Lyle's '76 Sport "Build"

Thanks man...I really like it too. That one isn't bad either. I'm trying to decide what color to paint it now. I'm torn between white, black, and silver. I'm thinking of powder coating so I think I'll save money doing the cage and bumper together. My spare tire holder is white already and my wife thinks I should go with white, but I'm not sure about the bumper in white.

So my insurance company said that according to my VIN my truck is a '77, but it's clearly stamped on the plate in the glove that it's a '76. Is this normal? Is the date on the plate the production date?

I read there are people on here who can decipher the codes on the plate. Any of them checking out this thread?!

Here you go. Just did a search.
http://www.broncohio.com/tech/ebvins.html

Chris

Very cool. Thanks Chris. Was originally a ginger 3-speed. Interesting.


-Lyle

So for the first time I got the truck out on the road this afternoon...legal and aligned. Supposedly the alignment is dead on now, but she still seems to "wander" or "bounce" left to right. Not an up and down bounce, but like it goes too much to the right and you compensate just a little and it ends up being too much and you have to compensate back the other way. It's very strange and unnerving feeling. My '69 had manual steering and way too much play in the wheel and felt much safer on the road. I really don't think this is something I need to "get used to" as the guy who aligned it said. There were a couple times I was worried I was going to scare oncoming traffic into their shoulder as I drifted over the line! Ugh.

Almost MORE concerning though is the transmission. It's certainly not a rebuilt C4 as advertised. It's hard to tell if it's going into D or 2 and shifts hard into reverse. Once in gear it seems OK but at speed it won't downshift and I think I'd be hard pressed to get up to 55. Additionally the t-case doesn't feel good. I was able to get into 4L after some fiddling, but it wouldn't stay in 4H. I need to play with it some more, but this is obviously not good at all.

Good news is the engine seems to run well. Got a little hot sitting still but dropped right back down as soon as I got moving again. I remember that with my '69. I'm so used to driving a Toyota truck that stays cool I do just need to get used to that again.

I wish I had access to a mechanic who specialized or had a TON of experience with EBs. I would seriously consider swapping out the entire drive train. I'm sure it would be pricey, but I really want a daily driver EB and between the steering and transmission I don't see that happening. And with the t-case as it is I don't even think I could take it up in the mountains as I was hoping for as well. Pretty much a huge let down.

The positive is that she LOOKS great, but honestly I'd rather a shit box that ran like a top and drove like it was supposed to. Ugh. What to do? What to do?

I'm going to drive it for the next few days and see if these problems fix themselves. That usually works, right?

Well, bummer man. You're right that it looks GREAT! You could buy a rebuilt c4 and d20 from bronco connection or get them redone locally. As for the steering, what setup? New bushings, appropriate dropped items for your lift? Hang in there man, all it takes is money

broncobsession said:

Well, bummer man. You're right that it looks GREAT! You could buy a rebuilt c4 and d20 from bronco connection or get them redone locally. As for the steering, what setup? New bushings, appropriate dropped items for your lift? Hang in there man, all it takes is money

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Ha...thanks man. The guy I bought it from put a Duff 5.5" Monster Suspension system on it. This came with a drop pitman arm, but it doesn't look like he did any other changes to the steering. I really don't know though. The guy who did the alignment today said that the steering set-up looked fine, that's why I'm wondering if it's the box.

Fortunately on the money front I am within budget still (amazingly!). I was planning on buying a new car and would have spent 25-30k on that so I've told myself I can spend that much on this. I have about 20k in it at this point. I'm sure I'll end up spending that last 10k at this point...was hoping to avoid that!

I'm probably making things sound worse than they really are. At least I hope so. Honestly I think many of the guys on here would make light work of making this truck perfect, but I just don't have the experience or know-how to do it myself. I need to find the right person to help out nearby. If I don't do that it will just take me a lot longer to do it all myself as I have to figure a bunch out first by doing tons of research!

