67 Fun Continues

[A4x4Junky]

Spent some more time on it tonight.

Ground the welds down and primed/painted the windshield mount.

Started working on the cowl pieces. They didnt fit very well so it took me a bit to get em right.

Got the little cowl brace welded in place. Even though most of the work is done to get the other 2 pieces of the cowl in, decided to hold off on that until I have had a chance to go through the wiring under the dash.

Had some help and put the hood on tonight. Heh, simple little thing like that brought a smile to my face. Need to put the sheetmetal on and get it all adjusted so I know where the rockers will fit. Want to be sure to keep my lines right...so will have the fenders, grill, and doors on tomorrow. Once they are adjusted right, will be able to get the quarters welded onto the new striker posts and get the rockers put into place.

Anthony

 

[A4x4Junky]

Spent some time trying to get the hinge on the windshield to be a little easier to move. Seems the previous owner put the hinge seal under the bottom part of the hinge rather than between the two halves...and probably didnt understand why it leaked. Rather than investigate the source of the problem...gob the hell out of the whole outside of the hinge with silicone. Well, most of that is off now.

Started to reassemble the Bronco tonight. My original plan was to take my time (within reason) and put it together with only a few minor bolton pieces left untouched. Figured the tailgate could be changed at any time and can be a large expense and figured the same deal with the hood. Im not even sure which engine I will end up with in the long run...so might have to go aftermarket on the hood anyway. Well, money will not allow this plan. I am rather out of funds now and if I get accepted into the police academy my finances will only get worse. I hate to put poor quality pieces back together, but finances wont allow me to replace everything I wanted to. I at least was able to replace the foundation pieces. All weld-on pieces that were in dire need of replacement are now new.

I put the grill assembly into place. I had also purchased a passenger fender to replace the rusty original. Put it into place and the three screws that attach the fender to the hinge post are not even close. Probably 5/8" out of position. Checked that my hinge post, and other pieces I had replaced were in the right place (original fender fits fine). Will have to call supplier tomorrow and resolve this issue. Am seriously considering running the original fender and putting the money towards a soft top...so if ya have a complete soft top for sale...lemme know ;D ;D ;D Dont really have the money to spend, but the hard top is literally falling apart...so not reasonable to put that back on.

Wasted a lot of time tonight trying to find out why the fender didnt fit...so ended up with the front clip together, but no bolts in it as of now. Guess that will be tomorrow night.

Anthony

 

[ztoolman44]

Keep up the good work. Your frustration and success is giving others ambition to continue. Thanks for all the pics and info. It lets me know that I am not alone.

 

[A4x4Junky]

Keep up the good work. Your frustration and success is giving others ambition to continue. Thanks for all the pics and info. It lets me know that I am not alone.

Thanks for the compliment and no, you are not alone. Tons of us out here working on these. I remember how nice it was to read through other peoples posts when they did similar work. Helped me a good deal. Not sure how useful mine will be, but at least I will have something to look back on and think to myself "what the hell was I thinking" ;D

Had some more time today to work on this...and will spend the next few days working on this. Hoping to have it drivable by the end of the week.

Decided to modify the fender that was sent to me...not too difficult to do, just a pain because I shouldnt have to. First pic shows the hole in the original fender lining up perfectly. This tells me that my hinge post is in the right location in relation to the kick panel and inner fender. The second pic shows how the inner part of the fender did not line up. It doesnt follow the contours at all...I estimate it was about 5/8" too high. The pic after that is the piece of the fender I had to remove. Knock out the 11ish spot welds and now I can line the fender up where it belongs. The pic after that shows the new fender lined up with that inner piece set into place. Once I am have the whole front end aligned I will weld that strip back into place.

Re-attached a few wire holders under the dash, sealed em up and painted over them...hopefully to stop the evil rust monster for another week or so %)

Reusing the driver fender for now. Dont have the funds to replace it. Sandblasted just the edge (worst spot it was rusted) and "gently" beat the hell out of the lip till it sat where it should Touched up the edges with primer and paint and got both fenders mounted.

Got both doors put on, but am still waiting on striker parts so I can adjust them...hopefully Mr. UPS will be my friend tomorrow.

Had two brackets under the truck to take care of for the emergency brake. Got the one welded onto the new floor brace and the other bolted back to the floor pan.

