englewoodcowboy
Lick Creek Restorations
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2010
- Messages
- 4,200
I have seen many times when the community comes together to help a fellow or new bronco owner with getting repairs etc. and this is one of the best parts about this community. When it is offered that some on here can help, while the intention is good, we have had a few broncos brought in with bad and on the verge of disastrous results. Please be aware of whom you may recommend, owning a bronco and tools does not make everyone capable of solving a problem. For example, we have a project in here now where the customer paid a decent amount of money to a "Bronco" guy based on recommendation and the work performed was sub par to say the least. They did a 76-77 knuckle swap on a 74 and kept the stock 74 linkage. This is a problem that this combination will allow the vehicle to turn right but a school bus will turn left sharper. We have seen this many times and it is dangerous. On top of that we saw a mis-match of soft brake lines, which a lift the stock length rubber is too short, on this they fabricated a standoff bracket that on compression was smashed by the exhaust, not to mention the rear soft hose was a hydraulic hose and the front was a factory rubber. Front brakes, the tension springs on the caliper keepers go between the keeper and caliper, not the keeper and knuckle, these were between the keeper and knuckle and it caused the calipers to drag. When they bled the brakes, it takes a special tool to lock the prop valve cut off pin in neutral, if you do not do this, when you work from back to front you will bleed the back fine and the front fine but when you move to the front the floating cut off will shut the rear hydraulics off leaving you with only front brakes like this guy did, again dangerous, not only to the owner but the potential of others on the road. They had replaced ball joints, there is a torque spec and sequence for these, they were loose, so loose the threads were chewed up because the tapers could move, and they all lined the tapers with anti-sieze and this is a huge no no, they need to wedge and bind, that is how they work. Because of them being able to pivot on the tapered shaft it chewed the threads and we had to torch the nuts off and fortunately the preload bushings were destroyed but not the C's on the axle housing. I do not know whom the individual my customer used is nor do I care but I feel it is necessary to post this up. If you guys are doing work and you do not know the correct assembly, procedures and specifications to do this safely, PLEASE STOP before you kill yourself or someone else out there. I have posted the procedures before and will gladly share and help if someone asks. I am just glad our customer reached out to us and we found this in time to save his impression of being a bronco owner and how they should actually drive and handle.
