GoFastBroncos.com

Well, here she is now...


Here she is when I picked went to look at it. Not running, no brakes, check the body lines, door doesn't close, etc., etc. Nice complimentary kids pool. 5 bennies and I dumped the pool.


Time to go home. Gotta love AAA flatbeds. I am niether of those hosers.

A trip through downtown Milford from the beemer. The girlfriend is supposed to be driving, not taking pictures. She said it smiled and looked at her all the way home.


Working on her. Body is shimmed out. Engine runs well. Brakes are fixed. 33s and later bronco wheels. Got out the buffer. All kinds of other little things like hours trying to free up the hood hinges before busting out the torch to free them up.


Discovering the gas tank is full of debris and it is not just out of gas. Pulled it and cleaned it. Oh that is the 82 351w pop-top e150 in the background. Grandpa chic and 80,000 miles.

The Michigan Historical tag. Renews in 2020. $70 with taxes, I love it.


Evidently her name is blue.


And, the inside.

Dig the belt, steering shaft and blanket. The spotlight works. So much work to do.

It has a good running 292, 4spd, divorced spicer 24 transfer, nine inch and closed knuckle 44. It has a little over 80,000 on it. The springs and shocks are toast. I will post pics. I drove it, and it is just fine. Shifts, tracks, plenty of power, for a 292 at least. I want to attack the rear springs first, as they have a couple of cracked leaves. I will build some mounts for 5100s and put in springs. It has a factory block that I would like to pull out. The current rear springs are 2.5 x 50". I am unsure of using them, going with bronco or fi50 springs, or using 64" GM. I have seen later 65/66 prerunners, but don't know if they were using the original spring locations.

It is going to be limited with the front leaf setup and the stock steering. It will not need to haul too much, but might tow with it. The drivetrain will be left alone for now.

Here are the front and rear springs. The shackles and hangers are cast. The driveline angles are pretty good with the divorced transfer case. The front steering geometry looks scary, but I will have to work with it. The idea is to make it work well using the leaf setup and putting on some good shocks and mounts.

The rear springs have 6 thin leaves and three overloads, the shocks and mounts are a joke. I would like to get rid of those blocks too. My concern is the 50" spring length may be too short. I have to get new springs. Should I get longer (bronco or 64 gm) springs and tune them, or just use the stock mounts, and get springs without the block and with longer shackles. I would pick up some junkyard bumpstops. I am not kidding myself, I know it is a 62. (notice the rust in the shape of a shock absorber)


The front leafs have the steering link from the box behind the axle to the spindle. You can see the pitman arm coming down and running up towards the spindle right next to the spring. Am I doomed to a life of horrible bumpsteer? I was planning on shocks and mounts on the front. You can see the cast hangers, shackles in the front. I don't know, with this steering, if the shackle is better in the front. These springs are not cracked but look pretty bad. Shocks are prehistoric.


Driveline angles are decent with the divorced case. Sorry about the dark photos, I will get better ones next time. You can see the front angle, and how the case hangs low. The back shaft is pretty long. Everything needs to be powerwashed again and painted. Busy, busy.

NICE purchase! These old trucks look sweet - especially after the love you have given this one.

nice score!

Retro alarm system:

The muffler was toast and with a new supertrapp and some muffler pipe sitting around I went the tuneable route. It only had four discs on it and was really quiet leading me to pull discs off another used supertrapp that quickly turned into supercrapp. All 6 disc bolts pulled out the threaded inserts and ruined the muffler insert. Not so tuneable like that. Maybe they offer a new muffler insert. I wont be changing the discs on the xr600 Muzzy exhaust if they all turn out like this. Anyway, I got the discs on. I put on the stack of fourteen or so and it was loud, I went down to ten, and then settled on seven discs in the end to give it some rumble.

The supertrapps are nice because you can set the volume where you want it and they are USFS approved, but something that you could take apart after a couple of years would be nice. Any suggestions to keep the new one intact? Will simply changing to stainless hardware work?

By the way, that porter cable grinder is crap. They sold out to black and decker or someone. Certainly not the porter cable of old. When I put in a tile blade it skips on the tile because the arbor is so sloppy. I have some old porter cable circular saws and they are bad ass, indestructable. They are used to cut stone frequently and have done so for years.

John

Anti-seize.

Supertrapp... haven't seen one of those in a while!

We used to have the same problems with Supertrap. They all do that and for some reason they never upgraded to stainless. I got used to installing a new one every time the disks let go. Luckily we never had to pay for them.

We had the Supertrapps on the race Bronco for several years. Once the pipes get a little age on them they will start plugging up with the little rust flakes. So if it seems quieter than usual and down on power check them out. Tried different flavors of antiseize etc but frequent maintenance and new bolts seem to be the only solution for the bolt problems.

