Red 72 Explorer Sport Patina Rebuild

[Rox Crusher]

The paint on my 77 is super thin and can't stand too many more polishes of any kind.

I have been using a spray on ceramic coating on all my cars that lasts about two years then you have to apply a new coat. For my newer cars with clear coat, I do a deep clean and very light polish before applying the ceramic.

https://adamspolishes.com/products/graphene-ceramic-spray-coating-advanced

you can also get a longer life version of it but they aren't permanent

On my 77, I did a very light polish using their all in one https://adamspolishes.com/products/adam-s-one-step-polish-8oz?_pos=2&_psq=one+step+&_ss=e&_v=1.0 and then the ceramic. This doesn't take hardly any paint off.

On my 78 #patinafreewheeler I have coated it twice so far. When I notice it getting dull and not repelling water / dirt as well, I wash it very well, all in one polish and then apply another coat which seems to work very well.

 

[gunnibronco]

The paint on my 77 is super thin and can't stand too many more polishes of any kind.

I have been using a spray on ceramic coating on all my cars that lasts about two years then you have to apply a new coat. For my newer cars with clear coat, I do a deep clean and very light polish before applying the ceramic.

https://adamspolishes.com/products/graphene-ceramic-spray-coating-advanced

you can also get a longer life version of it but they aren't permanent

On my 77, I did a very light polish using their all in one https://adamspolishes.com/products/adam-s-one-step-polish-8oz?_pos=2&_psq=one+step+&_ss=e&_v=1.0 and then the ceramic. This doesn't take hardly any paint off.

On my 78 #patinafreewheeler I have coated it twice so far. When I notice it getting dull and not repelling water / dirt as well, I wash it very well, all in one polish and then apply another coat which seems to work very well.

I definitely want to avoid any future polishing. The paint is thin, and I don't want to have to use anything in the future that will remove any more paint. I already took some off to get to where I am today.

 

[Chiclassics]

@gunnibronco so I took inspiration from your patina work on this did it on my 74. Im am extremely happy with results I’ll create a separate post so I don’t hijack yours. How’s the vacuum advance install coming along btw

 

[gunnibronco]

Great work on your door. I'm sure the rest will come out looking sweet!

I don't have any updates. I ignored all my regular duties the last month + to get this ready for Super Cel. So I have to pay the piper and catch up on chores.

No parts stores stock either vac advance for my rig. I was placing an order with Summit Racing for a brake prop valve for the 72 and an air bag control for my RV ambo so I bought both options for the vac advance. If I can't tell which one is right I'll guess and return the other on my next trip to Reno (love having Summit about 1 hour away). The estimated ship date for the parts is 11/3 so it will be a couple weeks before I even see them.

Brakes and vac/timing/carb tuning is next. I'll post up when it gets done. But it will be a little while.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

 

[gunnibronco]

I haven't gotten back to this truck for a while.
Summit canceled one of the vacuum advance units when they couldn't confirm a ship date from the manufacturer. So I'll install the one I got, I'm sure there is little or no difference.
One big thing happened, today I picked up my seats from the upholstery guy. They came out pretty nice. I decided to pull the trigger as the foam on the driver's seat was crumbling and deteriorating, even with the 300 miles I drove it this fall. I had already bought the materials from SMS Auto Fabrics last summer. I'm sending pieces of my original covers and probably scraps of the SMS materials to Nick at Northeast Classic Ford Parts so they can reproduce it.
I have the new ginger arm rests from Dennis Carpenter and a new dash pad, and headliner that will get installed as well. One upgrade will be an old school Smitty built roll bar and shoulder belts. I won't be doing too much more with the interior.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Chiclassics]

Nice dont mind me asking how much did you pay the upholstery guy / materials

 

[gunnibronco]

Nice dont mind me asking how much did you pay the upholstery guy / materials

It can't be overstated that the 72 E/S fabric and vinyl are not readily available. Only 3006 E/S Broncos were made, there were some F100/F150s with the E/S package, but there were several color/interior options available. So there is no aftermarket availability. This changed the upholstery price dramatically. When I saw the Ginger/Houndstooth interiors being repop'd I had the unrealistic hope they would/could do the E/S interior as well. Obviously they didn't. Considering a stock parchment set of covers costs about $300+ and a houndstooth set are about $550, my situation was very different.

