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Rept's Super Slow Re-Re-Rebuild (88)

85K views 609 replies 54 participants last post by  OX1 
#1 ·
Ok peeps, here we go again :duh

So after years of wheeling and not caring, ive pretty well thrashed the body on my bronco.




The whole cab is twisted so the full doors don't come even close to closing so we have to use the half doors any time we take the truck out, and then tarp it up so it doesn't get wet inside n the rain/snow.
So after going back and forth, we decided to go back to a bronco body on this thing. The cab/bed was cool and all, but it dosent really have much room for carrying much gear, and not being able to drive it on the road sucks. So I stared looking for a bronco project. I wanted to stay true to the trucks roots (I have owned it 16 years afterall) which meant the body has to be an 87-91. I wanted to find something clean because im not a sheetmetal guy, and the condition of the drivetrain was completely irrelevant because im just going to drop the body on my frame when im done.

So I snooped around CL for quite some time. Seen trucks come and go, but nothing really jumped out at me. Then one day I spotted a lift 4-door bronco on CL up in the Poconos. Only two pics of the exterior, but it looked like a decent buy for the price, so I made the trip. On an impulse i decided to go up there and see if it would be a decent beater to cruise around in. Unfortunately it was a bit rough around the edges, more-so than I would've liked for a street cruiser so I decded to pass on it. But while BSing with the guy, he told me about this bronco he had planned to restore, but it never really happened. So we go over to take a look at it, and its perfect. its a '90 in decent shape with no motor or trans. The perfect donor vehicle! So we struck up a deal, and I brought it home :thumbup


So here she is, in all her glory.




It was a parked in stones under a tree for 10 years, so while being absolutely covered in moss, appeared to be in decent shape!

He had put a body lift in it (homemade, about 2"), and he built his own shackle flip for the rear with some extra leafs stuffed in there for some more lift. And there it sat, never got around to lifting the front, or doing anything else to it.
 
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#87 ·
Yeah the heater box sticks out pretty far, even the non-a/c box. As i recall the OEM fender liner has a small bulge in it to clear the box. Fortunately the tires get nowhere near close to the box. Once i get it all finished and paint the fender liner black you wont really notice it. The p/u cab had a similar box built around the heater box; it wasnt too noticeable once done.



 
#89 ·
Yup, still trying to make progress, slow as it might be. Ive owned this truck just about 18 years, i cant give up on it now. Altho currently as i type this i have a little guy climbing all over me trying to get to the mouse and keyboard :histerica


Now that the weather has warmed up ive moved into the laundry room. Found all sorts of issues with the PO's renovations, so its currently gutted so i can re-do everything. So thats is consuming most of my time. However, some progress has been made :thumbup

The current state of the fender liner:



...and installed




With the flare installed, you can barely tell ive done anything


I figure once the liner is done and painted black, you wont even notice ive done anything, which is my goal :cool:
I still have what i think will be 4 more pieces to make, and then this side will be done.
 
#90 ·
Loving this! Can I ask what size sheet metal you have been using and where you got it?

I'm in the process of squirrelling away parts for my rusty rust rust project

The project will include a lot of sheet metal haha

Sent from my VS835 using Tapatalk
 
#91 ·
Thanks! Ive been using a 24*36" sheet from Lowes. 4*8' sheets from the local steel supplier would be a better buy, but theyre a hassle to handle and cut, esp when im making such small pieces. Its only 26ga. Fairly thin, but fine for what im doing. Basically just trying to keep mud out of the engine bay. Thus far everything ive cut has come out of one piece. Its goes pretty far if you plan your cuts out.

Im using 20ga for the floor repairs, altho those are pretty minor in my case.
 
#92 ·
What is this, updates on two vehicles in the same month?! :toothless


Finished the passenger side fender liner:






Closed off the hole for the body mount, and made a small panel to fit between fender & firewall to keep door hinges cleaner


Moved to the back, and cut some more sheet metal off the rear wheel well






Then painfully pushed the truck over a couple feet towards the center of the garage, and cut the rear left:


Both need some final feathering to clean up the endges, but thats the final shape. Obviously need to finish trimming the bottom corner, but im not going to do that until i get a new tailgate and see where i want to cut to.

Then moved to the front left, and started bending up more sheetmetal!




Lots of room under the hood still:


small panel to close in the corner






And the finished liner:






This side definitely went a lot faster than the other did, now that i had a rough idea of what i wanted to do. For now im calling them done; i might go back way later and add pieces here or there, but i think this is gonna work pretty good. Hopefully next week i can rip it all back out, and begin priming & painting all the pieces. I also want to yank the front clip, so i can paint the inside of the fenders black, along with the section of firewall thats still white. Then i can put it all back together and move on to the floor pan :smokin:
 
#97 ·
Ha, thanks :thumbup

Truthfully, the liners were all trial & error; i had a big cardboard template and cut oversize, then once the piece was made i fit it, marked it with a sharpie and trimmed it over and over and over until it fit. it took a lot of time, but it was better than making one mistake and costing me an entire sheet of steel to re-do it. All the bends were made ont he home-brew bender, and actually all my cuts were made using .045" cutting wheels on my angle grinder. So again not the most efficient way to do it, but it got me some nice clean lines to work with.


