New owner from Germany

[tody]

It's been some time since I updated this thread. Bronco is close to being on the road. Vehicles need to pass tech inspection to get licensed, it passed inspection last week. Got to drive it a little with temporary plates.

Went through wheel alignment again. Part of the caster situation cured itself, it seems. Gave it a little more toe in. Looking good now:

Engine has an issue, though - some sort of knocking noise which I thought was valve train related, but isn't. I had the block bored .060 over, but only slapped it together with new bearings. Didn't have the crank checked... Hope it's nothing crank or rod related.

I also have a bikini top waiting to be installed for summer. I found a bestop top with the channel on Amazon. Shipped internationally for $15. I have no idea how they can do this. Will post pictures once it is installed!

Oh, and I went through another (!) fuel pump. Somehow, my gas caps are not venting correctly, I had a severe vacuum in both tanks. Could this destroy the pump diaphragm? Anyway, I drilled small holes in the gas cap, now it's venting properly. Let's see how long the new pump lasts!

 

[sprdv1]

Nice.. I know you can't wait...

 

[tody]

it's up and running!
got it licensed last week, got it out of the shop this weekend.
the temp gauge read pretty hot, with a 195 thermostat it was showing nearly 210.
drained the radiator - a good idea, the engine or maybe the heads were still full of the red dirt i found everywhere. flushed radiator and engine, put in a 180 thermostat.
now the gauge reads 195, so it must be the gauge that is badly calibrated. but i prefer to run my engines at 180 anyway, so the swap was a good idea.

will drive it around a little more tomorrow. if i have some help of a friend, i might pull the hardtop and put the bikini top on!

 

[DirtDonk]

Hooray! Lots of work to get there, but got the job done.
If you feel your fuel and oil pressure gauges are reading a little bit high as well, you can adjust the Instrument Voltage Regulator slightly to compensate it's output.
If the others read correctly as far as you can tell or verify, then perhaps the wire or the sending unit are slightly compromised.
Or maybe you're in fact running at 195 degrees!

That's probably the simplest to verify too I suppose, if you have an infrared thermometer handy, or a basting thermometer you can stick into the radiator neck.

Enjoy driving around in your officially licensed truck!

Paul

 

[tody]

The Voltage Regulator seems to be the culprit. I had a spare one I swapped in - that worked for a few miles. Temperature was dead on at 180°.
Gauges then died on me, after the needles fluctuated for some time.
I'll put back the solid state regulator, as it indeed seems to be adjustable. It has a little screw on the back...

I put some more miles on the bronco today. I still have to get used to the ford power steering, I don't like it's handling on mustangs at all.

Also there is some sort of knock in the engine bay. It might be belt drive related, I will have to look into this.

And finally - 4.11 gears with 31" tires are not good at all for german highway speeds! I reached 65 mph but over that, the engine is simply revving too high. As I have a NV3550, I see a transmission swap in the future.

Oh, and the motor still needs adjustment. I have loud popping noises out of the exhaust on deceleration. AF gauge shows that the engine leans out at idle from time to time. Maybe valve related? Also, the carb is only running at the bench specs from the shop manual, will need to fully tune it later on. Static timing is set at 12°, that should be good.

 

[txtruk15]

....And finally - 4.11 gears with 31" tires are not good at all for german highway speeds! I reached 65 mph but over that, the engine is simply revving too high. As I have a NV3550, I see a transmission swap in the future...

hmmm, the 3550 is a good manual with overdrive - you should be able to go 70-75mph at about 2,500 rpm with those gears...probably 80-85 if you gear down from the 4.11 to 3.55 or 3.73....of course, the bronco is not going to break any land speed records lol...

http://www.grimmjeeper.com/gears.html

 

[sprdv1]

Glad to hear it....

it's up and running!
got it licensed last week, got it out of the shop this weekend.
the temp gauge read pretty hot, with a 195 thermostat it was showing nearly 210.
drained the radiator - a good idea, the engine or maybe the heads were still full of the red dirt i found everywhere. flushed radiator and engine, put in a 180 thermostat.
now the gauge reads 195, so it must be the gauge that is badly calibrated. but i prefer to run my engines at 180 anyway, so the swap was a good idea.

will drive it around a little more tomorrow. if i have some help of a friend, i might pull the hardtop and put the bikini top on!

 

[DirtDonk]

And finally - 4.11 gears with 31" tires are not good at all for german highway speeds! I reached 65 mph but over that, the engine is simply revving too high. As I have a NV3550, I see a transmission swap in the future.

That doesn't sound right. At 65mph the engine should only be turning over at approx. 2400rpm. Very nominal for a 302 engine.
Maybe it just sounds high? Mine did that, and many others have reported this as well, where in their Broncos they feel the engine is over-revving but it is not.
I was able to run at 65mph with 4.11's and just the stock 3-speed trans with 30-ish inch tall tires. No problem, even though it sounded like I was screaming the engine near redline. Turns out it was only about 3000 rpm.
Changing my exhaust system to a much quieter setup and running a more street-friendly tire design made a huge difference, but the ultimate "fixer" for me was adding a tachometer that actually let me see what was going on.

Once I knew I was well below 3500 at even the highest cruising speed was a relief.

