After adding my front cage, I realized the glove box was going to need to be modified in order to be of any use. After searching all over the net and looking at all the mods that people have done, I was surprised at how complicated people had made this project. Cutting, welding, messing with hinges and latches… there had to be something that was quick, and could be swapped back to stock if I ever wanted to.

I poked around the shop and found a length of rod that was about 1/8″ thick and cut it to the length shown in red in the picture above. I then marked the location where I wanted the door to hinge and marked it on the dash and the door. I removed the hinges and door and transfered the lines to the inside of the door and the flange of the opening. Center punched the spots to drill and made the holes. The door has a nice flat spot on the top and bottom to drill and the front and back panels have just enough room to fit the rod inside.

Once the holes were drilled and the rod was placed inside the door, I inserted the rod into the upper hole in the opening flange. By pushing the rod up flush with the bottom of the door, I inserted a piece of cut-off brake tubing (pictures above) as a spacer to keep the door at the proper height. Now I was able to line up the bottom hole and with a pair of needle nose pliers, I pushed the rod down until it bottomed out where the lower dash bends.

I was surprised at how well it worked with the stock latch. It closes and opens very well and the only thing it still needs is a paint job and new rubber bumper to help push it open as the stock one is 39 years old and no longer resembles rubber.

If you are wondering about the writing on the box door, I had to leave it. It’s one of the few PO mods (along with the 50 mph Max Speed painted on the dash – rather than fix the track bar bushings) that were too funny to change. (I left the dash but fixed the bushings) He was from New Mexico and had several nice stereo’s stolen one summer. He finally got a pos cheap-o stereo for 20 bucks and wrote the following message on the box door: “Don’t steal this stereo! It’s a piece of $#!t I’ll buy you a brand new one! Seriously ! Call ….. ” Well, that was the last stereo he ever installed and he never did get a phone call so I had to leave it too! Good luck and enjoy the use of your glove box once again!

Tech article by eds66bronco

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• All tops (hard, soft & bikini) must fit after installation
• Give adequate space between the spreader bar and wiper motor
• The parking brake will need enough clearance (or modification)
• The glove box won’t have room to open (modify, take off or keep permanently closed)
• Wing windows need clearance (or the door needs to be opened to fully open the wing windows)
• Door window cranks may hit bars

The tubes that come in the Smittybilt kit are long enough to give you some leeway during installation. You have a few options to make sure that everything still works the way it did before. You can either give adequate clearance everywhere and deal with the vertical bars being very far back and possibly interfering with driving and getting in and out of the truck…or…put the bars right up against the dash and deal with not having your glove box or parking brake…or…you can choose to modify everything, create a lot of work for yourself, and turn a 3 hour cage installation into a two week tear down of the entire interior. I went with the latter.

Glove Box Modification

This is the stock glove box…and as soon as a bar goes in there it becomes completely useless! Some people never use their glove box anyway so it’s no great loss, but if you like the storage and (on some years) ever want to change any fuses, there are a few options. You can take the door off and use it as an open storage tray, you can hinge it on the right side instead of the bottom and open it sideways or you can do what I did and just move it.

This is what it looked like when the jig saw blade finally came to a stop. I just traced a perfect rectangle and cut clean, straight lines (well…not really. The corners weren’t square, and the lines were all over the place.) I should have actually been more careful with the cuts. If I did it again I would use a square and go nice and slow. The more square and straight the cut is the less welding and filling you’ll have to do later.

The cut out frame needs a little work before it can be turned up side down and expected to perform the way it should. The hinges and latch need to swap positions so that the hinges are on the new bottom and the latch is on top. Luckily there’s enough metal on both top and bottom to make this work. The lip on the old latch side (the new bottom) is too wide for the hinges and needs to be trimmed out as shown. The side to the left of the latch has not been trimmed and the side to the right has. Then holes need to be drilled for the latch and hinges. If you centered your cut top to bottom then everything should work well with just the factory play in the hinge and latch screws (I wasn’t quite centered so I had to enlarge some holes)

After welding the frame back in, grinding down all the welds, using a little bondo and repainting it, I realized that I really should have painted the whole dash. And since all the bezels on Bronco dashes are almost impossible to mask off, I took the whole dash out to paint it. If I had known I was going to take it off I would have welded it from behind and made my life a lot easier! I suppose that’s how working on a Bronco is sometimes.

