Project "BOB - Big Orange Bronco" Wheeling pics addded

[SC74]

Now grind it down and dont f-up my welds any more than they are already,He He. Now the fun part comes trying to narrow the hood to match as there will be lots more welding and grinding on that mother with about 5 ft each side to deal with.

Yea, I don't see the hood fitting in the blast cabinet either!

I got the body moved out of the backyard yesterday and on dollies in the driveway so we can start hacking away on the rear quarters ;D

 

[Madgyver]

Leave the hood length as is and stretch the fender to match it.
Do it at the point where there is less material to work with like at the top of the cut-outs.

BTW, Nice work...

 

[SC74]

Leave the hood length as is and stretch the fender to match it.
Do it at the point where there is less material to work with like at the top of the cut-outs.

BTW, Nice work...

I like this idea! Heck, why not just move the entire front fender forward. Instead of it mounting to the door striker area I could just move it forward and fill the gap.


crawln68 - any tips on cutting and extending the rear wheel wells. I looked at your pics on norcalbroncos.com and you did a very clean job! Any special tools or just a grinder with cut off wheel and sawzall? Hopefully I can get to chopping this weekend.

 

[SC74]

Got a little time to work on the grill tonight. I have a little touch up work to do on the slots around the headlights to add some radius to the corners, but I think it turned out well. Here's a pic of it so far.

 

[crawln68]

crawln68 - any tips on cutting and extending the rear wheel wells. I looked at your pics on norcalbroncos.com and you did a very clean job! Any special tools or just a grinder with cut off wheel and sawzall? Hopefully I can get to chopping this weekend.

I just got some cut outs from some old wheel wells and cut mine with a grinder and a cut off wheel. Then just welded in the "new" center section. Pretty easy to do actually.

Nice work on the grill!

 

[blazinchuck]

that sh*t looks baddazz Robert!!!

 

[PsYcHoBrOnCo]

My hats off to ya bro...good job on the build.

 

[SC74]

Thanks for the encouragement - I'd never get motivated to work on it without the encouragement or help that I get on this site! I hope to get some body demolition pics up this weekend.

 

[SC74]

Rear Fender Meets Sawzall

Bronco body Anatomy 101.....

We broke out the sawzall and cut-off wheels today to do some rear fender well demo. We got the driver side cut out - still need to clean it up and smooth it out to weld in. We got the passenger side started and plan to finish cutting it out tomorrow. The driver side took a little longer due to the filler neck box in the body that we had to cut off of the well. We moved it back as far as possible and cut the bottom of the stake pocket so that the rear well goes as far back as possible and still lets the tailgate close.

We've still got some fine touch up work to do on the fender cuts and smooth out the radius, but it's a huge well to stuff the 39.5's!

Here are some pics of today's work...

 

[crawln68]

Heeeeeey, that looks awesome!! Nice work man. See, it's not that hard to do huh? It just looks a lot worse than it really is, but once you get in there and get dirty it's not bad at all. It's just that first cut that is the hardest. ;D Keep up the good work!

 

[joe]

thats gona look sick!

cant wait to see the front end!

 

[SC74]

Yep, not as bad as I expected but still a lot of work. The previous owner's bondo work and the swiss cheese along the length of the fender well against the bed did not help either!

The driver side is done, all but doing some more patching on the rust spots along the fender well and grinding the welds down.

The passenger side is cut out and the rear is welded in. We lack welding in the extension piece and some patch work on the rust, but I think the hardest part of it is done.

Here are some pics of today's work. I tell you what - I couldn't do any of this without 744x4's help.

 

[SC74]

What in the world is the black under-coating that takes forever to clean off? Is it from the factory or something else that the PO has done? The wire wheel just melts it and spreads it - you gotta let it cool and hit it again, several times to get it off.

I hope the whole under-body isn't as bad as the fender wells but I'll soon find out.

Anybody have suggestions on the best way to take this crap off?

 

[fatboy]

Those are some fabulous fabbing skillz! Love the look so far, and you are racing right through the build.

 

[joe]

Anybody have suggestions on the best way to take this crap off?

do a search, air craft stripper or somethin like that

 

[bronco60-niner]

What in the world is the black under-coating that takes forever to clean off? Is it from the factory or something else that the PO has done? The wire wheel just melts it and spreads it - you gotta let it cool and hit it again, several times to get it off.

I hope the whole under-body isn't as bad as the fender wells but I'll soon find out.

Anybody have suggestions on the best way to take this crap off?

Mine has that stuff on it also...on the areas of the frame where I needed to weld, I just used a torch with a rose bud, heated it up and scraped it off with a putty knife. I tried a flap disc and it clogged bad, tried a regular grinding wheel and that took too long.

 

[SC74]

I'll try some of that stripper Joe - I think I'm gonna get lucky though since we flipped the body today and it doesn't seem too bad. The places with it are real brittle and flaked off with a few hits with the hammer. If all else fails, I'll take the torch approach.

We finished the passenger side wheel well extension today. Of course, more and more rust was discovered. We're going to take some angle iron to re-enforce the wheel well to bed seam. Both sides are eaten up with rust just in front of the wheel well where the main hoop mounts. We're cutting those out and going back with a thicker diamond plate steel we had. While cutting that out, we went ahead and cut out the passenger side floor pan.

Last thing we did was flip it over on a rolling stand so we can go to cleaning the bottom. After the pressure washer hits it I'll be chipping that undercoating crap off and wire wheeling again. I think I'm going to go with CoachBarnes advice and use Liner X-Treeme off of ebay on the under-body.

Here are a few pics from today.

 

[744x4]

I also welded up the seam in the rear where the tail light corners connect to the Body.One had a 1/4 in gap and the other had 1/2 in gap and both quarters were filled with Bondo.I didnt know Bondo burned like it did as it made it hard to weld with the fire F&%$ing everything up.Did I mention I hate BONDO and believe people who fill a vehicle should DIE.There is a reason to use filler but it should be a 1/16th or less reason.

 

[SC74]

Worked on cleaning the underbody all day yesterday. I found some Aircraft stripper at Auto Zone - only $8. It was really windy and too cold and yesterday to work outside so I didn't want to use the stripper inside due to the fumes. The old coating was cold and brittle and I found the perfect tool to chip it off - the air chisel ;D It made that crap shatter like it was glass (and found some thin spots / rust to be repaired). After getting the majority of it off I hit it with the wire wheel / wire brush, cleaned it with brake cleaner, and shot some primer on it.

I've got some rust that still has to be repaired, but I'll do it from the top-side. After all of the rust is repaired and new floor pans are in I'll spray the bedliner on the under-body.

Here are some pics of getting it cleaned up...

 

[joe]

looks great! man, that job really sucks!