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1996 bronco offroad build (picture heavy)

89K views 333 replies 66 participants last post by  reptillikus 
#1 ·
Well after acouple of years of creeping on this forum, and countless broncos and f-series trucks iv built and sold, Iv decided to make a build thread for my latest truck as I plan on going the whole 9 with it. I am very much over building trucks beating the crap out of them and selling them.





1996 Bronco Nite Edition 5.0 E40d I purchased with a blown transmission for 300$











first thing I did was roll her into the shop and chop the rusted quarter panels











also had to pull the rusty front and rear bumper off











inner fender is always the crappy part















passenger came out best, probably gonna touch up the drivers side







Im gonna try to speed catch this tread up to current day
 
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#2 ·
transmission built and ready to go in, this one was completely imploded, dont know if iv ever seen and e40d blow up this bad, was barely able to use the casing, and ofcourse forgot to take pictures of the carnage



undercoated the frame





started mocking up winch plate and 40" light bar neither of which im satisfied with, the "winch plate" is the factory tcase skid that I seem to have millions of, sits ontop of the frame rails but the jigsaw 92+ frame is gonna have to get chopped or I have to make something else, the light bar is mounted by two metal tabs rad to the header panel which is tight to the grille and pretty strong but Im not sure Im convinced it will hold, probably going to need a middle brace from bouncing off trees







 
#3 ·
got a visor at a swap meet in jersey for 10 bucks, painted that up





I sold my white f150 with 10" of lift and ended up giving him the stock set of wheels of the bronco so I threw on my beat up and abused 36" swamper tsl to roll it around on. stock heigh 36s :thumbup



mini tribute to the late great white buffalo








and then tossed the visor on

 
#9 ·
you ask and you shall receive


parts came and even though we clock in usually 100 hour work weeks we made time to put the truck together a saturday night with lots of beer and pizza



front shackles





junk, notice the giant gaping hole




shocks and rear is done



me getting real excited about putting a lift in an ifs truck (sarcasm)



girlfriend POV of three morons at 3am



old crappy radius arm brackets



new crappy radius arm drop brackets



getting there





done and heres a quick little edit




the following morning i went over everything and installed new radius arm bushings

all kidding aside, plans are super flexy dana 44 build, most likely 6" deavers which would be about a 8" compared to an ifs truck, 37" tires and fox racing shocks all around. stay tuned more goodies to come

edit : and by dana 44 i mean solid axle dana 44
 
#285 ·
Visor



Word. How'd you fasten it to the top? That's the one thing I can't figure out and as soon as I do I'm buying a visor.
 
#8 ·
time to lift this beast



I plan on solid axle swap, I just needed to throw something in to keep my sane so I can play in the trails this summer



as always had to replace rear shackles





half way through I decided I should probably replace the front leaf shackles as well, so those had to be ordered from bronco graveyard and I had a face down ass up bronco



 
#11 ·
drove her out of the garage on its own two feet, pretty happy with the height, gonna have to pickup some 37s, do balljoints and a camber kit, and align it up



chillen next to my 95 powerstroke which will most likely being pulling her to all the out of state offroad events



first time pulling the top off for my next and stripping down the interior for my rollbar





another cheesy edit



okay now the bar I bought from a friend, it was this stupid electric blue and I decided to go with a blue metallic, so after sanding, prepping, primering and many many coats I got it painted up, this paint was super thin took retarded amounts of coats to get decent coverage









next mission is rust repair, in the fender humps





but this is how shes gonna look, paint doesnt really pop since it got dark out, youll get better pictures with the rust repair post



 
#25 ·
Man that is one Captain Destructo on that trans. Awesome effort on the build keep it up :thumbup
 
#20 ·
alright got my stack of parts to put in the front end to hold my IFS together till Im ready to rip it out

new upper and lower balljoint
camber kits
wheel bearing and seals
and brake
warn premium locking hubs and conversion kit



started off and realized my hubs were missing and sold to a customer so that wasnt a good start being its saturday night and I wont have new ones till monday morning.

Then found out 95-96 has it own special 2 1/2 socket tool for the hub, which noone had and my collection of ford hub tools would surfice so with my grind I had to make the proper one



so with that lock nut off just had to air hammer the spindle off, and blast the knuckle off, my torch was my friend for this one






balljoints and camber/caster kit installed






now I know the alignment shop is going to have to fine tune the camber caster but Id like to get it close. Since the lift went in the top of my tire bow out and the bottoms are tucked in. The kit want me to put the fat part of the camber kit facing out pushing the top knuckle further forward and which I would think would make it worst. I think the top of the knuckle should be pulled in, no? food for thought if anyone has an opinion, waiting till monday morning for hubs to come in and Ill slap wheel bearings in and put her all back together

 
#27 ·
alright back at it

spindles back on


all together with pretty new hubs



old brake pads and wheel bearings, balljoints were equally as crappy





and back on her feet



i decided to go with my gut on the camber kit and im pretty damn close to be being right, close enough to give it to the alignment shop.

took her for the first drive since the lift, kinda sketchy with the crappy tires cap not bolted down and no plates, but hes my conclusion

feels OK, tranny shifting well
lots of vibration that Iv narrowed down to either 1. my crappy alignment done by eye the tires are obviously fighting each other 2. my crappy tires that wore uneven. 3. my rear driveshaft angle

either way next step is a professional alignment

edit:

I also lost a signifiant amount of lift it the front, which I expected when I got the camber right but damn I lost a lot, gotta see how it comes out of alignment shop
 
#31 ·
Yeah the only time I touch my bronco, Powerstroke, or any other toys is usually later than 8 or 9pm and turns into a 3am ordeal because I'm already shot from a day of wrenching. And no parts are available till morning if things go wrong. But it beats working till 3am on customers rides ;) and thank ya jim
 
#32 ·
minor update:

Ordered up some goodies from OTRATTW and those will be here tuesday, so to kill time I started wiring my electric fans out of a lt1 camaro

each fan wired independently









I take some pride in neat wiring, gotta clean out this engine bay before I dirty it back up and because its filthy

OPINION TIME. Two fans do I

1. wire one with ignition and the High fan on the switch I have coming in

2. wire them both to one switch, I feel like it will draw a lot of power (I do have a lead on a HO alternator)

3. Each on seperate switches. seems excessive and annoying.

what do yall think, killing some time till parts come in tuesday
 
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