I was able to get the roll cage in today to check the fit. It seems to fit near perfect and looked really good.


Do people normally bolt it down through the carpet or should I pull up the carpet, bolt it down, and then cut the carpet around the feet?


I did some doughnuts in the field next to my house and was able to get the t-case into 4L and 4H so that's a good sign. Afterwards though it seemed like the rear diff was locked (not lockable) and it was spinning and throwing mud off the right rear tire just backing into the garage. Any ideas what that could be? My wife noticed after I parked that it seems to be lilting to the right. I think I just need to keep working out kinks. It was stalling out when I was running it pretty hard in start and stop quick actions. All-in-all I think I just need to work out the cob webs and have a good tune up.

My mechanic is stumped on the steering. I'm nearly certain it's a caster issue. He's going to call James Duff and see if they have any ideas since all the suspension now is Duff stuff. He's also going to call the guy I got the steering box from to ask him a bunch of good questions I didn't think of about how to best get it installed. He's being pretty helpful at this point and really wants to get it figured out.

Looks great. Have you installed the front bailie bumper? What are you gonna do for the rear bumper? Are you gonna remove the body lift? Have you thought about sending your ps box to west tx offroad for a rebuild? Then you could sell the blue one you bought. Just thinking.

No thoughts on carpet. I would assume cut the carpet and rewrap over the plates. Not sure on the one tire spinning -- seems that would indicate not locked in the rear.

broncobsession said:

Looks great. Have you installed the front bailie bumper? What are you gonna do for the rear bumper? Are you gonna remove the body lift? Have you thought about sending your ps box to west tx offroad for a rebuild? Then you could sell the blue one you bought. Just thinking.

No thoughts on carpet. I would assume cut the carpet and rewrap over the plates. Not sure on the one tire spinning -- seems that would indicate not locked in the rear.

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thanks man! I'm really happy with how well it fits. Literally just drops in perfect. I haven't installed the front bumper yet. I'm dropping these off for powder coating next week and figured I didn't need to test fit the bumper. Maybe I should?

I wish I had sprung for a rear bumper at the same time, but the bill at Bailie Bilt was getting pretty high! It's going to look a bit weird for a while with a stock chromer on the back and the BB on the front. I'll get a new BB rear sooner than later I'm sure. I'm going to coat the cage, bumper, and tire rack black I've decided. Part of me wants to leave the rack off the back, but I want to carry a spare and don't really have a better spot!

I wish I could easily lower the truck a couple inches, but I'm not sure it's possible. The 2" body lift has to stay as it allows for the hoops on the Duff Monster kit which is another 5.5". I'd prefer the 3.5" kit, but I'd probably only do that now if I found somebody who wanted to trade for or buy my 5.5" kit...minus the hoops, radius arms, and other mounting hardware!

I don't know anything about West TX Offroad. I did a quick search and it seems to be a Jeep thing? Maybe I'll give them a call tomorrow. Not having to figure out how to make the big box work sounds great, but I do worry even a rebuilt stock box will have issues with the tires off road. No?

I got the cage, bumper, and tire rack back from the powder coater today (finally!). I only dropped the cage in so far, but it looks great! I'm going to coat these wheels in the same black I think.



Swapping out the cheap valve covers that were put on here on Saturday with some good Ford ones. I can't get these cheap aluminum ones to stop leaking.

I need to get this top done now since it's starting to get cold around here!

Man, looks so nice. You need to go drive it up that big dirt mound in the second pic

Leaks are a common problem with the cheap chrome ones.

I dig the black wheels idea -- there's a guy on here called mountain ram I think and he has the wheels that I really don't like stock but he did them slate grey and they look awesome now!

Looks fantastic!

