Bronco Forum - Full Size Ford Bronco Forum banner

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.
 
See less See more
4
#2 ·
That was back in May, it pretty much just sat in the stones at my house until closer to the 4th of July, whena buddy came over to help me get this project started.

We scrubbed the hell out of the hard top (it still needs a lot more work) and then yanked it off and set it on the trailer. Then gave this thing its first bath in 10+years :toothless



Pulled the tailgate off; the shell is shot but the hardware is all in great shape. Started yanking out the interior and found an old mouse-house behind the real panel, along with the former tenant


We pretty much gutted the whole interior except for the dash, and then then called it quits for the day.
So much clean sheetmetal!


...and stuffed into the garage until the next time I could get around to working on it
.
 
#3 ·
More disassembly progress!

The last of the interior & dash came out





Rust hole up near parking brake pedal


and a little bit of rust back near the tailgate


...That's actually the worst of it :rockon The rear fenders have some rot, but it doesn't matter since I have to cut the fenders to clear the 42s anyway. That will all come way later on.


This part is concerning though


He welded a piece of box tubing into the body out back instead of using body lift pucks, so im gonna have to get this cut out and see whats going on behind it. Don't want the body lift, the truck is tall enough as it is.

I also got the sound deadener stripped off the floor as well
 
#4 ·
Fast forward to about two weeks ago.

Doors are now off


And I stripped and removed the front clip





The is no real rot on the under-side of the tub, but there is rust at all the seams in the sheetmetal. So after going back and forth I said screw it and set up the tent in the stones
 
#5 ·
So last Thursday a bunch of buddies came by, we rolled the truck over to the tent, lifted the body off and got it set up.




The frame is back in the garage for now. Im stealing some brackets off it, plus all the body mount hardware, and then chopping it up for scrap.



So yesterday morning after I got home from work I suited up, grabbed the whire wheel & the sand blaster and went at it!




...so that's where she sits as of now. Before you ask, im not sand blasting the entire tub, only the underside. I have no intention on driving this thing in the road salt, but i dont want to get it all done and have the floorpan start rusting away a year or two later. The fenders & interior are clean with good paint on them, so theyre just going to get prepped and painted later on. The underside is going to get sprayed as soon as im done down there, so I can get it on my frame and get it back in the garage.

Progress on this thing is pretty slow as I only work on it a couple days a week. Today im painting in the house, but hopefully tomorrow I can get back out there and do some more blasting.
 
#15 ·
After seeing the body that's getting replaced, I'm pouring a preemptive 40 oz. for the new body.

And subbed!
 
  • Like
Reactions: dash_cam
#16 ·
Thanks guys :thumbup

The plan this time, is to make it look good. I aready bought a set of 80-86 Bushwacker Cut Out flares in prep for attempting to cover the tires a little bit. I intend to properly cut the wheel wells though, not just sawzall em open like they suggest. New bumpers are in the works as well, since mine have been mostly the same (just minor mods here and there) for over 10 years. I have a mostly complete set of interior parts in Charcoal (the dark gray) that's going in in place of the blue. Gonna spray the interior in Al's Liner, as well as the underside. Thinking about a gun metal color for the exterior, and im definitely going to put the racing stripes & depth markings back on as a throwback to the p/u body. Also going to revisit the wiring for all the stuff ive added to the truck (OBA, ARB, elec fan, line lock, etc), and give that an update as well, since ive definitely gotten better at wiring in the 10 years since Ive added all that stuff.

End result *should* be a really nice bronco to cruise around in, with my proven one-ton drivetrain underneath. Yeah im thinking of taking it a bit easier on the trails; with the p/u cab, since I wrecked it the very first day offroad I really didn't care too much what happened to it, but this time I kinda want a clean rig.


I have yet to start stripping down the bronco. I need to finish blasting the underside of the donor body then get it painted underneath. Then I need to chop up the donor truck's frame, and then im going to dismantle the bronco. Plan is to be able to just strip it down and roll the frame into the garage. Then I need to do some maintenance to it as sitting idle for months at a time as wreaked havoc on all the seals; it needs a rear pinion seal, rear wheel seals, front diff seals, O-rings in the ARB and a front pump seal for the trans. Also need to repair one body mount hole, and chop off the mounts I built for the stepside bed. THEN the donor body can go on my frame :toothless So yeah, lots of work to do, before I can even set it in place.
 
#47 ·
Then I need to chop up the donor truck's frame.
Not my place to make suggestions and for all I know the donor frame is FUBAR, or you prolly want the space and to keep the mess overflow to a minimum, but maybe someone around here or on one of the other ford sites might be willing to take that frame off your hands. Even after your remove the brackets you need, if the frame isn't too bad, it might have value to someone else....maybe even put a few extra rubles in your wallet.