If you have a 3550 5-speed overdrive trans and tires that are probably barely 30" tall on the vehicle, your 2400 is really quite a reasonable engine speed. If you try to go taller to bring the rpm down even farther, you may run into the issue of a lack of power to accelerate from a stop.
Over-revving may be bad on fuel economy, but it's much more fun than lugging around without the extra power!

Paul

 

[74BroncoCO]

I hear you have record high temps out there too, so perhaps it's good she runs a little cool in case you get stuck in a stau!

 

[tody]

That doesn't sound right. At 65mph the engine should only be turning over at approx. 2400rpm. Very nominal for a 302 engine.
Maybe it just sounds high? Mine did that, and many others have reported this as well, where in their Broncos they feel the engine is over-revving but it is not.
I was able to run at 65mph with 4.11's and just the stock 3-speed trans with 30-ish inch tall tires. No problem, even though it sounded like I was screaming the engine near redline. Turns out it was only about 3000 rpm.
Changing my exhaust system to a much quieter setup and running a more street-friendly tire design made a huge difference, but the ultimate "fixer" for me was adding a tachometer that actually let me see what was going on.

Once I knew I was well below 3500 at even the highest cruising speed was a relief.

If you have a 3550 5-speed overdrive trans and tires that are probably barely 30" tall on the vehicle, your 2400 is really quite a reasonable engine speed. If you try to go taller to bring the rpm down even farther, you may run into the issue of a lack of power to accelerate from a stop.
Over-revving may be bad on fuel economy, but it's much more fun than lugging around without the extra power!

Paul

I haven't hooked up a tach yet, but the engine surely is not redlining. It's just that I can feel that it is reaching the limit of it's powerband, and yes, the exhaust really is loud.
I'll get a cheap tach off eBay, and see where I'm at.

 

[tody]

I hear you have record high temps out there too, so perhaps it's good she runs a little cool in case you get stuck in a stau!

oh yes, we had temperatures up to 104°F, that was a new one for our region. luckily the Ford Edge I have for my daily commute has a powerful A/C

 

[tody]

Hardtop is off, Bestop Bikini Top is on!
Also, I added a passenger side mirror.

I might also have cured my ticking/knocking noise. Might have been the exhaust, I retightened the donut gaskets as well as the manifold gaskets.

Next will be the addition of the fan shroud and new power steering hoses with a factory cooler.

 

[sprdv1]

Purdy.. glad you got rid of that annoying sound

 

[sprdv1]

And finally - 4.11 gears with 31" tires are not good at all for german highway speeds! I reached 65 mph but over that, the engine is simply revving too high. As I have a NV3550, I see a transmission swap in the future.

Be safe on them autobahns now LOL

 

[tody]

Fan shroud from WH is in!

Intermittent knocking noise is still there, though.
Bronco drives great nonetheless, it's a lot of fun!

I dared to put it in 4WD today. Bucking really hard around corners. I might have to revisit the front locker. Or maybe it is the clutch discs not broken in yet? We'll see.

 

[DirtDonk]

I dared to put it in 4WD today. Bucking really hard around corners. I might have to revisit the front locker. Or maybe it is the clutch discs not broken in yet? We'll see.

Now don't go to all this work over all this time, only to ruin something by driving in 4wd on the street!
This is not all-wheel drive, nor is it a modern 4-wheel drive with more forgiving drivetrain.
It's an old-fashioned, gear mismatched, cardan style axle equipped, four wheel drive utility vehicle where the factory specifically recommends never driving in four-wheel drive on the pavement, or any hard packed and high traction surface.

Depending on which differentials you have, there is a slight mis-match between the gears (such as 4.11 vs 4.09 for example) and this alone is reason enough not to drive on the street because of the internal binding that it creates.
Because the tires are new, there's not likely any mis-match there, but you would need to measure to know for sure.
The cardan/cross style u-joints in the front axles only work at full efficiency when straight. As soon as you start to turn they start to lose efficiency and strength. To the point that at some point before you reach your maximum steering stop they will bind up and give you the telltale jerking motion that you feel through the truck and the steering wheel. This is very normal reaction and not good for any of the parts.
And with the addition of a limited-slip (or is it a full locker?) in the front, this just exacerbates all the issues.

So when you want to test 4wd, do it in the dirt.
If you are on the street and want to test things, you can shift into 4wd in the transfer case as long as the lockouts are in the free position. If you want to lock the hubs to either test them, or to run the system for awhile to keep things lubricated (a recommended monthly service in fact), or just to make shifting into 4wd quicker when you reach your off-roading setting, you can put the lockouts in LOCK and drive it that way just fine, as long as the transfer case shifter is still in 2wd.

So yes, all that bucking and wobbling is normal and expected. And is telling you not to do it very often.

Paul

 

[tody]

good info, thanks!

 

[sprdv1]

good info, thanks!

can't never have too much right

 

[Murc38]

Welcome to the forum! I was stationed in Germany and had duties at cologne in the Reicert building. I believe it was a carpet factory before the army occupied it.

 

[tody]

Another step forward. Removed the old homemade power steering cooler on the front crossmember, put in a factory piece. Also put in new hoses, as the old ones weren't correct for this application and very brittle. Routing still looks a little funny, but at least the hoses are not running under the belts and pulleys anymore...