1968 junkyard bronco (Possum)

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Little backstory: I bought my first bronco when I was 11 with money from working with my grandad for $700. Was a 79 bronco, didn't run, so e spare parts in the bed and yes it had some rust but only in the quarters. I'm now 16, so 5 years of owning and driving it down. It's not restored but runs and drives great. Long story short I bought and sold vehicles to pay for and get parts I wanted. So currently I own 6 vehicles still, 79 bronco, 78 f150, 78 bronco, 1949 cj2a, 1968 bronco, 1984 mustang.

But the point of this is my 1968 bronco, its been sitting in a closed junkyard near me, my dad knew him as the owner was getting a little older. He need some help on his truck and I got to talking to him and we made a deal. One of my biggest dreams I didn't think was possible happened, to finally own an early bronco. Well I got it home, pressure washed and cleaned it out. It's not terrible with rust but just some of the obvious stuff. So I went ahead and put floor pans in it and started some odds and ends.

My plan so far is a mild rock crawler but eventually a nice street truck as well. I'm just gonna do a 302, np435 and dana 20. Fullwidth axles and hopefully 4.56 gears. 5.5" suspension I got a good deal on and adjustable coil buckets to get ride height down and pulling some leafs out the 5.5" springs.
So far my progress is: floor pans are welded in, v8 motor mounts are welded in, had to put a "new" old wiring harness in it which I cleaned up and added some pigtails for accessories. Hoping to get a motor in it soon and then do suspension then brakes, goal is to have it ready for the MEB roundup in june.

Parts collected: 5.5" springs, adjustable coil buckets, np435/dana 20 adapter, seats, 36" super swampers to start out with, front fullwidth dana 44 and 9" rear out 78 bronco.

 

[DirtDonk]

Fantastic to hear the story Badcompany! Thanks.
Definitely show us some pics when you can.

If you don’t know the process yet, you can use another online image hosting site and then link the pictures to your discussion, or you can upload them directly to either your “garage” or “gallery” functions here.
To upload them directly to your discussion however you need to become a contributor for $12 a year. It’s money well spent, but it’s up to you which method you choose.

Welcome again and I’m sure a lot of people will be looking forward to seeing it at the events.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Fantastic to hear the story Badcompany! Thanks.
Definitely show us some pics when you can.

If you don’t know the process yet, you can use another online image hosting site and then link the pictures to your discussion, or you can upload them directly to either your “garage” or “gallery” functions here.
To upload them directly to your discussion however you need to become a contributor for $12 a year. It’s money well spent, but it’s up to you which method you choose.

Welcome again and I’m sure a lot of people will be looking forward to seeing it at the events.

Yes I am gonna go ahead and pay the 12 bucks and be a contributor, I just haven't had the chance to yet. Definitely will post som pics

 

[papy]

Welcome to CB and what a great story! looking forward to seeing some pics.

cheers

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

I'm pretty bad at taking pics, but here's some pics of when I pulled it on and the passenger floor. I've now sanded and seam sealed everything and body lift is in.

 

[DirtDonk]

Cool. Thanks for the pics.
I’m sure it was pretty rough after sitting in the field for so long. Interesting that it’s kind of a reverse Stroppe. Instead of red on the bottom, white in the middle and blue on the top, it’s red on the top and blue on the bottom.
Great combo!

 

[DirtDonk]

I see you have duplicate threads going. You really should just combine them and keep them as one in the chat section.
No reason to have two when we all go back-and-forth between the two forums anyway.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

I see you have duplicate threads going. You really should just combine them and keep them as one in the chat section.
No reason to have two when we all go back-and-forth between the two forums anyway.

Yeah I accidentally posted it twice, not sure how to delete one of them lol

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Cool. Thanks for the pics.
I’m sure it was pretty rough after sitting in the field for so long. Interesting that it’s kind of a reverse Stroppe. Instead of red on the bottom, white in the middle and blue on the top, it’s red on the top and blue on the bottom.
Great combo!

