the 18 I'm using at all though. The bead rolling dies and the flange dies work very well though. If it were me, I would get the Eastwood one, just because I have had good luck with their other products.

 

[grant_71]

I bought the 12" one because the 18 was out of stock. Surprisingly, it is very sturdy and it works well, except for the shear rollers. They would probably work okay on real light gauge, maybe 22 or something. I can't get them to cut the 18 I'm using at all though. The bead rolling dies and the flange dies work very well though. If it were me, I would get the Eastwood one, just because I have had good luck with their other products.

Cool that is what i needed to know. Now i just need to figure out why the Eastwood one on Ebay is way cheaper from Eastwood, than ordering from Eastwood...if that makes sense

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sheet-Metal-Fabrication-Bead-Roller-Kit-with-Mandrels_W0QQitemZ360141874893QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item360141874893&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:1205|66:2|65:12|39:1|2

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=11108&itemType=PRODUCT

 

[Past_Miner]

I was able to get the kick panel, door post and rocker installed last night. It's been a couple of days of measuring, moving, testing and moving again. I will say that these are not that hard, but they do take patience.

My first rough set was close but the door was dragging on the rocker no matter what I did. I finally realized that the striker bolt had been adjusted to its lowest possible point and that was causing the back of the door to align way below the body lines. I suppose this was to compensate for body sag over the years. I was unable to remove those flat head screws from the striker post and I ended up drilling them out and tapping the holes. Of course, I couldn't find any replacement screws that would work either so I ended up clamping the door to the hard top to get a base alignment and make measurements for moves. I just ran a straight edge down the body and alighed the door to it. Then I made some adjustments to the door post.

 

[Past_Miner]

I found a couple of replacement bolts for the striker the next day and got it set to the right height to hold the back of the door in place. I had the height of the door post in the front very good and it was in the right forward-rear position at the top too. I left one screw in the upper left corner of the post so I could move the bottom around. The bottom of the post was always kicked forward a little too far causing the door to drag on the rocker. I finally noticed that the folded tabs on the rocker ends were running into the post and not letting it move back far enough into the rocker itself. A little gentle persuasion with a body hammer and the interference was fixed. I was still having problems forcing the bottom back until I swung the door all the way open with it pointing straight forward. There was enough leverage to force the post where it belonged so I added a couple of screws. It ended up with a good fit all the way around so I screwed it all down and tested it a couple of times.

I was getting a lot of flex in the kick panel next to the dash because of the lack of the lower dash bracket. After looking at it some more I decided it was easier to make a new, slightly longer bracket than it was to drill new holes in the kick panel and weld the old ones closed. The addition of this bracket made things really solid so I marked it and took it all apart to drill spot weld holes. One note: The nuts welded on to the kick panel at the factory were slightly warped from the welding heat. I had to run a tap through them to get the bolts through.

 

[Past_Miner]

I had marked all of the drill locations on the panels as I took them apart. I reinstalled the kick panel with screws in the same holes I had used when I aligned things and welded it down. When I removed the panel for drilling the dash dropped about 1/2 inch and I had to put the jack back under the cowl to get the screw holes to line back up. These things are flimsy without all of the parts attached!

I screwed the door post and rocker back on using the same holes I had used during alignment but something didn't look right so I decided to re-hang the door before welding. It's a good thing I did because I had to adjust the bottom of the post again. I decided to leave the door on while I attached the rest of the panels and kept checking fitment as I went. I put it all together last night except for spot welding the bottom edge of the outer rocker to the inner rocker. The door swings smooth and does not drag on anything. The gap at the bottom of the door is a little tight for my liking. It pulled closed a bit when I welded the upper part of the rocker to the floor pan. I think I will be able to open this up a little when I complete the bottom of the rocker tonight.

 

[ehcalvert]

Great work, thinking of doing the same thing with my 8 year old, at least we are beginning to look for a suitable rig to start with. Have built half a dozen broncos over the years engine, trannies,suspension, etc but have never done body work. looks fairly straight forward just time consuming. It appears you start with spot welding pieces in place and then fully welding the seams and grinding them flat. How do you keep from warping the metal when welding the seams? what kind of welder are you using? Looking forward to more, thanks. ED

 

[Past_Miner]

Great work, thinking of doing the same thing with my 8 year old, at least we are beginning to look for a suitable rig to start with. Have built half a dozen broncos over the years engine, trannies,suspension, etc but have never done body work. looks fairly straight forward just time consuming. It appears you start with spot welding pieces in place and then fully welding the seams and grinding them flat. How do you keep from warping the metal when welding the seams? what kind of welder are you using? Looking forward to more, thanks. ED

There are almost no fully welded seams on a stock body and the seams that are welded are usually very short. In most cases you can simply spot weld and use seam sealer. I plan to heat some of the seams and use a flat body hammer to get the lap flat to the backing panel in a few places before I seal the seams. I have only seal welded spots where I am patching a portion of a panel away from a seam.

I try to stitch weld long seams to keep the warping to a minimum. I weld for about an inch, maybe less on thinner sections, and then skip several inches down the seam and stitch again. I try to keep moving around to keep the heat buildup as low as possible. I sometimes have more problems from the heat generated during grinding than welding. I tend to be less patient when it comes to that part. I keep a set of body hammers and dollies around to fix warping and oil canning. I have a Miller 185 MIG machine and I am running .025" bare wire with CO2/Ar gas. I have this machine set to the lowest setting that will allow me to strike a consistent arc. It will turn down lower but I'm not sure I can maintain a bead at that low a setting.