So here’s the finished product. The new glove box position will work out well I think. It keeps full use of the box, door and hinges and puts the speaker grille behind the roll bar where it really does about as much good as it did in it’s stock location. Now that the glove box problem is taken care of it’s time to install the actual cage.

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Contents of the Smittybilt front cage kit.

At the very minimum a total of four cuts must be made to install the Smittybilt front rollcage. Two angled cuts where the side bars meet the floor plates and two “fishmouthed” cuts where the side bars attach to the main roll bar. (The spreader bar comes pre-cut to go between the side bars) The “fishmouth” cuts can be accomplished in a few different ways…a drill press with the right size holesaw would work pretty well, as would a gas torch with a little care. However since I don’t own either one of those tools, I used a hacksaw and a 4″ angle grinder. It sounds pretty inefficient, but it really didn’t take very long to get tight fitting joints.

Fitting the side bars requires some patience and careful measuring. Smittybilt purposely supplies these bars a few inches long so they can be trimmed to each specific truck. Although most trucks will vary, mine needed ~1/2″ off the bottom of each side bar and ~4″ off where the bars attach to the rear rollbar. The easiest way to accomplish a proper fit is to concentrate on just one side. Take the time to make that bar fit perfectly and then use it as a template when cutting the other side bar. This is especially important with the “fishmouthed” cuts.

Before any cuts are made place one side bar roughly in the position it will eventually be in. Rest the leading (lower) edge of the side bar on the floor of the truck so that it has proper clearance from both the door (~1″ on my truck) and the dash (~1/2″ on mine). Then hold the rear of the side bar up near the spot where it will intersect the main roll bar. (on most rollbars this will be right at the radius of the bend) I used a small level taped to the horizontal portion of the side bar (assuming the truck is on a level surface) and moved the rear end of the bar around until it was level.

Once you’ve determined the side bar is level make note of how much higher the horizontal of the side bar is than the horizontal of the main rollbar. This is approximately the amount you will need to cut off the end that attaches to the floor. However keep in mind that if you’re attaching the side bar to the rear bar in the middle of the radius it will be slightly lower. And if the rear bar is a larger diameter (as mine was) the side bar will be even lower. Also remember that you will have a 1/4″ mounting plate between the side bar and the floor and that your cut will be at a slight angle to match the floor. This can make quite a difference in final placement if you forget it.

Making the “fishmouth” cuts just takes a careful eye. Try to hold the side bar up against the roll bar near the radius. (One way of finding out where the side bars should intersect the rear bar is to measure the spreader bar. The distance between the side bars should be approximately the same at the front as it is at the rear.) Standing beside the truck in line with the horizontal of the main roll bar, try to sight down the bar while holding up the side bar and mark the shape and size of the fishmouth that will be needed to attach the side bar to the radius. I found it safer to make the bar a little long and grind it down than try to mark it perfectly the first time. If you’re anything like me your vision of the “fishmouth” shape won’t be exactly right anyway and will require some grinding before it fits nicely. If you do accidentally cut the bar too short it simply means the spot where it attaches to the floor will be further away from the dash.

Once the cuts are made to both side bars and you’re happy with the fit, tack weld the floor mounting plates to the side bars. It works best to have the side bars in place resting (and centered) on the mounting plates before welding. Placing the spreader bar is a little tricky without a second pair of hands but can be done alone if you get creative with duct tape and C-clamps. Once you have the spreader bar in place turn on the windshield wipers to make sure the arm doesn’t hit it. This is a good time to check all other clearances (glove box, e-brake, window cranks, hard top, etc.) It’s a lot easier to fix it now than after final welding. Once you’re satisfied with the fit, make a few tack welds at all the connections. While it’s possible to completely weld up the cage in the truck the chances of you setting your garage on fire are much higher. It seems like a pain but it really is easier at this point to unbolt the main roll bar and lift the whole cage out of the truck. It will be both easier to weld and paint once it’s out of the truck.