Actually isn't bad, I was surprised. Obviously front floors, otherwise it's nothing bad, body mounts were decent, rear floor is good and door posts are great. Frame is great as well.

 

[gnpenning]

Welcome, looking forward to seeing your progress.

If you message Jon the site owner he can combine the threads or delete one. He is very helpful.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Some progress made this weekend, wanted to change the steering column out to a telescoping shaft, which turned into pulling the whole column apart and greasing the bearings, then finding the shaft threads were stripped and then doing the turn signal switch about 4 times. But got all that figured out Saturday. Then today(sunday) I went and pulled our Mexican block 302 out and started tearing it apart. Gonna do the basics, water pump, oil pump, gaskets etc.

 

[bulletpruf]

Some progress made this weekend, wanted to change the steering column out to a telescoping shaft, which turned into pulling the whole column apart and greasing the bearings, then finding the shaft threads were stripped and then doing the turn signal switch about 4 times. But got all that figured out Saturday. Then today(sunday) I went and pulled our Mexican block 302 out and started tearing it apart. Gonna do the basics, water pump, oil pump, gaskets etc.

Looks like a fun build!

On the engine, if you can stay away from the machine shop, you can save a lot of time and $. I'd go with rings and bearings throughout, and hope the crank doesn't need to be turned. Dingle ball hone the cylinders to break the glaze and reassemble. I'd also plan to upgrade the cam and lifters, if funds allow it, and a double roller timing chain while you're in there.

Good luck!

 

[Pa PITT]

WELCOME ABOARD ..& YOU'VE got quite a haul for a 16 year old youngman ..
Keep your head in the game & You'll be fine.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Looks like a fun build!

On the engine, if you can stay away from the machine shop, you can save a lot of time and $. I'd go with rings and bearings throughout, and hope the crank doesn't need to be turned. Dingle ball hone the cylinders to break the glaze and reassemble. I'd also plan to upgrade the cam and lifters, if funds allow it, and a double roller timing chain while you're in there.

Good luck!

I've done all that on a cj2a motor, this motor was supposedly a running motor that's good to go, if not then I'll just tear it back apart and do all that. This motor is just to get me by for a year or too while I can actually build a motor. Thanks for the advice though!

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

More updates, been waiting on a gasket set for awhile but meanwhile engine is tore down, was painted and cleaned up, tapped all the holes and made sure everything is good to go. Gasket set came in tonight so timing chain is in, timing cover and water pump. Hopefully start doing valve seals tomorrow and then rear main and oil pan the rest of the week as I have no school just work this week.

Otherwise engine bay is ready to go, started tearing my tcase apart to get ready for twin sticks. So if anyone has advice on twin sticks with a t-shift I'd love to hear it.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Made a ton of progress this week with a couple days off school and work for Thanksgiving. Motor is pretty much back together just waiting on a couple things. New valve seals, timing chain, oil pump, clean pick up tube, new water pump etc. Went ahead and jumped into the transfercase in preparation to run twin sticks. Tcase is a t shift so I read I have to remove the rods inside in order to run fwd. So tore the tcase down and cleaned it all up and put back together today. Wasn't as hard as I was thinking it would be, just a certain process to do it. Hopefully motor in by next weekend and hopefully will have mechanical stuff done by Christmas and then jumping over to suspension.

 

[bulletpruf]

Nice progress! Glad to hear the T-case isn't a big deal. I'll end up rebuilding one myself in the not-too-distant future.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

Got the motor, np435 and dana 20 in this evening. Now just to get everything bolted down and start wiring and etc to get it running.

 

[BruiserOutdoors]

cool build

one of my favorite bronco colors. not sure the name of it. might even be a one year only color.

 

[Badcompany79Bronco]

cool build

one of my favorite bronco colors. not sure the name of it. might even be a one year only color.

Patina? Lol
It was originally white or a really light yellow. Atleast that's what is under the green