tubing front inner clip, cowl replacement

[73stallion]

those of you that have done a tubular front inner structure, would you do it again?

i'm thinking about cutting out my front inner fenders and making a tubular inner structure. i know one major downfall of doing this is keeping road grime and rain water off the engine. i would like mine to see more off road use, but it only gets driven a few times a month at this point.

i'm also looking at having to replace my entire cowl assembly soon, because the rain here in houston is shorting out my electric system from the cowl leaking. last i saw it about 4 years ago i had a hole next to my driver hood hinge i could stick 2 fingers through.


my next question is how many people do we have in or near houston that are good with panel replacement? i have all 5 cowl pieces (from JBG) and a windshield frame to replace on my truck. i was just talking to alan (Broncow72) about replacing this, and he said we have to be as close as possible on this so everything lines up afterwards.

 

[A&Mbronco]

if you do this on a weekend I wouldn't mind coming by and giving a hand, I'll be doing mine down the road as well

 

[72-Madisyn]

if you looking for pics on the tubular front wrap check out member zdaily. his "silver bullet" build thread shows how he has done it, turned out really nice...better then what the pics reflect in my opinion.

 

[broncomitch]

i just cut mine out and left it. been meaning to build a smaill frame to hang some fine steel mesh around the opening's.. but my motor really dont get that dirty...unless i go through some mud %) but before i cut them out i had a over heating problem even with a 4core rad from bronco graveyard and elc fan..now i never brake 170.

 

[68ford]

you could weld dzues tabs on it and make some alloy inner fenders, you could use a press break and get fancy like the sides of my center console.
if your going to do tube, your right there to do upper shock mounts and runs a coilover ;D theres a new company making shocks, that a believe has a coilover with resivor for 300 or so per shock and they look nice.

 

[73stallion]

wayne, i'm not gonna be taking jumps at 80 like you do! i'm doing the tube front end because of difference in cost. $50 worth of tubing vs $385 worth of stock replacement panels. plus i like the thought of being able to work on the engine easier.

had thought about fabbing up some some inner fenders, i'll cross that road if i feel i need to. it hardly ever gets driver in the rain, and it's nothing a car wash can't take care of.

 

[86caprirs]

I just did that today for my Bronco. Even tho she is a offroad toy, this will make it easier to work on.I built the rad support out of 1x1 steel square tube and cut out the inner fenders. Now the front fenders are bolted to the rad support. I am going to weld the front grill to the fenders so I can just removed the front clip by removing a couple bolts.....then I have access to the engine easily.