To steal and paraphrase an old Mark Twain quote, "Save an FSB frame, they're not making anymore"
 
#17 ·
Looks like a well thought out plan to bring your rig fully back to Bronco status.
 
#19 ·
Dammit Jim stop slacking and get to turning some wrenches!



Yeah this has been coming for a while, so ive been going over all the little things I want to do while its apart. This list is not short! Theres lots of other things I want to revisit while im in there. Im even thinking of moving the air compressor down to where the smog pump was, so I can put the factory air box back in. As an added bonus, this would allow me to go full baller and the get the a/c working again :toothless



As for updates...there isn't really one :duh Progress has been made! But im still sand blasting, so not much.
 
#18 ·
Rept's Super Slow Re-Re-Rebuild

If I can cruise around Rausch and keep mine somewhat clean, (last trip added A LOT of pinstripes, not the cool kind) you shouldn't have issues.

BTW, your still ahead of me, my axle has been sitting for a few month and I have about an hour worth of work and it would be ready.
 
#21 ·
I hear ya on that; most of july it was well over 100º inside at work every night, by the time I got home from work I was too beat to do anything, so this thing pretty much sat idle in the garage for weeks.
Now I need to get as much done as possible before it gets cold because the tent isn't snow-rated. Fortunately the garage is well insulated, and I just picked up a pellet stove for it, so itll be toasty in there this winter :rockon
 
#22 ·
Wait, what? An update?

So a hot humid summer filled with mandatory OT has kept me from making much progress, which left me reluctant to update this thread. however at this point I think ive got something worth posting.

I finished stripping the donor frame. Saved some brackets, body mount parts and the rear leafs, and chopped up the rest.




I succeeded in removing this piece of box tubing from the rear of the body, that the previous owner welded in in place of body lift pucks. he did a pretty nice job, but im not running a body lift so it had to go.


Sand blasted and painted the battery tray + air box parts




And I finished sands blasting the underside of the tub
 
#23 ·
This is where it starts to get cool (IMO, anyway). I bought a spray gun from Al's Liner, along with their HNR (heat & noise reducing paint), and their spray-on bedliner.

Spray gun. This is more like an undercoat gun; it has a 6mm(!) nozzle :eek:


The Heat & Noise Reducer is some kind of ceramic paint; its supposed to be pretty good at what it does so I figured why not.

The test patch, dialing in the gun mostly


...and the whole underside sprayed! Went up into the wheel wells, and up the firewall


It goes down pretty easily


slight texture to it; I suspect with some more adjusting I could get it smoother though



The texture is a non-issue though, because of the next part: Al's Spray-on Bedliner

This is a 3-part polyurethane bedliner, that is fully tintable. On the left of the pic is a small bottle of surface prep, plus a bottle of my color tint: black


I recommend some kind of respirator, this stuff is wicked! (im not joking) :eek:


...and holy crap its done!



This part goes FAST. They claim the kit, after mixing, has to sprayed within 20 minutes or it will start to cure in the gun. Well no worries there, moving along at a decent pace you can spray an entire kit in ~10 minutes :eek: The whole underside took 2 kits, glad I bought an extra one when I ordered em.

I sprayed the whole underside, up into the wheel wells and all under-body xmembers, and halfway up the firewall as well


..and the money shot: This stuff looks (and feels) exactly like rhino or Line-X :cool:



I am super impressed with it, I think its going to work awesome. Its ~$85 per kit on Amazon, so it cost me ~$170 to spray the underside. Im going to order 3 kits for when I spray the interior just to make sure I can get it as thick as I want it. So it works out to about half what the local Rhino/Line-X dealers charge :rockon
 
#25 ·
So that gets us to about a week or so ago, when I started dismantling it.

All glass removed


Top gone!


My new convertible :toothless


Still runs at this point; drove it intot he garage for the night :toothless


Next day, Bed is gone:

Saving this part


Bed off




Day 3, started stripping the front-end






Here's a good reason to cage your truck: The cab corners twisted enough I couldn't get to the seatbelt bolts:doh0715:


...and finally!


Stripped down to basically nothing at this point



This catches us up to today. Tomorrow I begin loading up the truck as I have a mountain of steel to scrap from cutting up both trucks. I painstakingly removed the harness from both so I can reuse them, along with a bunch of other parts, which made the disassembly take about a week, altho its obviously all done now. So the plan for this week is to dump all the scrap steel, and then just get the frame clean. Then I have a few things I have to do, before dropping the new tub on the frame. Getting ever closer now!
 
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