74 Bronco

[JeepGuy]

Bought this Bronco... kind of... from local San Diego resident way back in the mid 2000's. It was a stock 74, no top, barely any interior, manual 3spd, stock 302 and exhaust, no lift, standard 350 Gears with BB 9" in the rear, Dana 44 Front, No power steering, missing the majority of the tunnel cover... But it was a blast to drive. I immediately swapped out the 3 speed for a C4 Auto and started wheeling it around a bit on open diff's, no lift, and 31" tall tires (John Bull left it's mark on the rockers). Added front hoops to the stock cage and basically made it my weekend grocery getter. Loved the old beat down no frills vibe. I pulled it in the garage with the intention of doing a simple floor pan repair and that is where all the fun started.

Parts replaced or upgraded since that day over a decade ago. Most of this has been with the last 18 months:

• Complete driver and passenger floor pans and tunnel cover
• Passenger side rocker panel
• SS Twin Sticks for the Dana 20
• Gorilla War Flares
• Upgraded and resealed heater box with new upper vent and fresh air set up
• Rear drum Brakes
• Front Disc Brake Conversion
• SS complete brake line kit
• WH 3 1/2 lift (Coils and Rear Leafs)
• Super Shackles
• Heavy duty rear U-Bolts and plates
• James Duff Nitrogen Shocks (singles on all four corners)
• All For Fun wristed long arms
• Bloody Knuckle shock hoops front
• Kaiser Riser
• 1 ton steering linkage
• Indy Mag's 17X9
• BFG 35 x 12.5 AT's
• WH Rock ski's with nerf's installed
• TBP premium seats front and rear
• All new seat belts
• TBP 6-point Plate Style family cage
• WH Rear Tail Gate silencer kit with new lockable handle
• 3G 1 Wire alternator
• Rebuilt Stock gauge cluster with all new gauges.
• Replaced all indicator lights, switches, and pull nobs on the dash
• Swapped the Gove Box door and stock speaker (flip mod to avoid roll cage)
• Stripped and repainted dash (clear didn't bond, need to do over)
• PS Pump with the 4x4x2 lines
• 4x4x2 Power Steering Swap (still in progress)
• Steering shaft collapsible (still in progress)
• I Did It steering column (still in progress)

So at this point I have a rolling body with an unpainted exterior, and it is going to stay that way for awhile. Currently the dash it out and the interior is getting ready to get lined and the jam's painted. I'm doing all of that myself, but eventually, will probably pay someone to paint the exterior. My priority it to get it wheeling and reliable before I worry about the looks. Waiting in the box's, but ready to be installed is a new painless wiring harness, upgraded headlights, and a winters sidewinder shifter. I'm going to incorporate that into the center console somehow but need to get over the wiring harness first. I also need to decide on what kind of fuel delivery I'll eventually go with. My thoughts as of now are run the stock carb until I get the rest of the kinks worked out, then either go with new heads, mild cam, and ProFlow, or one of the other projections units.

Once it is running, here is what will be left:

• Upgrade the rear gas tank to a 23 gallon
• New Drive shaft for the rear
• Gears front and Rear
• Lockers Front and Rear
• Front winch bumper
• Rear Tire Carrier and Bumper
• Eventually some kind of sound system
• Whatever else comes to mind after wheeling it a bit, you know how it goes.

Current state with a few of the upgrades:

 

[Dusty]

Nice cage!

 

[charleskh]

Oh wow, I owned this Bronco just before you. I got it when I was 17 and it was in a poor state. My buddy (whom you got it from) helped me get it into decent shape until eventually he needed it to settle the deal with you. Nice to see it being cared for!

 

[JeepGuy]

Wow, small world. So I drove and wheeled this thing after getting it road worth from Jason. That is a whole other story that I'm sure you are aware of. Parked it not expecting life to take over. The last year or so I've been able to really get going on it and now I'm probably a couple months out from getting it back to at least a grocery getter status. Trying to only do things once here so it has been a long process.

 

[JeepGuy]

So over the last 3 weeks I've made some pretty good progress. Little bites every day if possible. I Prepped the tub, sprayed some Upol primer, and hit the tub with RAPTOR Liner. The kit says 1 bottle will take care of 2 square meters... Yeah.... no. First round I used 3 bottles and ran out of the hardeners, or should I say didn't have enough left to get enough in the 4th bottle with confidence on the mixture. So I orderded some more hardener and an extra bottle. Over the next two weeks after the first round cured I could see some obvious misses or light areas that needed more coverage. Two more bottles down today and I can say with confidence everything I wanted covered is. Texture came out pretty good.

 

[JeepGuy]

In the pictures above you can see the final color the boss decided on. Hot Ginger Poly is what it's called. I ordered a couple spray cans of that based off of a factory code and hit all the jam areas that I knew would be a pain to tape off properly when doing the final exterior paint (months if not years away from now...lol)

You can also see I got the Firewall heatshields completely installed (Pain in the ass), pedals are going back in, and the refurbished heater. What you can't see is the new E brake cables from pedal to rear drums (that was messy) and new speedo cable.

Next on the agenda is finishing up the Dash and getting the Painless Harness installed.

I had to strip the dash down and repaint as the clear I used was flaking off. This time I read the instructions... hahaha... so hopefully it holds. If not, oh well, I'm not doing it again. Got that all back together and started on the harness. I am NOT and electrical guy so this should be fun. So far it is EXTREMELY straight forward which of course terrifies me even more.