Looks great Lyle! Lets see that bumper on there ;-)

Lyle - have you heard anything from James Duff on your steering issues? I'm buying my first Bronco right ('76 Sport) now and apparently the only issue it has is the castor is off because of a 4" body lift. The guy that I'm buying it from has a good friend who knows a lot about EB's and said mine will need an Adjustable Radius Arm Drop Bracket to take care of the steering issues; part #5430 from James Duff or item #1506 from Wild Horses. Maybe this is what you need to fix your steering problem?
Your truck looks awesome. Glad to see you decided to go with black for the roll cage.

-Chris

broncobsession said:

Man, looks so nice. You need to go drive it up that big dirt mound in the second pic

Leaks are a common problem with the cheap chrome ones.

I dig the black wheels idea -- there's a guy on here called mountain ram I think and he has the wheels that I really don't like stock but he did them slate grey and they look awesome now!

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Thanks man...the new covers and permadry gaskets are night and day. Why does anyone even buy those cheap chrome covers? they're completely worthless.

I wish I could drive up that mound but it's loose fill dirt!

xcntrk said:

Looks fantastic!

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g8rb8t said:

Looks great Lyle! Lets see that bumper on there ;-)

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Thanks guys...I'm hoping to get the bumper on today. In between football and grilling!

Cvcoda said:

Lyle - have you heard anything from James Duff on your steering issues? I'm buying my first Bronco right ('76 Sport) now and apparently the only issue it has is the castor is off because of a 4" body lift. The guy that I'm buying it from has a good friend who knows a lot about EB's and said mine will need an Adjustable Radius Arm Drop Bracket to take care of the steering issues; part #5430 from James Duff or item #1506 from Wild Horses. Maybe this is what you need to fix your steering problem?
Your truck looks awesome. Glad to see you decided to go with black for the roll cage.

-Chris

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According to Duff the truck should be driving perfect with the equipment on it, so I must just be how it's installed or set. Since I'm not a mechanic I'm somewhat at a loss at how to fix it. I had it aligned and the computer says the caster is 3 degrees and everything I've read has said it should be close to 7 degrees. The alignment guy said that shouldn't make SUCH a big difference, but he may not know what he's talking about...OR the steering box may be the problem. I've driven it a lot more recently and am getting more used to it, but it's certainly not safe. I'm not sure if the best description is that it "wanders" or that it has "bump steer" or maybe a little of both. It's probably the most nerve racking on perfectly straight 2 lane roads. On curvy roads you can control it better turning back and forth. On straight roads it'll just start heading into oncoming traffic and then when you try to correct you have to overcompensate, compensate the other way, hold your breath, compensate the other way, etc. The only saving grace is that I'm typically much bigger than whatever's coming at me so they scoot over! When I see a dump truck coming at me I start getting real nervous!

I have a rebuilt 4x2x2 F150 steering box that I'm going to get hooked up, but it's going to take a bit more finagling than I was planning on. I have to get the pump moved, a new lower column piece, drill a couple holes in the frame, and figure out the hose connections as they seem to want to hit the frame with this box. I've read a lot and know it's possible, but I haven't put the time into figuring it out for my situation yet. Once I'm done with that if it's still a problem I'll probably lower it from the 5.5" suspension lift to 3.5" to see if that fixes it. From there.......?

So I drove around town today at lunch and talked to a few guys at different shops about my steering issues. If I really need to be a 7 degrees of caster I may be in trouble because 2 different people told me I probably couldn't do that because I would have to roll the axel back and the u-joint is already at more than an ideal angle due to the lift. I don't understand how people handle these lifts and I haven't gotten any straight answers on here or by anybody else. Pretty frustrating. I'm probably going to sell the 5.5" Duff Monster kit and go to a 3.5" kit (or lower if possible even) to get the geometry back where it needs to be so the truck is more safe.

My experience and history with these EBs is limited to my old '69 that only had a slight lift (don't remember what exactly). My wife recently found this pic of it when we were in college in the late 90s. Along with my old dog (RIP)! I had 33x12.50s on it at the end when she was sold. Looked much better on the 33s but this old truck was awesome...and I never had any of these steering issues! Manual steering and drum brakes though. Was equally unsafe...just in different ways.