 

[ehcalvert]

Thanks for the info, I suppose I have a lot to learn, I do not even know what seam sealer is! Need to do some research. Whilel looking for your reply I ended up reading your history again, I too am divorced with two sons age 5 and 8. I grew up with broncos and have worked on anything that would sit still since I was born and just knew my sons would follow. Since the divorce, they live with their mother as is the american way and it has become ever more important to me that they have broncos in their life on the precious two weekends a month that I get to see them. Anyway I am rambling, just wanted you to know kudos to you for building a bronco with your 15 year old and I will be watching your thread with even more enthusiasm now. Thanks again ED

 

[Past_Miner]

Passenger Side

Well its been months since we posted and I thought I should put some pictures back up again. The passenger side went together quite a bit faster than the drivers side. The floor pan we built didn't turn out quite as well as the first one but it seems to have worked out okay in the end.

 

[Past_Miner]

Rotisserie and Spreader Bar

We had always intended to pull the tub off of the frame for this build but we were pretty sure the thing would just fold up if we didn't get it put back together first. After we got the passenger side floor and kick panel on we started on a new body rotisserie. We started with a pile of square tubing, bolts and square nuts and just went to work. Pneumatic casers are Harbor Freight specials. We designed this rotisserie so that it can be expanded to fit a full tub with the front clip later on with extensions. We also tried to make it as universal as possible so some of our friends can use it later on as well. We also built a spreader bar to hoist the top and tub. I fabbed up a few lifting lugs that clamp onto the rain gutter of the top so Icould handle it by myself.

 

[needabronco]

That looks like a great rotisserie! I have one that I borrowed from a hot rod guy, that was built from internet plans. Yours looks way more user friendly.

Whens the tub coming off?

 

[Past_Miner]

We fabbed some removable braces that go across the bed and between the striker mount and upper hinge mounts. All of the braces attach using existing bolting locations. I believe they will fit any tub we handle in the future. We were able to pull the tub and get it on the rotisserie very easily.

 

[Past_Miner]

That looks like a great rotisserie! I have one that I borrowed from a hot rod guy, that was built from internet plans. Yours looks way more user friendly.

Whens the tub coming off?

We pulled it a couple of months ago. I've just been pretty lazy when it comes to posting this summer. My wife and I also made two motorcycle trips this summer that totaled about 3200 miles. I swapped a 6 speed into my Indian Chief during all of this too. I just didn't make time to keep this thread up.

 

[Past_Miner]

Power Steering Gear and Shock Towers

My son and I headed t the local Pick-N-Pull last month in search of a decent donor steering box. We found about a dozen Nissan Pathfinders in the yard and pulled an exceptionally clean box. We also ran across an F250 that we could pull the shock towers off of. The best part of the day was when we stumbled across an EB tub in the yard. The tub was nothing special but the dash was almost perfect and the bed was full of chrome beltline trim. We picked it all up for a total of $80. The trim won't be much use on this build but the next on in line is a '69 that is missing some trim. When we hauled the score back home we reinforced the side of the frame for the box and mounted it up. We torched off the old shock towers and welded the F250 towers in place then dropped the engine into the fame.

 

[Past_Miner]

Transfer Case

We had some problems when we mounted up the NP205 to our E4OD tranny. The box bolts right on but the yoke on the front output shaft contacts the pan in the factory position. We bought a clocking ring from DD Machine to solve the problem. It only took a few degrees and a little trimming of the transmission flange and we were able to get it to a position that will work.

 

[Past_Miner]

Transmission Crossmember

The transmission crossmember took a full week after work each day to fab up. I was originally going to use the stock mounts that came with the transmission but they hung down too far for my liking so I started from scratch. I notched and bent a piece of 2 x 2 square tubing until I was sick of cutting and welding. I think I used every cutting tool I own on this job. Since I had my torch out I removed the last two pesky body mounts that I couldn't get out any other way. I made most of the frame attachments out of 1/4" plate and used nuts welded inside the tube whenever possible to make the support as easy as possible to install and remove. I used the stock rubber bushings from the D20 we pulled from this frame as the starting point. I'm happy with the way it turned out and I think it will work well.

 

[Past_Miner]

Track Bar

This post catches me up to this afternoon. I still need to add one more snubber mount to the side of the t-case but I decided to get the track bar installed first. I had modified the axle mount on this front end years ago when it was under my '71. All I needed on this end was to ream the hole out to 3/4" and bolt up the bar. As it turns out, a stock bar worked with the TRO installed on this axle. I had torched the factory frame mount off months earlier. I fabbed up a new mount from plate today and was careful to keep the drag link and track bar parallel. We plan to get some drivelines fit up next and build a high flex torsion bar for the rear axle. Then take this thing to the car wash to clean the grime off of it.

 

[69BroncoDad]

Very nice work....Awesome job. Sweet fab job.
Love the crossmember...I'm getting ready to drop my 435/205 in a 69 and need to fab a crossmember. May have to borrow your idea if you don't mind...unless ofcourse you wanna send one over.;D
Like yourself...The 69 i'm building is my 12yr olds....but I get to drive it until he hits 16....The cancer in ours isn't as extensive as yours.. But have to correct alot of PO brain farts. to say the least.
Keep up the great work....Excellent work, very lucky son you got there.

 

[Past_Miner]

Very nice work....Awesome job. Sweet fab job.
Love the crossmember...I'm getting ready to drop my 435/205 in a 69 and need to fab a crossmember. May have to borrow your idea if you don't mind...unless ofcourse you wanna send one over.;D
Like yourself...The 69 i'm building is my 12yr olds....but I get to drive it until he hits 16....The cancer in ours isn't as extensive as yours.. But have to correct alot of PO brain farts. to say the least.
Keep up the great work....Excellent work, very lucky son you got there.

Feel free to borrow any ideas you find here. I have plagarized plenty of other poeples ideas to this point myself.