The materials from SMS (just fabric and vinyl) were about $1200. I ordered what was suggested by SMS which matched what my upholstery guy recommended (3.67 yds of fabric, 5 yds of vinyl). SMS has a terrible reputation, a failing BBB rating, and lots of stories of people waiting YEARS for covers and door panels. I was warned to only order materials from them, not completed product. That said, they did deliver the materials as ordered (actually more than I ordered), in the time frame they promised. Credit where credit is due.

The labor, and other materials (burlap, padding/backing, and foam) was about the same. My guy made the covers, repaired the original foam and installed the covers with new burlap. His explanation is this is a very original stock seat restoration and could be presented as factory correct. I contacted several upholstery shops in the area and most the quotes were double his quote. My original intension was to have the covers made, and install them with new foam cores myself. No shops really offered me that as an option. My guy wasn't a full blown shop, but a semi-retired guy working out of his garage shop (cash only). I visited him, checked his reviews on a local Facebook group, and everything looked good. Before I brought him my seats, I had him fix the crappy rear window zippers on my Rampage soft top on my '74 crawler/trail rig. I admit his low price had me a bit worried, but everything looks to have come together. I also know I could have paid 2x his quote and still been disappointed. Seems to be a crap shoot out there now-a-days.

Between knowingly dealing with SMS and picking someone to trust with unobtanium materials, this was somewhat stressful. So I'm super happy with the end results, and glad this is done, especially considering what it would have cost to do it over. I'd have gladly paid more to a guy like Nick at NECFP for materials or completed products. So I'm happy to help him make this type of product available.

 

[Chiclassics]

ya $1200 labor isnt bad thats as good as you can go these days. For 2 front seats i would say around $600-$700 and $500 for rear.

 

[gunnibronco]

I've poked a way at a few things on this truck since the October Super Cel.

Obviously the big item was the freshly reupholstered seats and new arm rests on the rear bench. They really turned out nice.

I also swapped out the vacuum advance unit and added a proportioning valve to the rear brakes. I wish the new vac advance had the same 90* port at the end instead of a straight fitting. The vac hose and the radiator hose want to share the same space. It doesn't look right, but it works. I hid the prop valve on the frame near the rear axle to keep the engine bay looking OEMish.

Finally, I tackled the passenger door latch and handles. The door wasn't opening from the outside so I took everything out and gave it a good cleaning & lube. Now the passenger door is opening almost as nice as the driver's door. The exterior door handle button is very easy to push and the door closes and latches super nice by Bronco standards.

The interior door trim panel was not sitting flat to the shell and a few of the clips were torn out of the trim panel. I fixed the damage with some drywall fiberglass tape and 2 part epoxy, and replaced all the spring clips with new, replaced the "paper" vapor barrier, and installed a new interior arm rest.

I'm not sure how effective it was but I tried to update/replace/reinstall some of the factory seals on the door shell. There were "duct tape" seals over some of the small holes and a dry, crispy foam like seal over the big hole in the door. The duct tape was falling off and the foam seal basically disintegrated. I replaced the foam with some thin rubber matting I had. I reinstalled a door handle cup seal, but didn't replace/reinstall a plastic seal that was installed behind the interior door handle. I'm not really sure any of this will help with road noise or anything else, but I had to make the effort. The driver door works super nice, so I'll just be replacing the arm rest and seals and repairing the door trim panel and clips.

 

[.94 OR]

Nice work.
Did you install the arm rest covers for the rear seat?
I have some on the bench that need to magically get installed. Not looking forward to it.

 

[gunnibronco]

Nice work.
Did you install the arm rest covers for the rear seat?
I have some on the bench that need to magically get installed. Not looking forward to it.

Thanks,

The ginger arm rests are now available from the usual Bronco vendors so they are all new, not covers.

 

[Blitzen72]

Those seats look VERY nice. I did almost exactly the same, but my upholstery guy cheaped out on me and spaced the vertical ribbing at about 1.5× what the originals were without telling me. Too close to have him add a rib in between each one, and too far apart to not be noticeable to anyone who has seen an original ES seats.