If you want to drive up here, ill build a set of liners for yours :toothless

I’m jeleouse, you da man. Maybe someday I’ll have a shop, nice setup.

Thanks :thumbup Truthfully, the garage is nothing special, just a plain old two-car garage. 8' doors so i had to put wheel dollys under the rotors to get the bronco low enough to go thru the garage door :toothless It fit with 1" to spare, so i cant add any more lift to the suspension or it wouldnt go back out the door. Whats nice is its 100% a workshop, as we both park our cars outside. But that allowed me to pretty much line the walls with shelves, cabinets, steel, etc. Considering the last time i did a body swap it was in the backyard at my old house, this is pretty awesome :toothless
 
#96 ·
Thanks guys :thumbup :thumbup :thumbup

Honestly was just winging it the whole time :toothless
Carboard templates, some careful measurements, and then fit & removed each fender liner about 100 times to trim until it fit properly :toothless I learned from the 1st time i did it, to cut everything a hair oversize and trim to fit. I actually did pretty good i thought, i only messed up one panel, and was able to recycle that one into smaller pieces used elsewhere, so basically no scrap :cool:

No way i couldve done it w/o that homebrew sheetmetal brake. Its not perfect, but it worked great for this job.



Dunno if you guys saw, but a couple weeks ago i picked up these bad boys:





Theyre used, but as you can see, they have damn near full tread.


:shocked


They make 35s look like 235s :toothless


Absolutely massive tires, they even make my 42s look small!





Ive got a set of H1 wheels i recentered some time ago but never used; theyre at a buddies shop waiting to be powdercoated. So at some point down the road ill get them mounted up and swapped on, no real rush there. Very soon here ill be putting the bronco back on wheel dollys so i can start doing proper body work, rust repair, bondo/sanding, etc so theres no real need to get these mounted up for quite some time yet.
 
#99 ·
Oh snap


With the diesel and the green bronco 'done', its time to get back to this!

Fixed a hole in the rocker:


Thought i had a before pic. Just pretend it was rusty there :toothless


Moved inside. See the speckles on the roof?




its bedliner :duh Apparently when i sprayed the underside, i didnt mask off the trans tunnel well enough, and i got overspray all over the roof and B-pillar. So i now have the majority of that removed from the paint.

I moved to the rear wheel wells. Since i cut them open, the inner wall was only partially there. I elected to remove the rest of it, since it holds dirt and therefore moisture






Both fenders done, no rust repair required, just need some more wire wheeling and some primer. They will get HNR/bed liner in the spring.

Moved back inside. i have two more spots to deal with and i think im done with rust repair:




Hopefully ill get out there tomorrow to start on those.

I still need to finish cutting the rear corners and thatll pretty much finish up the body work to the tub, but ill still need to sand/bondo everything.

I need to do something about my doors. They are in decent shape, except they both have one rust spot, right in the middle where the mirror bolts on




I am not confident in my ability to fix that, w/o it being super obvious. My bondo game is not strong! So im currently debating what to do. One door needs a new rivnut, and both need to be repaired there. Im gonna try to clean them up and see if i can fix the doors, as id rather not buy new ones. I already need a new tailgate as mine is rotted badly.

So, im rapidly approaching the part of this build where i need to start spending money! And i need to get the laundry room done so money will be split to both projects. So im guessing this will go slow for a bit.

So, i need input from those of you who have done this before.

Thiings to do:
  • fix rust
  • sand/bondo
  • paint!
  • bed-line interior
  • roll cage!
  • bumpers/sliders
  • electrical work

Electrical needs to be last because i need the interior in. I need to paint before i put the cage in, since its not staying white. And i cant bedline after the cage is in, unless im spraying over it, which i didnt want to do. So that means, i pretty much have to do it in the order above. my concern is with the amount of work left to do, if i should put off paint as long as possible. The only real variable is the bumpers/sliders, i suppose i could do those before i primer anything. This would mean finishing the rough body work, and jumping to the bumpers/sliders, then going back to body work. I guess it seems obvious when you type it out :toothless Thoughts??
 
#100 ·
Rust cut out of rear driver corner, it was a bit worse than it looked!


New steel tacked in:


...and done! Good enough for the interior, its gonna get covered in bedliner anyway.


I also fixed the small hole on the passenger side.

From there i moved on to the rear corners.
This is a bumper i bought for a future project for the green bronco, i mocked it up on this one to see how it would fit and then never took it off. Considered using it on this one instead, but i have some ideas that would require modifying the bumper so ill probably just start from scratch. We'll see what happens when we get there.


