Build/Refresh Thread: 73 mild custom

[Scott McKelvey]

fuel pump trap door done. Stainless plate and soft 3/8" foam.

Scuff plates on the door sills. Paint looked rough anyways.

License plate flip up for the cooler rack.

Hard top removed and Rampage Soft top install. My hard top looked nice, but the front rain gutter was rusted through, plus I generally go soft top in the summer months. My first time using anything other than Bestop. I don't hate it. Couple of notes here.

It hurt to spend the $, but I bought a set of stainless lift-off hinges and straps. I had some old school lift off hinges w/ velcro straps. Functionally they were great, but I was tired of looking at the chipped paint. I take the doors off quite a bit. I needed another strap footman loop anyways. Plus I plan to try to cut some stock doors to fit soft doors, so I was going to have to make another top set of hinges, where as I can buy a second set of stainless ones. It gave me a chance to cleanup and treat the rusty spots w/ Ospho (if you haven't used it, i highly recommend it. It doesn't do anything to the paint, but does wonders on rust). Interesting that it looks like the hinges have never been off this truck despite being repainted at some point.

While I was at it, the passenger door had some pretty noticeable bends (and a minor one in the drivers side) that really bothered me, so straightened those out pretty well. Some time ago, the door trim was already basically hanging off the truck b/c the clips weren't correct, so while i fixed that, i hammered out the mashed section and re-painted trim where the previous owner had let the doors swing open too far. Below is the before, and there's a pic above showing the whole door.

 

[Scott McKelvey]

First bath/wax/etc since flying from Baltimore to Nashville, and driving this thing home. And it was not clean at that time. I'm not much on cleaning, maybe one or two good cleanings a year for my vehicles. Still a LONG list of to-do's small and large.

 

[Scott McKelvey]

Been doing lots of little things, more than I can remember, but here's a summary.

1. Eaton TruTrac in front Dana44, and all the stuff that goes w/ that. Seals, bearings, plus new drivers side hub+rotor, new brake pads. Cleaning up everything in between, as well as some new seals in the Warn hubs.
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 

 

[Scott McKelvey]

Previous owner added the rear part of the full cage, and my dash looked like shit: 2 different shades of white and a ton of scratches and huge chips. Both really bugged me. I had teh rollbar paint matched, but they didn't do a very good job. Oh well, it's better than nothing. Also replaced the crusty cardboard glove box w/ a plastic one. The rear section of the roll bar was just primer.

1. 
2. 

Also the Wild Horses stainless ignition switch cover. If I had to give them feedback, it would be to 1) at least make an option that goes AROUND the ignition switch, and not under. 2) the bend didn't fit my dash, so at least make the bend looser to fit everyone. 3) use a magnetic stainless (like a fridge)

1. 
2. 

 

[Speedrdr]

First bath/wax/etc since flying from Baltimore to Nashville, and driving this thing home. And it was not clean at that time. I'm not much on cleaning, maybe one or two good cleanings a year for my vehicles. Still a LONG list of to-do's small and large.

Love the rims! Who makes them?

 

[Scott McKelvey]

There was side trim, but no tailgate trim. It shouldn't have bothered me on account of the fact that the tire carrier covered everything. But that lead to dealing w/ all the side trim, as well as the rear quarters behind the taillights, and drilling holes in my tailgate, which was nerve wracking.

1. First I was missing 1 tailgate screw. This tool is friggin awesome, and even fixed the stock insert. Then I used new stainless screws.
2. 
3. The rear clips of the side moulding were always just flopping around, so I had to get behind the lights. Things didn't look too bad: just surface rust. So I hosed everything down w/ Ospho to stave off further rusting, and secured the little LED resistors which were just flopping around inside the housing as well.
4. The drivers side was attached with double sided tape, which was visible (and bothered me), and once I looked at the interior fuel panels and the rollbar I knew why. I relocated at mounting bracket just far enough back to allow me to access the nut, but hold the moulding in place.
5. 
6. On to the tailgate. Man i did not enjoy drilling those holes.
7. 
8. figure I have a 351w, I might as well show it. I know the '73 is wrong for an engine emblem, and blue is wrong even when it was correct. but hey this isn't some restoration.
9. 