They still look fantastic to me. He did also make me a full bimini/safari type top to fit my roll cage in white waterproof material - he balked at first, saying the white would get dirty (and it did...), but I wanted white to mimic the hardtop that goes on in the wintertime. All in to rebuild the seats (I handed him Dennis Carpenter foam, SMS fabric, and the original seats, he handed me back all 3 seats refurbished and looking brand new (minus the wider ribbing... grrrrr!) and the top for $1,500.

 

[dmoses42]

Neither my 71 nor my three friend’s 72’s (2 Explorers, 1 standard) had a horn “ring” on the button. Ours were just center buttons with no ring.
We haven’t talked about it in years, but does anyone remember which/how many Broncos got rings and how many didn’t?

Mine had one, but the ring portion was broken off when I got it.

 

[DirtDonk]

Yeah, seen that a few times too. Always wondered if they broke under some stress, or if the owners broke them off on purpose.
Been a long time since I came across one though.

 

[gunnibronco]

Picking away at little stuff.

I replaced the adjustable clutch rod I temporarily installed last fall. The pedal end of the stock rod cracked off, weird. I welded it back on and reinstalled it with new bushings and a used boot I had laying around. I didn't like seeing that shiny aftermarket rod peaking out from behind the driver tire. I'm weird.

I opened up the driver door, cleaned it up, installed some vapor barrier plastic ($5 table cloth cover from Wal Mart), and replaced the duct tape over the unused U-nut holes like the factory. I did replace the rubber matting I used as vapor barrier on the passenger side (a few posts above) with the table cloth cover as well. The rubber mat was too thick and it was pushing the trim panel off the door along the bottom. I also fixed the trim panel clip locations where the trim panel was cracked, and installed new clips and factory paper vapor barrier like the passenger door, and also installed a new arm rest. The doors open and close so nice on the truck it's kind of hard to believe.

I had an old speedo unit laying around so I robbed the water temp gauge and installed it. I managed to swap it out without removing the gauge from the dash, just needed to grind down a 1/4" socket and swear a little. Now all the gauges appear to be working! The gas gauge need both floats adjusted to make them accurate, but that will wait.

 

[DirtDonk]

Before you adjust the floats, verify that the IVR is outputting the correct voltage.
Original electro-mechanical type? Or modern electronic type?

 

[gunnibronco]

Before you adjust the floats, verify that the IVR is outputting the correct voltage.
Original electro-mechanical type? Or modern electronic type?

I swapped IVRs back when I first got it running, both were probably the old style. It didn't change how any of the gauges worked. Everything else seems right, I put new sending units in (and the rear tank is new), so I'm just assuming they need adjustments. We'll see if I ever get around to actually doing it, lol.

 

[gunnibronco]

More small things. No picture worthy progress. It looks exactly like it did before I started.

Replaced the broken turn signal cam, and reset the steering wheel closer to centered (to adjust for the shorter front coil springs I installed last fall).

I also wanted to figure out why I had no working horn. I purchased the truck without a horn button/horn ring. I found a used OEM one, but of course it had broken tabs on the plastic retainer ring. Last year, I bought a full horn button contact kit (Dennis Carpenter) and replaced all the parts before installing the horn ring. Horn never worked. I didn't address it until now.

I assumed there was a deep rooted problem. After a bunch of testing, disassembly/reassembly, and head scratching I realized the the horn button contact plate wasn't touching the contacts on the steering wheel. Out of desperation I found the original horn button contact plate I had removed last year and reinstalled it. Everything worked perfect. So basically there is something wrong with the Dennis Carpenter contact plate. Looking closely maybe the contact pads are too close to the "ramp" pressed into the plate next to the contact. Or maybe the smaller center hole in the DC plate is hitting the steering shaft/steering wheel nut. I don't know.

 

[toddz69]

These small fixes just bring a guy so much joy - at least they do for me. I'm always happy when I can make small improvements that make a big difference in how something works or looks.

Keep up the good work!

Todd Z.

 

[gunnibronco]

These small fixes just bring a guy so much joy - at least they do for me. I'm always happy when I can make small improvements that make a big difference in how something works or looks.

Keep up the good work!

Todd Z.

100%. I have a tendency to get myself into giant projects that end up taking forever. This truck is a lot of fun because I can start and finish small projects and be "done", with some noticeable (at least to me) improvement.

Having all the lights, horn, gauges, door handles, window cranks, etc is a weird flex. But it's definitely my flex, even on my 74 rock crawler. LOL.