I had started cutting the corners when i opened up the wheel wells, but never finished. Well, that time has come!


The typical cut everyone does


...both done, looks much better now!



So i think that unofficially finishes rust repair on the tub :rockon :rockon :rockon Im sure ill find more to fix when i start sanding & prepping for paint, but for now im moving on!


So i was talking to my brother, and i guess im going to try to fix my doors. Theyre both pretty clean, except for a patch right in the middle of each, where the mirrors attach. This is going to be a challenge for me, as all my repairs thus far have been in corners or at body lines which made them easy to hide. Its going to be tough for me to get these right, so you cant tell.

driver door:


passenger door:



Ill start on those next week. Once theyre done (or wrecked lol), im going to switch gears and start building bumpers!
 
#101 ·
Ok, update time.

Started on the doors:








Door #2:





This is where my inexperience with sheetmetal repair shows. I took my time, but both doors sunk when i welded them. Cant have any filler since the mirror bolts up here, it would just crack. Its gotta be fixed, but im not sure how. Thus far ive only made it worse, which is disappointing.




In my frustration, i decided to abandon the doors for now and start designing a rear bumper.

Gutted the original tailgate, so i could easily install it.


Back in place, with the green bronco's bumper still installed. I wanted the 'gate there for mockup of the rear bumper, and its nice & easy to move empty.




Once i got some free time, i went over to the scrap steel yard and found some goodies.

Some 3½x6 angle iron. Oddball size but IMO perfect for a bumper. Also got some 2½x1/4" flat stock, and some cool lookin panels with speed holes in them :toothless




...and some 3/8" plate.



I expect to use the angle & plate, i doubt i have a use for that stuff with the holes in it, but they had a ton of em and they looked cool so i bought two :toothless I spent ~ $75 for all of it, so i figure im into the bumper for about $50 as of right now.

With the corners cut, the angle will fit up roughly here:



Bumper brackets built out of the 3/8" plate


...and installed. My shackle hangars are forward on the frame to correct shackle angle, which gives me 5 existing holes in the frame to bolt to.


...and the angle iron slotted to fit over the brackets




The tabs sticking thru will get reinforced at a later date and become shackle mounts. This way theyll pull directly on the frame as opposed to just the face of the bumper.


Thats all i got; i have a rough idea for what i want the rear bumper to look like, but nothing is set in stone yet so im kind of designing it as i go. I know i want a centered lisc plate, a 2" receiver in the middle (either behind or below plate), i want to taper the corners, and i want to wrap around under the rear quarters to protect them. So ive got a bit of design work to do yet.
 
#102 ·
You can shrink the repair to remove the "oil canning" with some small amounts of heat and a little hammer and dolly work and water cooling. If you don't own a "heel" dolly, a small piece of railroad track make a descent dolly for different shapes. Once you get it to where you want, use "tiger hair" or a similar product so it won't crack. Then a thin coat of filler should take care of it.
I would suggest you try it on a piece of sheet metal before your door to get a feel for it.
Here's a DIY video on the process

 
#103 ·
Ill watch that vid in a little bit :toothless

I was using heat & water but no hammer work since its behind the regulator, not much room to swing. Also, the door has i guess fiberglass reinforcement on the inside, i assume to keep the mirror from flopping around in the wind. Guess ill have to try a little harder.
 
#106 ·
I'm thinking you should be heating,hammering and cooling the area in front of and behind the patch, not where you welded it in.
Just my $0.02
 
#105 ·
I think because keyboard cleaner is a refrigerant-based propellant cleaner and not compressed air, it may get too cold and cause the metal to crack.
 
#107 ·
Yeah, watched a couple vids then, i was close but not quite right on my technique.

I was heating the area that pulled in, not my patch, but i didnt pop it out first which i think was my whole problem. I could see it move, but of course it moved the wrong way :toothless
Worst case, i have another pair of OEM doors i can use (i was saving them for half doors, but i could always make these half doors instead) so its not the end of the world if i dont get em right. I will go back and try it again when im done with the rear bumper, i just need a break from sheetmetal!
 
#109 ·
Stupid weather delayed me a bit, but ive still managed to get some progress made on the rear bumper:

Tapered the corners:




Added another 3" on the bottom, doesnt look like it but the corners taper to 2"






Mock-up on bronco




2x2 box tube, to protect quarter panel:


Mocking up the whole corner:








Hopefully tomorrow i can make that small piece for the corner, and then start duplicating everything for the other side.
 
#110 ·
Starting to take shape:




Both corners are done now:




As you can see, i still have a sh*tload of welding/grinding to do :toothless



Im hoping to get out there today for an hour or two, i want to start working on the receiver hitch. So hopefully more updates this week!
 
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