LORE Bronco restore

[halogrinder]

Looks good! What part of Houston are you in?

spring, below the woodlands

 

[TX SS]

spring, below the woodlands

Cool. I’m in the Memorial area. Hope to see your Bronco when completed.

 

[sprdv1]

LOL, a great feeling I'm sure.. Loving the work space you have

so, this was a big mental milestone for me. I'm not sure why, but it just was lol
Not that anything is final torqued, done, complete or anything- but the fkin axles are back in

 

[halogrinder]

Things got complicated today.
First off. Little background on myself.
I've mounted/dismounted thousands of tires, no lie. Not exaggerating. Thousands.
These 15" 15 year old Maxxis buckhorns straight whooped my ass.
My 1 year old 30k @hunterengineering #auto34 couldn't get them off conventional style or reverse drop flipped.
Whooped. My. Ass.
I ended up using a sawzall to cut the beads to get them off. It was heavy suck-o-rama.
I can take a 315/35/20 runflat and this machine will effortlessly remove that rubber band from a BMW wheel, no prob.
But some 15" tires?
I ate some humble pie today, it's crunchy and tastes good with ketchup.

So anyways- I have a problem and need your help.
Notice the differences in these wheels. My pops never realized
1. One of the 4 wheels on the ground has a different center bore than the other 3. It's like the 8.5" 1" pos offset US Indy Mag that is for the spare- they have matching bores, but are different width and backspace.
2. That wheel is a different make than the other 3. They also have no casting markings to identify who made them.
3. It also has a different backspace by about 3/8" then the other 3.
4. Of the 3 that have the same ribs on the back, one is machined different. Sharp edge vs radius edge on the back, and the casting divots are machined off of it at the wheel mounting surface.
5. Complicating this more, the holes vs where they are drilled to the slots are different, too
So. I need to find a wheel that matches the other 3 (15", 10" wide with the correct back space of 3 1/4" (rear rim flange to wheel mounting surface)

Anyone have any leads?
Check out the goofy drop on the wheel, too. The drop center is like...well...in the middle and that makes it a heavy game of no fun dismounting.

 

[House]

Sorry I didn’t have a match for you...
Interested in that US Indy to complete my set though!

 

[sprdv1]

Weird, that's new to me... someone ought to know...

wonder where ole Franko is hiding, he would

 

[halogrinder]

Where the hell have you been!?
Ok look, it's complicated.
The 'rona, staffing issues, business issues, personal time issues, lots of stuff made it impossible to touch this since what- November?
Sheesh.
So, things are better now, so I'm about to get rolling again on it. Got the hard lines for the axles bent up, double flared all that fun stuff with stainless rock guards on 'em. They came out ok.

Been messing with the brake lines and layout. Finally decided to throw the drivetrain into the frame so I could visualize this better.
See these extreme mounts?
They suck.
Why? Because they are built incorrect.
It took the back of the trans and put it into the driver's frame rail.
If you pushed hard enough the bolts would eventually go into the crossmember, but then the engine was tilted severely passenger side high. I FOUGHT THESE THINGS for a solid 2 hours back and forth swapping them and trying to get the drivetrain to sit level.
Finally I gave up and threw some stock motor mounts on.
Guess what. Dropped right in without an issue.
Ugh. If your gonna make something, make it fit!

Anyways, now I can run fuel/brake lines and exhaust while I'm waiting for my intake to get cut.

 

[tasker]

AMAZING WORK!! and i can concur on the extreme mounts for me as well....

 

[phred]

I feel ya on those mounts. I installed some on a truck I built a few years ago. Ended up modifying them to work. That’s what the customer wanted and he paid for it but holy heck what a pain


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[halogrinder]

Been bananas this week recovering from last week's freeze down here in Houston. A few pieces of equipment went down, some pipes burst and other nonsense.
Didn't get to do much other than try to lay out my exhaust/fuel system/brake lines, waiting for more fuel fittings to show up and whatnot.
This is a flex pipe for the header flange that will have a V band welded to it. I weld the ends of the flex pipe up, then knock it flat on a 12" disk. Makes welding them up nice. This was fusion only, no filler and some foot pedal pulsing to get it to close up without blowing out.