 

[Scott McKelvey]

Still chipping away at a million things. List too long and boring to document it all.

1. I went to bat on the steering. One of those game of inches things. Tighten steering box, worn track bar bolts, worn track bar bushings, alignment, and wrestled with the steering stablizer mount until coming up with something that made sense.
   1. 
   2. 
2. aluminum marker light bezels
3. New hood bumpers, and adjusted the latch. So much better, both alignment and closing the hood.
4. I had some running problems out of the blue on the Sniper, turned out to be loose plug, which google told me was not uncommon. I went ahead and zip tied them all pre-emptively. Also tried a 1" plastic spacer under the carb, but it didn't really do anything one way or the other that I can tell.
   1. 
5. First outing offroad. the front and rear TruTracs ate up anything i threw at them, with the caveat that I was not looking to damage or break anything.
   1. 
   2. 
   3. 
6. I made my own lockable storage under the passenger seat. I have Tom's seats/brackets. I ordered a lock to match my other Tuffy lockboxes,
   1. 

 

[Scott McKelvey]

1. Still chipping away at odds and ends.
2. More tinkering with getting the fuel pump on the Poly EFI tank to fully seal. Hoping I got it.
3. this might look simple, but i wanted a little extra fuel and diesel for when i go camping in the cold and use my diesel heater. It took alot of work to shoehorn them in there behind the tire, and around the Jack.
4. This might also look even simpler, but the one weakness of the Duff tire carrier to me was movement of the tire carrier. That says there's alot of weight and moment on it, and honestly it's as rigid as it could be without adding a second mounting point. Other than squeaking and watching it move around in my mirror, it wasn't anything more than a worry about the fatigue and stress it was putting on everything. But with the Rotopax tanks, now the movement was now enough that they would kiss the tailgate, so i finall had to deal with it.
   1. the bracket had to clear the latch on the Jack, with an easy way to get the bracket on+off.
   2. i had to find a spot on the tailgate that would work
   3. it's a tight fit in there so i had to be able to easily reach whatever mechanism i came up with.
   4. the two brackets are slightly angled so they will always slide together w/o bumping into each as i lift and close the carrier.
   5. i used stainless rivnuts on the tailgate. A knob for ease of access. On the jack, I made a twist lock bolt of sorts, so i can put it one of the holes, and turn it 90deg and it won't pull out. So I don't need access to the backside of the jack to tighten install/remove/tighten it.

 

[Scott McKelvey]

For those of you with a full front cage, and struggling with a sun visor solution, I have to say I'm quite pleased with these. They are reasonably priced, and wider than most of the SXS visors, so they fit the Bronco very well. In the absence of a wiper box, they also kinda hide a lot of that area too.

I was even able to carefully trim my rollbar padding, so you can't even see how they're mounted.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0D6Y3LS5P?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

[Scott McKelvey]

Fixing my old James Duff Urethane fender flares (so I don't have to deal with paint, or more importantly trimming fenders and drilling more holes with a whole new set of flares). Also replacing rivets with #6 Truss head machine screws. Separate Thread

 

[Scott McKelvey]

Ordered Toms 3.5/5.5 bumpstop kit (not sure what that means since those are 2 different lifts). Kinda a 2 for 1. I have a 3.5" lift, so I used the 1-bolt bumpstops up front, and kept the steel extensions in the back. It took some doing to get the old rear bump stops out. On one side the bolts broke off, and i chose to drill 2 new adjacent holes and tap rather than bother with drilling out the old broken bolts. I had to drill and tap new holes in the blocks to accept the stock bump stops (I'm a little surprised Tom's doesn't sell this as a bolt-in extension for stockers. seems like there's be some $ in that for them). It's not the worst design ever, but you better have a ratcheting wrench (maybe even the articulating one, depending on where your exhaust is) on hand to do those bolts.

 

[.94 OR]

Interesting.
Hate to be a party pooper, but where is the cotter key in your track bar castle nut?