In addition to the basic cage I also decided to install a center roof panel. Basically this consisted of two extra lengths of 2″ tubing that I cut to fit between the spreader bar and the rear bar. I placed them about 11″ apart so that I could put my CB, some speakers and two dome lights up in the cage. These two bars were covered by a 14 gauge sheet metal cap and fully welded to keep the rain away from the electronics. Since I knew I would be needing power up in the cage before I started building it, I drilled holes in the side bars and spreader bars and ran all my power leads and speaker wires inside the cage tubing. The wires enter the tube from the passengers side under the dash and come out up near the CB and speakers. It proved to be much more of a hassle to run the wires internally, but then again nothing about Broncos is easy, right?

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Tech article by Edgar Camez (El Jefe)

Let’s begin by stating that my on-going EB project is

1. Done on a cheapskate budget (this justifies my perpetual Saturday morning trips to the local U-pull it)
2. Done with donor upgrades with the same DNA (i.e. Ford products for the most part)

I picked up these jump seats on my second time around looking for a suitable donor for a rear seat. I refused to pay $200 for a rear seat and the few original EB rear seats do not match my 96 Probe front seats I retrofitted in the front a while back ago.

I removed the seats once I took the correct Torx socket with me on my Saturday trip. I removed them complete with seatbelts in hope of being able to use them in my retro-installation to the EB.

This write-up will be reduced to minimal text since I took a LOT of photos once the install was completed and to keep my four readers awake.

The only stock needed to fit these to the back of your EB is:
(2) 8” long segments of 3”x3”x1/8” (refer to pictures for clarity)
(4) 1” long 1”x1” angle tabs (refer to pictures for clarity)
(x) ¼” flat stock (for under floor support/nuts- again see pics)
(x) 5/16” grade 8 hardware.

You will also need a welder and drill and a bandsaw or other means of cutting the metal stock. I am sure that other means of fabricating can be used to attach the tube and seats to the truck , but these are what I used.

Estimated cost for this project:

$20 for the seats
~$15 worth of 3×3 square tube (1/8” wall thickness). I bought a longer section for another project and that’s what it cost me.
$xx cost of grade 8 hardware (bought these long time ago at Tractor Supply and can’t remember what I paid )…

Estimated time needed for this project:
Saturday and Sunday afternoons. It can be easily completed in one afternoon if you get your stock cut ahead of time.

Let the picture show begin:

Picture 1. Rear Seats Down (Top View)

Picture 2. Rear Seats Up (Top View)

Picture 3. Rear Seats With Professional Seat Test Pilot’s initial test run.

Picture 4. Rear Seats With Professional Seat Test Pilot, Age 5.

Picture 5. Rear Seats Up, view from passenger’s seat.

Picture 6. Top view detail to rear wheel wells.

Picture 7. Seat belt buckles from another Ford donor vehicle (possibly a 1980’s Crown Vic?)- These fit the Ranger’s belt buckle male end and attach to the original belt buckle seat anchor holes on the back of your EB .

Picture 8. View of rear side of LHS rear seat. This side has a hole that will line up with an existing hole in the rear bed section. It uses a 5/8” fine pitch thread bolt. I used a Grade 8 bolt.

Picture 9. View of rear side of RHS rear seat. It mirrors picture 8 and bolt hole lines up o the opposite side.

Picture 10. View of front side of RHS rear seat. Here you can see the 3”x3” tube with tabs attached to the floor. The inboard tab is welded to attach to the bottom of the floor rib whereas the outboard tab is welded to attach to the top of the floor rib and it needs a hole drilled since there is no OEM hole at this location (more on pic# 11)

Picture 11. View of front side of LHS rear seat. Here you can see the 3×3” section in its finished form. The tube is welded to the bottom of the seat’s original bracket. Then the two tabs are welded to the bottom of the 3”x3” tube. The inboard tab is aligned with an existing OEM floor hole. It uses a ½” bolt (reused the OEM grade 5 bolt) for the outer tab; I did drill a 5/16” diameter hole and used a Grade 8 bolt (hex size ½”) and used a flat section with a welded grade 8 nut, shown on the left side of the picture..