Like the truck .. and the dog!

Ken

My junkyard score today. Stock 2wd 64" gm 1500 springs. I wanted the perches, but they screwed up. Going back next week for the spring mounts.

The overloads will go and a re-arch to start, then figure out the mounts. The factory blocks will need to go too. I have some good used shocks on there now, but they will need to be replaced with some 5100s or such. JeffsBG is having a show/swap meet on May 1, hopefully I can find something there. They are only ten miles away.

I need to figure out how much arch and how much bump to run as well as shackle length. I have read up on it, but am looking for input.

64" Deavers may be a possibiity later down the line, but for now I will work with these.

Thanks for the compliment on the truck Ken, I am honored. You have an amazing bronco. I will pass on your regards to the dog too.

Theres a 60's ford down from my dads house. Puke green and lifted on white / rusted wheels big mirrors and all. Man I want that truck. Awesome looking truck, any updates?

No updates really. I have been driving it and collecting rear suspension parts. It has been all boat and no truck for the last couple of months. I need to get back to it, maybe when the weather turns...

First, thanks to everyone for the info and especially ChaseTruck for the motivation from his build and the tech way back when I first brought this up. This is my first from scratch spring build. Any criticism or suggestions would be appreciated while it is still on paper.

Here is the model of my rear springs on my frame. No CAD here, just something us old folks call "paper" and "pencils". The image is in scale, one square=2.5". With a 15 inch free arch and a 10" shackle mounted at nintey when compressed it should travel right around 20" with good springs.

The upper image shows the spring at bump, ride height, and extended. At ride height it is ten up and ten down. The shackle angle seems good at bump, ride height, and droop; the shackle angle should soften the spring rate through the travel and be anti-jacking. The spring angle is good too with some anti-roll built in. The axle travels back 2" inches at compression and forward 5" at droop giving a driveshaft plunge around 4 inches.

The lower image is just me verifying the distance of the spring at flat versus free arch to ensure the shackle is the right size. Camburg recommends a minimmum 10" shackle with these springs, and that is what I come up with spring length at 54 inches free arch, versus 64 inches flat.

One set of my junkyard springs are re-arched increasing the free-arch to 13". At 13" the spring length was 58" so my modeled numbers look good in real life. The springs were arched with a press noted in the "Ranger Rear Suspension" thread. It takes a couple of hours to do the 3 leaf pack, but I had to set up a jig. I might need to add a couple more inches, but thought it better to mount and cycle the springs verifying the numbers and preventing me from having to de-arch the springs because the rate was figured wrong. The rate should be around 250, but the shackle is going to alter that number. My math is saying the springs will compress 4-5 inches with the weight of the truck. Shackle jacking will raise it another 2" at ride height.

I may mount the front of the springs 1/4-1/2" inboard to help it track and to keep the chassis tight

The junkyard springs will be used to get everything set and if their performance is lacking the truck will get a set of 64" Deavers. I know the stock springs are not going to hold up like the Deavers, but the front is so bad that it will not be an issue for the time being.

I will get a few pics up of the arched versus stock spring packs before I re-arch the other pack.

My next mission is to figure out the shackle design and stop over at JBG to get some ubolts and spring perches.

Thanks again.

Looking good! Is the rear of the frame really that basic/flat in the back of those things? I haven't ever messed with anything earlier than my old '70 but I know my frame S curves all over the place making mapping it correctly on paper or in cad a pain. Although I never even really though of mapping it out on paper 1st - I just picked a starting point and used trial and error to move the mounts around until I got it.

Yes, the frame is that flat and is does not have the drop down for the cab of the 65-79 frame. The floor is much higher than in later trucks (4-5"). It does keep the frame nice and high though allowing for good up travel. The hope was to model it first, then just go in and install it by the numbers. I design by hand in hardscape, so laying it out was not difficult.

I re-arched the stock GM springs. Here they are compared to a stock spring. They have 13 1/2" of free arch.


I gave them an acid bath. I used muratic acid, which will eat anything including your eyes, face, and respiratory system. It will turn rust into black steel though.


I laid out the spring to figure out the geometry at free arch and figure out my shackle length. The 8' level represents where the top of the frame rail would end.


I am figuring a 9" shackle and using the GM1500 hangers. The spring should flatten out at 64" giving me the desired 90* shackle angle at bump. I will need to notch the hanger a bit to get the shackle to swing down and start building the shackles. 'Slowly moving along...


Everything seems to coincide with the drawing I made. The primary difference is I put in slightly less arch that will require a 9" versus 10" shackle.