Bronco Forum - Full Size Ford Bronco Forum banner

Free OJ (Gofast Build) (89)

8K views 39 replies 12 participants last post by  mtnmotoadv 
#1 ·
Figured it was time to migrate my build thread over from GoFast since im laid up for a few days, so here goes. Picked up the Bronco for $3500 from a guy I know with a rebuilt 351, c6, axles, and t case (manual) body was pretty solid for the most part save for a couple small holes by the drip rails. other than that, the back window didn't work, the 32s were rotten and way too small for my liking, and a bunch of other things I didn't care for, but it was a good foundation to build off of.

First night I brought it home. It rained heavy all week, back window didn’t work, but the thing fired right up and ran good. Normally I’m thorough with purchases but I showed up grabbed the keys, drove it around the block, gave the dude the money and left.





A couple pictures in the day time
























I drove it to King of the Hammers as it sat when I brought it home, rotted 32s and a bunch of other stuff that needed some serious attention, but it made it there and back, even if it was sketchy.








MADE IT




Some time went by and I worked too much to spend time on the truck but since I work all over for work I started collecting parts for it as I went. A week working down in Vista/Oceanside gave me the chance to score some PRPs for DIRT CHEAP as well as some pretty solid Deaver F53s.



The stock interior was pretty blown out, aside from the dash which is somehow mint. So I began gutting the truck since I was going to be back and forth between Chicago and home most of the next 3 months.









 
See less See more
16
#7 ·
no reason as far as function. Dave at Threat and Bobby and Paul at Solo both do top notch work. At the time I did the cut and turn Dave had a one day turn around time, hes about an hour from me, and not open weekends, plus I was working a job about 3 hours away so I couldn't get down there during the week. bought some pulled beams from a dude on GoFast who was nice enough to drop them with Dave for me. Ive wanted a nice set of radius arms like that, but thought I could make some cheapo superlifts ones work, but they only work with a drop bracket kit so I just shelled out the cash for the radius arms.

hindsight being 20/20, I should have just bought a complete kit from either one and been done with it instead of trial and error of sourcing everything myself and dealing with stuff that ended up not working, all good though it was a great learning experience as ive been into crawlers in the past and have yet to own a TTB truck I had to do anything to myself
 
#9 ·
Looks like you've got an excellent ride going there. I do have one concern about the extended radius arms and that is how the shocks are bolted to it. Two concerns actually now that I think about it. My first concern is the tabs used to connect the shock look a little flimsy just sticking off to the side of the arm like that. Maybe if the tab were extended down to the lower tube, I wouldn't say anything, but my other concern has me worried that those tabs could eventually snap. That second concern is how the tabs are oriented, perpendicular to the arc of travel for the arm. The way they are, those shocks are going to bind on the tabs, and that could eventually twist them free, or worse, bend the shock arm. Tabs can be rewelded, but if the shock arm gets bent, you're out of luck. If you look how the shock is mounted on a stock radius arm, you'll see that the tabs are mounted above the arm and parallel to the arc of movement, allowing the arm and shock to rotate as needed. Now, I may be worried about nothing, but it does have me worried about the long term viability of the setup. As I said, the tabs could be re-welded after being repositioned, but I wouldn't have used those radius arms if they'd been given to me for free for that reason.
 

Attachments

#11 ·
X2 solo has a great reputation in so-cal for building pre-runners and race trucks. There is no way they would build something weak or at risk of another part failure.
 
#13 ·
The stock shock mount is not parallel to the arc of travel of the beams. Maybe on a solid axle it would. Don't forget the TTB pivots from the center of the beam as well as the rear radius arm mount. You have to draw an imaginary line between the two to see the arc where it travels. Now that the radius arms are a lot longer there is a lot less angle change in that direction making it actually a better placement than stock. I've installed these radius arms on a customers bronco and those tabs are beefy thick plate. They are not going anywhere. With a longer shock you have to mount it lower or you lose bump travel. Generic lift kits that get put on will bottom out on the shock body if you don't lower the bump stops along with it. Now you just took a few inches out of your travel numbers.
 
#14 ·
Very nice looking rig there. Subscribed for updates.
 
#16 ·
So I've been trying to drive the bronco as much as possible but have been plagued my stupid drivability issues. From my research im getting all sorts of answers but no CEL to confirm any of them. Long story short po did a lot of hack stuff and the speed density system is something ive yet to master, considering switching over to maf so I can mod the engine a little heavier without having to worry about it.

short vacuum lines are all pretty much toast so when I get some free time id like to go through and replace them all with some 5/32 rubber hose, truck is a desert toy and im also toying with deleting a lot of the stuff, especially since the charcoal can is missing. any help thoughts comments and suggestions are welcome, except I know a lot of people on here are anti removing emissions stuff "because federal law", if youre one of those, keep your comments to yourself, I promise I don't care.
 
#18 ·
Long story short, I was browsing the internet and somebody messed up the price listed for these methods, it was like they forgot to add a 1 in front of the 69.99 they had them listed for. I quickly ordered a set for barely more than the cost of one wheel at is normal price.

 
#20 ·
Picked up these coilovers last week, gonna build/buy something from either threat or solo to mount them, the rear bypasses are direct bolt on.

2.5x12 front
2.5x10 rear.



Also pulled the rear bumper and started punching out the rivets so I could make some space to clearance the bottom of the Bronco for these longer BMS shackles to run with my F53s

 
#21 ·
Are those 7100? Unless you need extra lift I would run them without the coil. The front coilover would need a new top mount most likely.

tchajagos is right about the front radius arm shock bracket. The stock shock has about 4" of travel and the TTB has a 1.5:1 ratio. So 4" = 6" of flex stock. We can get up to 16" of flex with long radius arms , longer & weaker coils and 11" travel shocks. Most guys are content with 12" travel.

The bronco is looking good
 
#22 ·
Theyre 8125s, I've got Dave over at Threat building me a coilover tower for it, I don't quite understand what youre saying about not running a top coil, but I will be running 400 upper/500 lower as far as spring rates go, shouldn't raise the truck up anymore than it currently sits. They came off a truck set up the same way my front end is, so they should work really well.
 
#24 ·
Nice, the pic looked more like helper springs lol. What coils are you running now that you are going to replace?
 
#25 ·
Finally got tired of not having music so I went and did this. Bluetooth receiver since nobody has CDs anymore. (mp3's or vinyls for me)



My battery terminals were jacked too so I copied Taylor (NuBreed) and bought some of these sweet kicker terminals. Goal was to get this thing ready to roll for desert season, the master plan is to tear this thing down when season ends and clean up the wiring, etc.

 
#28 · (Edited by Moderator)
So long story short, I kept having intermittent stalling issues when it was hot outside or on long trips. Checked everything I could think of and started shotgunning parts. First thing to replace was the distributor if I was gonna guess, sure enough, pulled it, and could barely turn it by hand, looked in the block where the rod that turns the distributor was and found it was bent pretty bad. tried pulling it a bunch of different ways, couldnt get it and the motor was coming out.

below will be the current progress pictures of the last couple months when ive actually been home to work on it.

THIS is the moment where the project turned into "i might as well do ______ while im here" and things started snowballing.

 
#33 · (Edited by Moderator)




Made my HVAC block off plates out of actual scrap I had laying around from other jobs ive done for customers lately. May reinstall factory stuff later if I find clean enough stuff at a junkyard to put back in. Everything so far is easily converted back to stock.




Added an aftermarket trans cooler with a fan to replace the small stock one.



 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top