Picture 12. Closer view from rear of the truck with the jumpseats up. This way you can store whatever you haul in the small bed (at least provides more space than the OEM rigid seat, unless of course you remove it to haul stuff..)

Picture 13. Top view of front of seat. 3”x3” tube is under the original seat bracket’s front. The original bolt holes are plug welded to the top of the 3×3 and the tabs that bolt to the bed floor can also be seen to the left of the picture. (The newer bolt is outboard and the front of the truck is to the left of this picture).

Picture 14. Rear view of same side bracket. Here you can see the welds along the sides of the original bracket to the top of the 3×3.

Picture 15. The tabs are welded on the 8” long section of 3×3 at 2-1/2” and 7” (Left to Right). The RHS tube / tabs assembly is a mirror image of this detail.

Picture 16. More detail on the way the tabs are welded and their alignment with the bed ribs.

Picture 17. My purdy welds. Done with a 110V MIG welder.

Picture 18. With rear seats in the UP position, there is ~ 2’ of available space in the bed.

Picture 19. With rear seats in the DOWN position, there is ~ 6” between the seats. Perfect for my 2 ½ and 5 y.o. professional rear seat pilots. They now have matching seats on daddy’s EB as in his Ranger..

Picture 20. There are about 18” of leg room for these rear seats as installed. Enough for an adult to ride in these seats!

Tech article by Edgar Camez (El Jefe)

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Installation was very easy and took me just over an hour, which included time to shoot photos. See below for instructions and installation tips.

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Most have run into the problem of where to put that big ol’ Hi-Lift jack. Well a couple of my buddies had a solution. I copied their idea and now present it to you.

This mount cost about 10 dollars. And all the parts can bought at your local hardware and parts stores.

Parts needed:

• Two exhaust clamps (same size as your roll bar tubing, they all seem to be 3/8 thread)
• Two 3/8 wing nuts
• 2 pieces of 3/8 all thread
• 2 3/8 coupling nuts (its like a long nut)
• 4 nylon spacers with 3/8 diameter hole in the middle

The mount is simple. Put the 2 exhaust clamps on the part of your roll bar that angles back form the center loop. Only attach using one of the exhaust clamp nuts on each exhaust clamp.

On the other side of the exhaust clamp, screw on the coupling nut.

At this point you have two options. One is to put a piece of all thread in the coupling nut. You then put a spacer in after that. Put the hi-lift on the all thread after the spacer. Add another spacer and screw on the wing nut. Done!!!!!

The other option is to use a 3/8 bolt instead of the all thread an wing nut.

This is what I did originally. It works well but there a few things that I do not like about it. First, screwing the nut in and out every time that you use the jack is more of pain than spinning of a 2 wing nuts. The other thing I do not like about it is that you have to hold it and line it up when you mount it. With the first method, you just it on the all thread and it stays. With the bolt method, you have to put the bolt through, put the spacer on bolt after the jack and then balance it all while you get the nut started. That pretty much explains how you do it!

Both methods work well and are easy. A couple of things be aware of. If you mount your exhaust clamp to low (like I did), you cannot use the wing nut method for that clamp. There is not enough clearance between the all thread and bed rail to get the hi lift in place. The other thing is that these pictures show the mount on a Protofab roll bar. This will also work on a smittybilt cage. My buddy has got the same setup on his Smittybilt.

I need to give special thanks to Tony and Greg for giving me this idea!