Folded over any rough edges from the floor work I had done, seam sealed the whole underside. Lots of seams to take care of. Wiped the whole thing down to remove grease and dirt and primed then painted all the new metal. Looks much nicer now. I still have some more work to do at some point on the underside of the truck, so this will suffice for now. Will look into a more complete rust preventative later on.

Tried to get the evil clutch rod into place. It kicked my butt. Got a new clutch rod boot and new clutch rod bushings. Have the boot in place, but cannot get both ends of the clutch rod into their places at the same time. Kinda pissing me off. Decided it would let it kick my butt some more tomorrow...gonna need something to do until UPS show up

Anthony

 

[A4x4Junky]

Spent a few more hours on this today.

Started with the clutch rod...contiued to kick my butt. Took me far too long to get it into place, but that is finally done. One end of it has been rewelded...so my guess is that it isnt the right shape. A little bend here and there and it is now set.

Moved onto alignment of the hood, grill, and fenders. I am fairly happy with how those came out. Still have to get the doors aligned, but waiting on the UPS guy to bring me my last batch of stuff including my strikers. Hopefully they will be there tomorrow. Once I get those in then align the doors I can set the rear of the fender and the front of the quarter panel. Once that is done, I can finally get my rockers into place without worry that it wont be lined up.

Once the fenders were set I put the battery tray and battery in. Ran the wires around the engine compartment and got most of that sorted out. Still have a few small things like voltage regulator and solenoid, but that shouldnt take too long.

Hope to button up the engine compartment tomorrow early and will move on from there.

Anthony

 

[sevenTseven]

Looks great so far.

Who was the vendor on the ill fitting fender? Was it one of the "new" fenders that JBG is selling, I thought they were supposed to be improved from the ones they previously carried.

 

[A4x4Junky]

Looks great so far.

Who was the vendor on the ill fitting fender? Was it one of the "new" fenders that JBG is selling, I thought they were supposed to be improved from the ones they previously carried.

It is a JBG fender. The fender itself isnt much of a problem. The section that is welded to the fender that screws to the hinge post was just welded 5/8" too high. No way to get those three screws to line up.

It took a couple conversations, but they were willing to resolve the issue a few different ways to best suit what would help me. No complaints there honestly.

Anthony

 

[A4x4Junky]

Spent all day working on it today.

Started with the drivers side. Got the door aligned with the fender and quarterpanel. Was a lot more work than I expected. First put the striker in with the striker shim. Be warned that 66-67 use different striker shims than the other years...I didnt know this. Anyone need a set of shims? %)

Once the door was in position I started to get the driver rocker into place. Was not as nice a fit as I would have liked, but with a hammer, cutoff wheel, prybar and a welder I finally got it in. Im pretty happy with how it turned out.

After this shortlived victory I started on the passenger side. Houston...I think I done messed something up. I cannot get the door to fall in line with the fender and quarter while having reasonable sized even seams. I fought with this for about three hours. I even brought an equally stumped friend into the mix...no go.
Following the body seam down the side of the Bronco, the fender sits higher than the door which I cannot adjust any higher even if I wanted to...and the door is currently higher than the quarterpanel. So, I need to lower the door to align the quarter which will leave the door about 1/2" lower than the fender along that seam.

I have a feeling some grinding, drilling, and rewelding will be on the menu for tomorrow. Have all day to work on it again...so should be able to resolve this problem and get the rocker in tomorrow. Was trying to get this drivable by Thursday...not looking likely.

Anthony

 

[sevenTseven]

Let me preface this by saying I know exactly crap about bodywork, but I will go through the same learning curve as you have.

If you read back to your 4/5 post, you had the passenger fender lined up pretty well. Were you seeing the problems lining up the holes that you described a couple of days ago? You described some holes not lining up, but I dont recall those being the door post holes for the fender.

I also dont recall you posting about having too many fitting issues with the door when you were test fitting it as you were about to weld the door post, any reason why that could have changed?

Did your door post get tweaked somewhere along the way? Any chance that could have caused the fender fitting issues and also the door problems you have now? The way I read the problem, it would seem the top of door post is leaning towards the front of the truck. Of course I only have hung doors on a house, which dont have to align as many ways as a auto door post.

 

[A4x4Junky]

Let me preface this by saying I know exactly crap about bodywork, but I will go through the same learning curve as you have.

If you read back to your 4/5 post, you had the passenger fender lined up pretty well. Were you seeing the problems lining up the holes that you described a couple of days ago? You described some holes not lining up, but I dont recall those being the door post holes for the fender.

