GoFastBroncos.com

krusty the bronco started life as a parts rig i bought off a friend to use the drive train for a crawler i was building. it was an all stock 1996 bronco with 200k miles on it. maf 5.8l, e4od, and 3.55 gears. long story short, it sat for a few months until the daily drivers started having issues, (engines, clutches, etc all at once) and krusty was called into action, so that i could have time to get something else going. this was my first bronco, and i fell in love with all its little quirks, how it road, and surprisingly the reliability of it. now dont get me wrong krusty was a parts truck, and it was a pile, but i loved it.

once i started driving it, i noticed amazingly that all the good stuff worked. AC was ice cold, cruise perfect, even the overhead console worked with the outside temp readout. krusty definitely had some issues though...
-axle shaft ujoints were toast,
-balljoints toast
-tierods toast
-coil buckets massive rust hole aka toast
-rear axle brake line, rusted through, aka toast so i fixed what i could as i had time, and kept driving it. eventually things got better.

so i got the axle shaft ujoints fixed, so that i could use 4wd again, got rid of the auto hubs for some mile markers. new tierods, replaced the brake line that rusted out. it just kept getting better. once i saw the coil buckets self destructing i started to get concerned though. i have to admit that. it kept going though, so i kept my eyes open for a solution. what do ya know something came along at the right time! a friend of mine was selling a 1988 f150 minus the body. it may not look like much but it had some good bones. it was in way better shape rust wise.
-6 inch dick cepek long arm lift
-mint coil buckets
-4.56 gears
-detroit locker in the rear
-used to have an arb in the front
-5.8l speed density
-edelbrock headers, and intake manifold. (not sure if that will work on my maf 5.8l, but fingers crossed)
-m5od

so i took off krustys front end, and started pulling apart the donor front end. the donor has these super weird one piece hubs that i guess ford decided to try in 1987 or so. looks like an overgrown explorer dana 35 hub. so i set those aside and reused krustys hubs, that i had just put new bearings and seals in.

i took krustys beams and got them sand blasted, then spent some time plating them after looking over the gofast front end thread. its not nearly as good as what im seeing on other builds, but its what i got. ill get better at this as i go.

(side note, i dont have a good picture of it, but once i got the old coil buckets off, i wire wheeled, and flap disced the frame to see if it was even going to be worth it to go farther. the pitting was surprisingly minimal, so i decided to go for it.)

next up, i decided to try my hand at hacking up the nice new coil buckets to fit some f250 shock towers. i also built some bump stop extensions to keep from immediately wasting the 12" bilstein 7100s i am going to try using for right now. (coilovers down the road) while i had the welder out, i welded the end of the slip shaft up so it wouldnt pop the plug out, and replaced the mystery valve spring that was in it, with one from a big block chevy. then i moved on to getting the diff done. the donor truck had previously had an arb in it, that the p.o. sold before i got the chassis. so i replaced it with another arb, which meant setting up the gears again. i built a little stand out of some 8" schedule 40 pipe and a semi truck rim. this was super handy.

then i started putting things together again, and taking them apart and putting them together. cycling, testing cycling some more. etc.

im using a 10 inch bilstein 7100 in the rear mount, and a 12 inch bilstein 7100 in the front mount, well hopefully. the rear mount works perfect. the front one is going to need a lower perch built for it on the axle. there is about an inch of shaft showing at full bump on the rear shock with all the broncos weight on the axle. should be close.

got the front end together and took it out of the shop to turn it around.

wow, you guys are super nice. and i mean that with all sincerity. if i had posted this on pirate4x4 everyone would have been calling me a moron for starting on something this rusty. lol. i appreciate the wait and see what happens attitude from everyone that has scoped out this thread so far. i admit, i have had my doubts about it too. there has been times i wish i had parted this out and gone straight to arizona for a clean one. i figure if im going to ruin one it may as well be a crappy one. i did by a 2 post lift for the shop, and id like to eventually pull the body off this and sandblast the frame someday to clean it up. for right now im counting it as a learning experience.

so now the front is basically together, it was time to start on the rear. (eventually the front will under go stage 2 with coilovers and engine cage, better steering and hydro assist etc.)

for the rear i went back to the donor f150 chassis and pulled the rear out of it. who ever had this f150 before i did definitely got some use out of it. it is equipped with 4.56 gears, and a detroit locker.

once i looked close i started to see signs of abuse, and some facepalm type jerry rigging. the original setup on the f150 was stock springs with some sort of after market overload setup, a 3 inch ford block on top of a 2 inch block. with 4 inch ubolts. pretty sure this was a sema build at somepoint. lol. if you look close you can see the 1/4" grooves that are worn in the tubes from the ubolts moving around. you can see where it dug into the block. i figured i can weld up the grooves and be ok for now. totally missing the warning signs. so i moved on to welding the diff to the tubes. i had my millermatic 35 set to kill, and zapped them in, after some work with a wire wheel, acetone, and a torch to preheat. it had plenty of blueing, so it seemed like the penetration was good, and i didnt get any cracks out of it. i let it cool with a welding blanket around it. when i wire wheeled it to get a good look at the weld the blueing seemed to go away. maybe im reading it wrong, but it seems ok. time will tell. i was pretty proud of how the weld turned out, so i was excited to stab it under the bronco. and thats when i noticed it. the tube on the right was twisted in the housing already. not a lot, just enough to tweak the pass side block. the p.o. had goobered some weld on it to attempt to level it out, that i had completely missed in my excitement. Facepalm. so i torched off the perches with my lincoln amateur hour torch, cleaned that up nice and waited for some new 3" perches from ruffstuff to come in. once those got here i ditched the 2inch block, and put the 3 inch in there with the bronco block. looked super sketchy. thought about taking off the bronco block, but id still have that 3 inch block in there, travel would suck, long term its not what i want, why do all that work for crap suspension, etc. and i talked my self into a set of deaver springs, from desolate motorsports, and a new 2.5inch axle swap kit from ruff stuff for the 8.8. i have some chevy truck shackle hangers that im going to use instead of the broncos. broncos are 6" drop, chevys are 8" drop and meant for 2.5 " springs. im planning on dropping them down so the bottom 2 mounting bolts are below the frame. leap frogging? piggyback? there is a term for it somewhere. i will tear the springs down to one leaf and cycle them so that it is done right.