Tech article by Steve Wedeking (66horse)

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I’m always looking for more lockable space in my Bronco. The space behind the rear seat in an early Bronco does afford some area, but you can be limited by the rear fender wheel wells and roll bars if you have them. I found that the diamond-plate side mount pickup box, offered for full size pick-ups, fit quite nicely in the rear of my Bronco after a bit of modification. I chose the “Husky” brand box, offered at my local Home Depot. Many auto parts stores and home improvement warehouses, sell a “side mount box”, that mounts in full size pick-ups. This is the 48 inch sidemount box, that sits up on the box rail of full size pick-ups.

A = 48″    B = 13″    C = 7″    D = 12 1/4″    E = 8″    F = 48 3/4″    G = 13 1/4″

This box is pretty much 48″ x 13″ x 13″ (minus the cutout). It fit perfectly in the rear of my Bronco, right in between my Smittybuilt standard rear roll bar legs. The “cutout” on the diamond plate box (the part that’s supposed to rest on the pickup box rails) fit quite nicely up on the rear fender wheel wells. But, the hinged lid was on backwards for my purposes, and the handle was up against the rear seat with no access. So the box wasn’t going to work, or was it?

After looking at the box, I realized that if I could reverse the lid and have it open from the other side, it would work exactly how I wanted. The box is of very good construction with complete welded seams, a full length hinge, weather gasket strip and rivets holding the name badge, latch mechanism and the bottom hinge of the lid to the main box. The lid can be reversed.

Now this will only work if the bottom portion of the hinge is riveted to the main box. The top portion of the hinge that connects to the lid is welded. The portion that connects to the box is riveted. Also, it’s a good idea to buy the box and make a “dry” fit in your application before really “buying it” and performing the operation.

To perform this modification you will need a 3/16 and ½ inch drill bit and drill, 3/16 inch rivets (1/2 inch long) and a riveter, a few small wrench’s ½ inch I believe, a jigsaw or saws-all and a C-clamp or two, these aren’t necessary if you have a couple extra hands.Begin by removing the shock arms from either end of the box, remove them with the ½ inch wrench. After the shock arms are off and dangling free, the box lid will be able to open further. Here you will see the rivet heads that you need to drill out. Use the 3/16 drill bit, or start smaller, and drill each one out, I had seven that needed to be removed. Don’t go too big, you’ll want to save as much material on the hinge as possible.

After drilling out those hinge rivets, the lid can be removed and repositioned 180 degrees. Notice the placement of the holes that you just drilled on the other side and mark them on the new side. Use the hinge as a template for hole placement. Use a sharpie marker to mark your holes, you know how the saying goes “measure twice, drill once”, (use the c-clamps or the extra set of hands here). Once you have the holes drilled, use the 3/16 inch rivets and rivet gun to rivet the lid onto its “new” side. Once this is completed, the box should open and close perfectly on its new side.

Moving the latch is pretty easy too. Use the 3/16 drill bit to drill out each rivet in the corner of the latch and remove the latch. I used a scrape of diamond plate that I had lying around to cover the old latch hole. Measure the old hole where the latch was and transpose your measurements to the new side of the box. Measure carefully. The box that I bought has an offset latch. Mark your template to cut and use the ½ inch drill bit to drill out the corners. Use the jigsaw or saws-all to complete the cut. Drill the four holes for the new latch, position the latch and rivet it into place.

You can either choose to reposition the gas shocks or not. They aren’t required I guess. I chose to reposition. I found some 1 ½ inch metal box stock worked well for new mounts. I measured where the old mounts connected and moved my measurements to the other side. I had to mount the metal stock diagonally due to the bottom portion of the shock needing to pivot when the box lid opens and closes. It worked out well. I also riveted the steel box stock to the diamond plate plate box. I then connected the shocks.

After this modification I have a lot more lockable storage space, and it fits well. The door isn’t able to open fully, but you could mount it off the floor 3 or 4 inches to gain a little bit more there. Overall I’m very satisfied with the upgrade. I used four ½ inch by 1 ½ inch bolts to secure it to the rear floor. To gain access to the latch, you will have to open your tailgate.