I also dont recall you posting about having too many fitting issues with the door when you were test fitting it as you were about to weld the door post, any reason why that could have changed?

Did your door post get tweaked somewhere along the way? Any chance that could have caused the fender fitting issues and also the door problems you have now? The way I read the problem, it would seem the top of door post is leaning towards the front of the truck. Of course I only have hung doors on a house, which dont have to align as many ways as a auto door post.

Nice post, definately made me think. I took a look back at 4/5 and noticed that under that fender you would only find what you seen in pic 1. The cowl windshield support is not in yet. So, the supports on the end also are not welded in. I know I have to lower the back end of the fender, but the end of the cowl windshield support is in the way. My belief is that I welded the support (pic 2) about 1/2" too high. This is the one piece that I had no means to measure prior to cutting out and it is 1/2" different than the driver side. If this were 1/2" lower, the fender would sit 1/2" lower. Drop the door 1/4 and the seam should line up. Since I am lowering it from this point it will keep my seam along the hood correct as well.

At least that is the thought as of now.

Anthony

 

[A4x4Junky]

Well, as much as I hated to do it, the cowl windshield support had to come off on the passeger side so I could cut out the little mount and adjust the height of the passenger side. Pic 1 shows what I started with. Ooh, ahh and all that fun stuff.

Drilled the welds out, used the angle grinder to take down the seams and a cutoff wheel to seperate the pieces. Took a couple hours, but finally got it apart. Started "adjusting" the pieces to fit lower so my body lines would be right (along with other things). Welded it all back together and finally was done (pics 2-4). Total time wasted was about 5 or so hours.

Got back to adjusting the fender and door. Finally a nice seam. Got the door striker in and door closed really nice. Some good luck at last.

Worked on welding up the quarter panel and reinforcements arrived late this evening. Got him to help me put the hood back on and worked on adjusting it...um...ut oh.
The hood stuck put past the grill about 3/8" on the passenger side. What the hell did I screw up now?!?! Took some measurements and found out that the position of what I welded in was perfect...only wrong angle. The angle was holding the hood forward too much, which means the windshield would be too far forward...

Soo...who want to guess what I will be doing tomorrow? Same thing we do every night Pinky, try to get the damned panels lined up. So, kinda like today I will have to pull it apart and cut and weld and grind...hope the battery in my Ipod lasts longer tomorrow %)

Ah, well...is my own fault. Just wish I had realized this before. Any bets or guesses on what I screw up next? Hrm, maybe the winner should get a brand new pair of striker shims I paid for but cant use

Anthony

 

[A4x4Junky]

Spent a few more hours on it today. Praise whatever diety you happen to believe in, I actually managed to get the windshield cowl support welded in...in the right place...at the right angle ;D

Still took me a good few hours, but got that done then the door installed, the fender installed, everything adjusted. Welded the quarter into place and set the rocker. Rocker didnt want to cooperate, but I have hammers, sawzalls, cutoffwheels, grinders and dirty looks. I think it was the looks that got it done, but hard to tell.

That was the last bastard piece (I hope). Now I can focus on some of the smaller details.

Anthony

 

[sevenTseven]

Congratulations, see how early you are posting tonight...you are practically a bodywork guru now. Finished early and drinking beer in celebration.

We will alert the kind residents of New Jersey that you will be burning up the roads in just a matter of a couple of weeks. ;D

 

[A4x4Junky]

Congratulations, see how early you are posting tonight...you are practically a bodywork guru now. Finished early and drinking beer in celebration.

We will alert the kind residents of New Jersey that you will be burning up the roads in just a matter of a couple of weeks. ;D

Bodywork guru...heh, maybe someday, but probably not ?:?

Only reason I finished early was so I could see my daughter play softball tonight. I have enjoyed the building process so far, but Im sure just like most people I wish I had more time and money to do it a bit differently.

All in all I am getting what I wanted though. A solid foundation to build it however I choose. I expect once this phase is done I only have about 15 or so years to go till its "done"

Anthony

 

[Flash69]

It looks like you are doing a fine job. Keep it up and keep us in Pics. We love pics.

 

[tasker]

Anthony, get that done for this weekend and bring it on up!

 

[A4x4Junky]

Anthony, get that done for this weekend and bring it on up!

I only wish that were possible. Im hoping sometime this weekend to be able to start it again...then I can begin addressing the laundry list of problems and wants (possibly needs clutch, lights like to just turn off randomly, radio, hard starting when cold and a ton of others).