this pretty much catches us up to where im at on the build. i had to take a break for a couple of weeks to encourage 40 something small birds to stop using the shop as a coop and crapping everywhere. RIP. now thats done the shop is mostly sealed up, got some new pallet shelving in there to help with organization, need to get the lift setup and then itll be back to work on the bronco.

thanks all for your patience with judgements so far. im open to criticism and better ways to do things. if you have any suggestions let me know. this is going to be a very much homebuilt type setup, where i can. i want to do gofast things, but i dont quite have that racer budget yet. lol. im hoping to get this together enough to be at king of the hammers in 2019. i missed the last couple of years and im excited to head back.

As you have noticed, we are not the Pirate4x4 crowd... Nice work. I like the front shock setup, and all the other stuff looks like it'll work just fine.

Looking pretty good so far, nothing wrong with a budget build

Pickuptrucker wrote:Looking pretty good so far, nothing wrong with a budget build

ChaseTruck754 wrote:As you have noticed, we are not the Pirate4x4 crowd... Nice work. I like the front shock setup, and all the other stuff looks like it'll work just fine.

thanks for the nice comments guys! looking forward to spending more time on here.

Nice work!

Nick wrote:Nice work!

thank you!

krusty got rolled out of the shop so i could make a few changes, got the lift in and started assembling it. should make things way easier. also working on getting the pallet racks organized a little better. so i can bring outside storage inside. last time i was at king of the hammers, sitting on the rocks watching people got cold. So i threw together a fire bucket for burning scrap wood and doing some occasional grilling. its just a metal 5 gallon bucket, with an old bbq grill. nothing fancy. works surprising good though. there is a 1/4" skillet in the bottom to keep the bottom from burning out as well.

Got krusty back in the shop.
The two post lift isn't functional yet, that's going to have to wait till later. I want to get the rear suspension done. So I put together a to do list.

-remove rear axle
-remove gas tank
-cut off leaf spring mounts (torch)
-install new leaf spring mounts. (I'm going to use a set of chevy leaf spring hangers to install the Deaver springs. this way everything is 2.5" wide, and I don't have to use spacers. The chevy shackle hanger has 2" more drop than the bronco one does, which seems advantageous. I would like to use an 8" shackle, when its all said and done. I will most likely fab one up.)
-build and install shock mounts. I'm planning on using some cardboard aided design for this.
-install springs,
-position rear axle and perches. weld on perches.
-check shock mounts
-install rear axle brake lines,
-replace ujoint, install rear drive shaft.

at that point it should be drive able, unless I missed something.

Un-insulated shop? That's a big noooooooope from Me.

It's a toasty 67* in mine right now with about 6" of snow on the ground..........

BDKW1 wrote:Un-insulated shop? That's a big noooooooope from Me.

It's a toasty 67* in mine right now with about 6" of snow on the ground..........

its a work in progress. lol. i started building it a couple years ago. ive got a wood stove that needs to be installed like yesterday. haha. 30*f and up seems ok though.

Bftank wrote:30*f and up seems ok though.

You were probably raised there. For my SoCal transplant candy ass it's way to cold.

Wood burning stove? I have an unlimited supply of Hedge, some cutting required........

BDKW1 wrote:

Bftank wrote:30*f and up seems ok though.

You were probably raised there. For my SoCal transplant candy ass it's way to cold.

Wood burning stove? I have an unlimited supply of Hedge, some cutting required........

haha! yeah i went to high school around here, then moved to fargo north dakota, and came back. king of the hammers was a nice midwinter reprieve from the cold weather the two years i was able to go. we tried virginia for awhile, i couldnt get used to the heat and being drenched in sweat all the time. where are you located at BDKW1?

Just north of Kansas city currently.

got the bronco on jack stands and started getting a plan together for the rear. I think I'm going to use these chevy shackle hangers that hang down a couple inches lower than the stock bronco shackles. That way I can squeeze a little longer shackle and maybe some more travel. From the reading I've done it looks like an 8-10" shackle should work good here. I am planning on reinforcing the bolt holes with some weld on washers, and gussets. front shackle hanger is going to get replaced. part number on the gm shackle hanger
next up is taking apart the springs down to the main leaf, and see if i can track down a set of front spring hanger mounts.

Those Chevy leaf hangers work well

ChaseTruck754 wrote:Those Chevy leaf hangers work well

I saw your post about them when I was doing some research and had some on hand. I was thinking that I would move them back an inch or two and see how the main leaf flattened out at full bump.