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Welcome Early Bronco owners!
Post up some pictures of your rides and share some of your go-fast or hard-use knowledge in our tech area. Thanks for joining!
Greetings all! New here and I figured I would start by posting pics of my pile of bronco laying all over my shop. I have been working on this on and off for around a year. I have been busy with my toddler and we also just had another. Now that the baby is out and things are starting to get back to normal I plan to get this thing finished up so the family and I can enjoy it. It's really just a family wagon for playing/exploring/camping/chasing for friends that are involved in desert racing.
I had to tear it all back apart because I wanted to push the front axle forward by 4". I cut/lengthened the stock radius arms by about 10" and made new mounts to meet up with the ballistic joints. I moved the axle forward to get a bit longer driveshaft and to use a f150 steering box (like what is used in the 4x4x2 setup) but I am going to leave the pitman forward facing and move the steering box back close to the coil bucket. This will make for some tight spacing with the track bar mount but I think it won't be much of a problem. Just a custom mount. For the rear suspension I am using 64" chevy leafs. Shocks are Fox 2.5" remote resi's. Drivetrain is a 5.0, built up AOD, AA to D20 T-Case to a FW 44" and 9". Next on my list is to mount the steering box and get the track bar mount and track bar done. Then put the body back on and build the front shock hoops. The rear shock mounts are built into the cage and just need a bit of bracing to be done.
Sorry the pics off my phone came out kinda chitty but I didn't wanna start a build post empty handed. I will make sure the rest are takin with a real camera.
Made some progress on mounting the steering box and getting an idea of the drag link and trackbar angles and positions. I am wondering what some of your opinions are on doing a Y-link setup vs. tieing in the drag link to the top of the knuckle arm. I have both the trackbar and draglink angles kind of angled back toward the axles and parallel to eachother when viewed from the top down. With a Y-link setup I can get them parallel when viewed from the front but it's a little off when running it directly to the steering arm. See mockup tape pictures... Obviously in a effort to minimize bumpsteer.
Oh, I also boxed in my coil buckets. They are moved out 2" off the frame for the FW axle and also moved forward 3" for the push.
After I hit that draglink delema to ponder on before making a decision I got some measurements to start building the fuel tank. Will hopefully start on that fairly soon.
Thanks for the warm welcome! I am not going to be racing. More of just a play/prerun/chase rig to enjoy with the family. We have friends that race class 1, class 10, class 8, and 1450 so we can chase them around and prerun etc. along with whatever else comes up. We like just going out and exploring/camping.
Todd, I agree with you. I am going to go with the Y-link setup to get better geometry. I just have to figure out how I am going to tie the 3/4" heim with hi-mis spacers in. I am thinking I will sleeve over the 1-1/4" tie rod with some 1-1/2" .120W for about 8-10" or so to strengthen it and help get my spacing for the heim setup. Then make a horse shoe shaped bracket to make the intersection double shear.
I wanted to make the track bar out of 1-1/2" .120W DOM and I couldn't find a tube adapter to go from that to the 3/4" heim I wanted to use. I am trying to use 3/4" heims for all the steering and tracking stuff to minimize the amount of spare parts I want to carry. Anyway I just decided to machine a tube adapter on the lathe out of some cold round last night after work. I could have had one of my machinists make it on the CNC lathe but I really enjoy making parts on the manual lathe when I have time. A little over an hour later I had just what the doctor ordered! If I can just keep making a little bit of progress on a daily basis...
standfast wrote:I just have to figure out how I am going to tie the 3/4" heim with hi-mis spacers in.
Just tab off the cross link. I would also run the cross link on top of the steering arms. Also, all this should be check at full bump before anything is welded permanently. I think you track bar may need a bend in it to clear the pumpkin.........
BDKW1 wrote:I would also run the cross link on top of the steering arms.
Reason for this?
I did mine on top for the slight chance that a nut comes off the bolt holding the heim to the knuckle the "cross link" or tie rod would have more of a chance of staying in place for longer = it couldn't just fall off the bottom. That was about it though. Do you have another good/better reason that I don't know about?
That was my other slight thought with my setup. Although my setup is a 1.25" x .120 wall tube sleeved inside a 1.5" x .120 wall tube so I don't think I'll have many bending issues.
Yeah, now that I know I am nut running the drag link to the top of the knuckle I will move the tie rod up on top. Will cycle to check track bar clearance and bump steer for sure.
Brian, by just a tab you me something like this to the right? I was thinking of doing it like the one on the left. Overkill? Tie rod is 1-1/4 x .120w DOM.
Anyone have a reccomendation on a good rubber bump stop. I was told that pathfinder rear bumps were nice and progressive. Not sure about dropping $600-800 on air bumps right now.
I would make 2 plates off the side of the tube to double shear the heim. This will also put the steering force down the tube centerline and help prevent rotating forces.
ESHALLBETTER wrote:I would make 2 plates off the side of the tube to double shear the heim. This will also put the steering force down the tube centerline and help prevent rotating forces.
2 tabs yes, it will want to rotate a little anyway being that it is above centerline. Some urethane washers on either side of the hiem will prevent this and still let it articulate. Double shear the steering arms and urethane washer them, also.
HUGE PIC MISTAKE! No edit button. Sorry guys.