Braking in the new Bronco, almost all the dents are on the bottom

[jim@wildhorses4x4]

Finally broke some stuff. Mitch and I pre-ran Prison Hill OHV in Carson City for Super Cel Nevada. Check out the event info here.

— Bronco Super Celebration (Nevada) | Bronco Driver

www.broncodriver.com

I heard some sounds reminiscent of classic Bronco front axle explosion. Nothing exploded but my 4WD shut off so we headed out. Slow left turns had a very good, or bad POP! Sure enough the driver side CV outer had issues (M210 4.70) Found the problem right? Not so fast. We noticed some random noise and stuff that just didn't feel right coming from the front end after changing the driver CV axle. Turns out we broke the intermediate shaft as well. So we're in the middle of a portal install (totally different story) that turns into a FDU tear out because the axle is just not coming out. Here's the piece that was stuck in the diff. Needless to say we are learning a lot about these new Broncos.

Pro tip: put Bronco on lift, engage 4WD low, lockers on, make sure all 4 tires are spinning.
Pro tip : you have to cut the bearing off on the electro mag side of the diff to take apart the locker.

Hope to see some of you in Carson City. Happy wrenching!

Jim

 

[Dusty]

Hey Jim was the front locker engaged when it popped?

 

[jim@wildhorses4x4]

Hey Jim was the front locker engaged when it popped?

I'm not 100% sure at what point the intermediate shaft broke. The CV was popping on slow left turns in 2WD after Carson so we thought at the time it was just the CV issue. I'm pretty sure we put 600 miles on it after it broke. All in 2WD. There was an attempt at NWBR Oregon when Mitch had to tow me up off the beach because in would no longer shift into 4WD. After that we just towed it back in the trailer once the event was over. We did have a sign and that was the passenger side axle was sticking out about 1/2" from the tube. I should mention once we put it on the lift and engaged 4WD lockers on the problem became obvious. The passenger side CV axle was no spinning but it was moving in and out about 1/2-1".

Update: With the front end ripped out I figured time to go HOSS 3 on the rack with Bronc Buster parts added. You can do this without the front taken out but there is a lot more room with it gone. This rig never steered very good in the rocks so I looking forward to a big improvement. I'm waiting on a few more parts to show up and we will get this back together.