1969 4BD1T Diesel & NV4500 conversion on 33's

[amax]

Glad to see you back to working on it again. I have a 4bd2t in my 71. I am getting really close to having all the fab work complete and can tear it all apart for paint. I drove mine around for a little while this evening just trying to get all the kinks worked out. I am really impressed with the power it has. I was a little nervous just because I hadn’t ever driven a vehicle with that series engine in it before. It seems more than capable. I looked your thread over quite a few times while I was doing mine and appreciate you posting what you did. I know it saved me some time in getting mine functional. Good luck. Can’t wait to see yours up and going.

 

[Pa PITT]

.. Glad to hear how this is coming along .
& Amax glad you've got to drive yours.
It does feel good.

 

[Digger556]

Well I officially started working on the Bronco again. I pretty mad about the older pics in previous post being ruined but I can probably go back and fix it later so anybody who wants to catch up can do so. I will be uploading straight to the site from now on.

I hear ya there. I had to re-host everything on Flickr. It took 2 evenings to go through 12 pages of my thread and change all the links over.

Glad to see this project rolling again!

 

[BradtheWelder]

Decided to mount the driver's seat so I could where my feet will end up. Nothing super fancy, the back is just some 3/16" angle iron that I drilled and tapped for rear side of the seat. I'll reinforce them to make sure they don't bent out their correct position later. The seats I settle on were from Tom's Bronco parts. My initial impressions with these seats are pretty good. I like the extremely durable material they wrap these in, it's a really tough denim like cloth that maybe water resistant. And no I'm not referring to my trash bag seat covers. ;D

 

[Qumanchew]

I ran mine outside the frame on driver's side. Easy peasy, till you get to the rear axle, shock area. I think if you have the room for the crossover like you did it will probably be easier.

 

[amax]

I’m not sure what to do with mine. I laid under it today trying to figure out where to go with it. I don’t think I have the space to get it between the bottom of the body and the top of the frame rail. Even with a 2” body lift. Queman what size exhaust tubing are you running? I have 2.5” and I’m afraid that there is enough movement with the engine that the pipe would end up hitting one or the other.

 

[BradtheWelder]

I finished the driver's side floor pan supports this weekend. I don't know if I have said this in a previous post but my plan is to most of the floor be bolted in. I want to make sure every piece of metal gets coated thoroughly. So in areas if I welded the two panels in there would that little bit of area between the two pieces of metals that wouldn't be covered. So my floor panels are going to be painted separate of the body. Will also give access to the areas above the framerails and fuel tank.

I went to test fit the steering column. Pretty sure I was going have to add two extra u joints in the steering shaft and buy a different steering column but decided to modify the manifold to angle the turbo up a little so I could make the straight column work . So I cut off the outlet of manifold and milled it flat to get a good baseline. Ended up angling the turbo more towards the engine as well angling it lengthwise which brought vertically higher at the back of the turbo. Should decent clearance around the exhaust which also had to be redone. Aiming to have the firewall done in less than a week.

Also got the remaining parts to hang the rest of the exhaust

 

[BradtheWelder]

First three pieces of the firewall are tacked in. Also got another bend and 29" of the exhaust cut and tacked in as well. Sheet metal work is so time consuming but at this rate I should done with firewall like I was hoping this week.

 

[amax]

Firewall looks good. Yours is going to be quite a bit further back than the stock location. I notched just the corners of the middle sections out to clear mine. Are you going to have enough room on the passenger side for the heater box? I ended up building a whole new box for mine that is a simple AC and heater all in one box. My stock heater box wasn’t going to fit in the factory spot with just the small sections that I modified.

 

[BradtheWelder]

Firewall looks good. Yours is going to be quite a bit further back than the stock location. I notched just the corners of the middle sections out to clear mine. Are you going to have enough room on the passenger side for the heater box? I ended up building a whole new box for mine that is a simple AC and heater all in one box. My stock heater box wasn’t going to fit in the factory spot with just the small sections that I modified.

Nope no room for the stock heater box. Don't have a plan for that yet. I make something work when I get there.

 

[Qumanchew]

I’m not sure what to do with mine. I laid under it today trying to figure out where to go with it. I don’t think I have the space to get it between the bottom of the body and the top of the frame rail. Even with a 2” body lift. Queman what size exhaust tubing are you running? I have 2.5” and I’m afraid that there is enough movement with the engine that the pipe would end up hitting one or the other.

I'm running 3". It is tight at a few spots so I'm curious to see if I have any issues as well.

 

[amax]

Got ya Brad. I can appreciate that attitude for sure. You have to have that outlook when putting one of these motors in a bronco. Start with the things you HAVE to have and then make everything else work around it. Yours looks great and you have some skills for sure.

Queman where did you crossover to the outside of the framerail? In front of the floorpan body mount behind it? Just curious. If you had a few pics that would be awesome. I have a setup mocked up right now but just not sure if its going to work or not.

 

[BradtheWelder]

Starting to look like a firewall again. The center piece will be removable so I can access the top of the transmission.

 

[BradtheWelder]

Firewall is all tacked in now. Did some small finish welds here and there but didn't want it getting too hot and distorted. Some the area by the turbo has to cut off flush but I won't be able to do that until the engine is out. Next week or so I will mount the front clip and start mounting the radiator and intercooler. Last pic is to give you the idea on the way I'm going to mount the front clip.

 

[svastano]

Looks great so far

 

[BradtheWelder]

Looks great so far

Thanks!

I just spent 4 hours getting the old pics uploaded on the early post so now everyone can see where it came from.

 

[sprdv1]

Firewall is all tacked in now. Did some small finish welds here and there but didn't want it getting too hot and distorted. Some the area by the turbo has to cut off flush but I won't be able to do that until the engine is out. Next week or so I will mount the front clip and start mounting the radiator and intercooler. Last pic is to give you the idea on the way I'm going to mount the front clip.

list never ends does it Brad...

Coming along nicely

 

[BradtheWelder]

Only have had a little bit of time to work on the Bronco today. Took off the steering box and ground of the front body mounts. They were very rusty and needed more work than just fabricating my own. Also put the fenders and grill on to see how I want to run my tubes to support the front clip and the radiator/intercooler.

 

[BradtheWelder]

After looking at the hood latch mechanism I don't think I have room for it in the stock location. I'm going to probably do two separate ones on the corners of the hood. So ground the spot welds which required some serious finessing with a grinder. I think it came out pretty good.

Next I wanted to tackle the passenger side fender support tube. The tube is under the fender so the only place you'll see the tube is near the grill. So far it's just tacked together and will make it so it bolts on to the body and the frame. One part of the tube needed a 10* bend. So instead of trying bend it in the correct orientation to the other bend I just sliced 90% way through the tube and pushed the cut together and tacked it for now.

 

[Digger556]

After looking at the hood latch mechanism I don't think I have room for it in the stock location. I'm going to probably do two separate ones on the corners of the hood. So ground the spot welds which required some serious finessing with a grinder. I think it came out pretty good.

Next I wanted to tackle the passenger side fender support tube. The tube is under the fender so the only place you'll see the tube is near the grill. So far it's just tacked together and will make it so it bolts on to the body and the frame. One part of the tube needed a 10* bend. So instead of trying bend it in the correct orientation to the other bend I just sliced 90% way through the tube and pushed the cut together and tacked it for now.

I'm in the same boat with the hood latch problem. The intercooler sits right below the stock hood latch. I picked up 2 Explorer hood latches this weekend, but they are too big to fit the corners for my application. I'm going back to the drawing board and may engineer my own latch(s).

There is so little room to work with under the hood of these rigs.