Time and Cost:

• “Husky” brand side mount “full-size truck” side box (PN 020027219964) = $157.00
• 3/16 inch by ½ inch rivets-aluminum (box of 30) = $2.00
• 4 hours time

Tech article by Brandon Freking (Original77)

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First you’re going to need three things; the Smittybilt interior tube bar with the back legs out of the Bronco., 3 point bolt in harness style seat belts, I chose Corbeau’s so I don’t know if other kinds will work for this mod, and bucket seats with a hole in the back that allows shoulder harness belts to go thru.Like I said you MUST have the back legs of the roll bar out unless you want to grind and weld above your carpet and fender wells. Measure one foot from the bend to the location of the front of the 2 and half by 3 inch tabs.

Grind the area of the roll bar down will the tab is going to be welded and drill the correct size holes for the seat belts into the center of the tab. After you have grinded the roll bar down thru the paint and somewhat scratched up the middle, weld the tabs on vertically on the underside of the bar. (Saftey Note: It’s highly recommended that these welds be done by a skilled welder. Remember, the strength of this weld is critical in an accident.) At this point you can clean up the welds and paint the bar if desired.

Mount the roll bar into the car as the Smittybilt instructions say. Mount the seat belt in the stock floor holes (if applicable, the Corbeau’s do but others may not). Then mount the rear bolt down into the tab using the bolt, a washer, then through the roll bar, then another washer, and finally an aviation lock nut for safety. *NOTE* This was done with Corbeau Baja bucket seats and Corbeau bolt in 3 point seat belts and a custom mod on the driver side bracket to move it back 4 inches. All measurements might have to be changed to meet the specs of your application.

Tech article by Taylor and Jim Morford (DownhillManiac99)

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For those of you that want to refurbish your Stock Gauge cluster, or want to reset your odometer to reflect a motor rebuild or gauge swap. (Seeing as these Rigs are well over 25 years old, most states usually dont see mileage as an issue on sales and titles…..So when buying an old rig, Let the general condition be your guideline and not what shows on the Odometer. And if you ever sell your vehicle be sure to disclose any modifications you’ve done to the odometer reading.)

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Since I had to ask several questions when I removed my dash, I’m sure there are others with some of the same issues; here’s how I ended up doing it:

This was the starting point, an intact dash. First thing to do would be get the W/S out of the way. Do this by removing the bolts holding the W/S to the top if the top is still installed and loosening the rest of the top to body bolts. In hindsight, I would suggest removing the top completely if possible (storage space was my reason for not doing exactly that). Disconnect the wiring for the wiper motor and/or wiper motor cover light at the connectors behind the dash on the left side. This will allow the wire bundle the slack needed to lower the W/S. Next remove the large bolts that go through the dash into the W/S frame (one on each side).

With this done, the W/S should go forward to give you access to the screws that were hidden on the front side of the dash.

Remove these screws (I think there are seven of them), make sure you get the dash screws and not the dash pad screws (the harder ones to get to, I used an offset screwdriver). Then go back to the inside of the cab. Disconnect all the wiring you can from the back of the dash including ignition switch, headlight switch, hazards, etc. Unclamp the main wire bundle that runs in the trough formed by the lower back of the dash. Disconnect the heater control cables by loosening the screw on the cable clamps and slipping the cable spring loop off the pin. 2 of these are under the dash and one is in the engine compartment, make sure you disconnect all 3. This would also be a good time to remove the steering wheel, turn signal lever, and column shift lever if not already off. Now you can remove the steering column shroud and the remaining bolts/screws holding the dash in place.

The emergency brake pedal assembly may have to be removed to get to the bracket bolts on the lower left attach point. The curved arrow in the picture is referencing the outboard most attach bolt on the side of the dash. There is also 1 screw in the center of the dash just below the dash pad. The right side attach points are located just like the left side depictions. With everything disconnected, double check that you didn’t miss something. The dash isn’t heavy but trying to pull it out and finding something still connected can get interesting in a hurry, especially if there’s not a second set of hands around to help. The end result will look like this:

Now you can tackle any rust, wiring, or dash modification issues a little easier.by Mike Henningsen

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