Still gonna need some time and money before I can trust more than a run around the block.

Anthony

 

[deltarat]

Great work. I am working on rockers now.

 

[A4x4Junky]

Great work. I am working on rockers now.

Thanks

Rockers were easier than I expected and took a lot less time than I expected. My only issue was my own stupidity on some of the other things leading up to the rockers. They were a close fit (easy enough to get in with only minor trimming).

Spent a few hours working on the truck tonight. Seems like I didnt get much done for the time I invested, but I know I worked nonstop...so I guess the time was necessary.

Now that the rockers were in and installed I felt comfortable jacking the body up to replace the body mounts. The two under the radiator support were replaced shortly before I purchased the Bronco. The two under the drivers and passengers feet were taken out when I replaced the floor pans. The two at the tailgate were taken out about twoish weeks ago. That only left the two under the rear passengers feet. Those IMO are the hardest to get to and the hardest to remove. Had some room on the drivers side because of the difference in the floor pans. Cut through the middle of that one and it basically fell out. Went to the passenger side and with the lower floor and exhaust right there I had very little room. Got the saw in, but couldnt see what I was cutting. Cut for 20ish seconds...get out and get under the other side of the truck to see how I was making out and to be sure to not cut things I shouldnt, rinse, repeat until I broke the blade. Pounded on it for 20 minutes with drift and hammer...nope. Go to store, buy another blade and finally cut it through. Unlike the driver side this one didnt fall out. About another 15 minutes with a hammer, drift, and prybar and it is finally out.

Replace the mounts. While the back of the truck was jacked up I replaced the clamps on the fuel filler hose. Noticed a gas odor and there was a little seepage so that is better now.

Moved to under the hood. Mounted battery tray, battery, voltage regulator, and solenoid. Since I replaced the kick panels and inner fenders I had no holes for the wire retainers. Routed the wires neatly and drilled the necessary holes. Much neater now than before. Hooked up the head lights and turn signals and noticed house-type wire nuts holding wires together. I sighed, but will get to that later. Easy to get to and will have pleanty of time later.

Moved onto the under-dash wiring. While I do want to replace it, not gonna happen right now. So, make the best of what I have. Removed the guage cluster the previous owner put under the dash (that didnt work anyway), removed the aftermarket (horrid) cigarette lighter from under the dash and a TON of wires that went nowhere under the dash. Traced out the original oil pressure and water temp wires and tied them back to their original wires (and will probably find out later the aftermarket guage set was there because the original didnt work).

Called it a night at this point, but have all day tomorrow...so will be back at it early.

Anthony

 

[A4x4Junky]

Spent a bit of time on the truck again and it is beginning to wind down now. Most of what I can/will be doing this go is about done.

Finished the rest of the body brackets (fender stiffener thingys), got new carraige bolts and mounted the rear bumper.

Got the windshield put on. Marked off and drilled my new holes in the cowl windshield support piece. Took some time and welded the hardware on the underside so I wouldnt have to pull the dash to pull the windshield.

Got the dash in and all the controls hooked up. Still have the po installed wiper switch to mess with. I just dont know how it was wired (planned to replace it this time around, but never got to it). It has 5 wires. Not that it matters, but 3 red and 2 green. One of the red has an inline fuse...so Ill assume that is the power Other than that I might just have to break out a test light and see what happens. I am also not sure if ground comes at the switch or the wiper motors themselves. Again, trial and error...which is why I am in no hurry to ever be an electrician ;D

Once the dash was on I could start the truck again. Finally. Ah, thats right...breathe in deep...hack, cough...ok, shut it the hell off Checked the lights and all seemed ok. Tucked the wires up under the dash and tried to put them out of the way...and now no headlights. Turn the switch on and the dash lights up, the tail lamps light up, no lights in the front at all though. Time to start going through that wiring again

Slowly winding down. Have plans this afternoon, but will see what I can get done before that.

Few questions for those that can help me. The seats were not mounted when I bought the truck. Driver and rear seats are easy, but I think I am missing a bracker or 2 for the passenger seat. On the front are 2 pivot brackets, but I have no mounting points worth mention on the rear. If someone could, please show how the rear of your original seat mounts to the floor.

Also, I will probably only be running a soft top, but either way that is all I will run till near Nov. Weatherstripping between windshield and doors? Only one I can find goes over the rear, top, and front of door. Does this get glued to the door frame or was this designed to fit the hard top? Would appreciate this information as well.

Anthony