 

[halogrinder]

So.... I tacked these together, and I think I'm going to run a "muffler module" of some sort now.
One, they can't lay flat due to inside frame width
Two, it'll make them (I hope!) Easier to handle with them joined together.
Three v-bands makes it leak free and easy to remove if needed.
Now to think up ways of making exhaust mounts ����

 

[halogrinder]

Workin on an Xpipe and stuff

 

[sprdv1]

Be interested to hear that when done.. Nice work

Workin on an Xpipe and stuff

 

[halogrinder]

So circle back to the heavy duty motor mounts that didn't want to fit.
Tom's bronco parts sent me another set- and they fit marginally better, but still didnt fit worth a shit.
so, I milled slots in them to move them where they needed to be in the first place.
Stock motor mounts: slam dunk.
HD motor mounts: dont fit.
me thinks its the manufacturing of those mounts.
so, they are in and I had to get that done before my little exhaust escapade.


So here's my little system I came up with to hang the exhaust.
I didn't want to use the shitty straps, and wasn't keen on trying to make bar work and mount onto the frame.

This is a linear actuator bracket, with a Summit racing silicone exhaust grommet, and had my buddy make me some stainless stand offs on the waterjet (if anyone wants something similar, just le me know and I'll put you in touch with him)
I tried using Stainlessworks brackets, but they only come in too short, or too long for my little idea.
So, I also got some aluminum spacers to go inside the grommet to make the pin the linear actuator work.
Pretty painless once I figured out which parts worked with what.

Then I sorted out where the O2 sensors were gonna go

then hacked off the collector flange and welded a Vband on it to hold the flex section

Yeesh. This took longer than expected.
The mufflers are all TIG'd up, now to make the headers to mufflers part.
Hopefully I can use the SW brackets I now have for the tail pipes.
Unsure if I'll be able to do those until the body is on the truck, as I don't know where the rear quarter panel lands vs the frame.
Would suck to make rear tail pipes and it hit the body, or hang down low!

 

[sprdv1]

Yeesh. This took longer than expected.
The mufflers are all TIG'd up, now to make the headers to mufflers part.
Hopefully I can use the SW brackets I now have for the tail pipes.
Unsure if I'll be able to do those until the body is on the truck, as I don't know where the rear quarter panel lands vs the frame.
Would suck to make rear tail pipes and it hit the body, or hang down low!

Nice fab work bud....

 

[halogrinder]

Productive day

Stupid Dipstick I bought didn't work at all-
so, I made one.
may re- make it with stainless or steel vs the cupronickle tubing I used.


Now to sort out how to fix the bubbles in this roof line on my tow truck....

 

[tasker]

holy smokes!!! NICE WORK!

 

[sprdv1]

I'll second that.. coming together nicely

 

[halogrinder]

Worked on the tow truck a little-
fixed up the roof with some POR15, and re-shooting the top of it to seal it up.
Regasketed/sealed/rubbered all the doors.

Made some fuel lines

 

[halogrinder]

week ending update-
So I'm hoping to have my intake on Monday.
I cut my valve covers to have the breather and -8 AN fitting for my PCV set up.
got a PCV setup mocked up for dyno use, will re-do with the same catch can/PCV system but with legit hoses and stuff once it's in the truck and I can sort out plumbing.
worked on the farm truck. Roof is getting cleaned up from some pin holes and rust- reshooting it with wimbelton white.
Decided to give er' a good ole rub and wow the results were worth it! lol
I used Dura-Coating Step 1 compound, then 2n1 polish on a foam pad.
Directions says run the compound a few times, wipe off with a microfiber, same similarly to the 2n1-
I didn't follow the instructions, and just got after it. If I cared more, it'd probably come out even better- but I'm happy with the insane results these products did.
I have the metal shine and tire shine, too. its killer stuff.

anyways. It's 100% operational now.
Literally, everything works like it was new. Even the washer pump lol
Just some time now to finish the body work up on the roof, drop in new rubber/windshield, and I'll give it a good water test before pulling the seats to recover and throw down some jute/vinyl for flooring.
Had to do two patches- one on driver side because the windshield leaked and pooled up under the jute.
The other was in the middle of the passenger pan, i think from a second water leak from the windshield and was running down onto the trans doghouse.
Cleaned the doghouse up with my muriatic acid solution I've previously discussed.