PELLEY's 1990

[PELLEY]

So after a lot of looking for the right deal I finally found the one. Picked me up a 1990 with a 5.8, Auto trans, with only 68K miles for $1300!!! Looking forward to the build, gunna be a slow one, but it will get there. I have been into off-road since I was a kid, and have been fabbing on anything I could get my hands on since I was 16. Worked for a buggy builder for about 6 years and did work in a few other shops as well. Have always worked on A-Arms, but this is my first TTB build and I am looking forward to it!

Ok so here is what I know about the rig so far:
-Needs new rear window motor, stuck in the up position. Easy fix, found parts on BroncoGraveyard for only $50
-Gas gauge doesn't work, I have read a few troubleshooting threads on it, but not sure where to start just yet.
-Tie-Rod ends need to be replaced. When I drive down the freeway I can feel a good amount of play, may also be the box, but I haven't taken a closer look yet.
-Needs new tires. The ones on it now have about 5K left on them and are out of balance.
-Small belt squeak. Goes away with a little RPM. I'm thinking it just needs a new belt with proper tension.

Other than that it runs great, shifts great, and stops good. A little ruff around the edges, but right now I just wanna get this thing in good running/driving shape. In the next few months I am looking to do C/T beams with radius arms. Gunna attempt this on my own, I have time and decent skills so I should be able to handle it. I'm not a rich man so I am thinking some 2.5X14 FOA Dual rate coilovers to start. Rear is gunna be Deavers with 2.5x14 FOA's punched through the floor, but still behind the rear seat. I saw a great one on DR that I really liked and I know valving will be much easier to figure out with this setup. Also looking to do a full cage, 1 3/4 mild .120, front and rear bumpers and all the other fun Go-Fast stuff. I am sure plans will change a million times throughout the build, but my goal is to do a chunk at a time so I can continue to enjoy without too much down time. Any comments, ideas, opinions, are always appreciate!!!!!

Chris

Now for the pictures!!

[campbbg]

Even better is that fact that its a roll-a-long bronco. Not many of those made. That grille, flares, and paint are all part of the package.

[ChaseTruck754]

So the stuff that makes it kinda "funny lookin" to me someone originally paid more for? The grill is ok but those flares, badges and decals on the side would be gone day 1 if it was mine.

Looks like a good purchase though and the perfect candidate for a build!

[CBDuner]

Congrats on the purchase. Can't wait to see you start working on this thing.

[PELLEY]

Thanks everyone!!

Thanks campbbg for the info on the Roll-A-Long package. I saw the badge and was a little confused, I had never seen one with that myself. ChaseTruck754 I agree with you that it is kinda funny. I plan on taking all the striping and stuff off. I messed with it a little today and it's gunna take a lot of patients and about 3 kegs of beer to get it all off of there. I plan on doing the 92+ update on the front, Jason at Fiberwerx is a friend of mine so I will get the fenders/hood from him, just gotta chase down a grill and lights. That's a little down the road though.

So a small update, and NOT a good one. Planned on doing a few basks today, ran to Autozone and got some Synthetic and a filter for an oil change and some de-greaser, then went to the local do-it-yourself wash place to do a degrease on the engine and the trans. Bronco's got a leak and I wanna track it down. So ya did the whole degrease and now the damn thing won't start!!! I used a little hand blower they had at the wash to try and blow out as many connectors and the distributor as much as a could with no luck. Sat there for like an hour and a half and ended up biting the bullet and got a 3 mile tow home for $50. So now it's sitting with a bunch of connectors un-plugged, and the distributor cap off for the night. I may go out in a few hours to try again, but I'll probably wait until morning. Thing still cranks like a champ, just doesn't fire... Hope I didn't open a can of worms with this one. so ya day one off to a good start!! No worries though, I will get this thing going again in no time.

[CBDuner]

I had the exact same thing happen on my 88 F250. Ended up being the fuel pump relays that were attached behind the airbox. The water got into the little holder so the relays themselves were sitting in water. So try that.

[PELLEY]

Ya I messed with the relays a little yesterday. But ya I got it going this AM, not sure what the fix was because I un-plugged everything I could get my hands on, but the thing started like a champ this AM.

So now that it moves again, it's time start some improvements. I priced out an all new tie-rods for both sides, looking like $125 for all the parts. I am thinking though, while I have it apart might as well save myself some trouble and do a few upgrades. I think I will just buy the L/R inners, and then hiem the outer pivots. This should be easy and make for some adjustment/strength improvements.

[tcm glx]

Make sure to go with NAPA for tie rods and ball joints, several folks have commented this is the way to go.

[PELLEY]

Few updates for the weekend. Found some used 32" Goodyear muds for only $250. They have between 60-70% on all four tires!!! Can't wait to get them on, gotta wait until Tuesday so I can get them done on base for only $7 a tire mounted and balanced!


Also did some junk yard hunting. Got me a factory grill for $15 and a new airbox/relay holder for only $20. My airbox is missing all of the hardware to hold the lid on and the relay holder is all cracked up, so this was a sweet find.


Also got a few more goodies on the way!!! Picked up some used Camburg radius arms from RDZ for $400 shipped to my house. They have hiems but are missing the mounting brackets. I should be able to fab those up though, just need to get some mounting measurements so I can build/install the brackets correctly. Also came up on 4 Bilstiens on RDZ as well. Not 100% if they will work, but for $125 it's worth looking. Guy said they were "for a 2" lift," I should be getting them in hand in 2 weeks, anyone know PN that companies like Camburg/Solo use so I can see if these are the right ones? I am looking to do the 4" lift C/T setup for the time being. Looks like 2 fronts and 2 rears from the pictures, but hard to tell...

[CBDuner]

Well I guess that guy with the shocks will reply SOLD! Haha! Bronco looks good with the factory grill.

[PELLEY]

Haha, ya my brother just picked them up for me 30 min. ago. Sorry, if I decide against I'll let you know! And thanks about the grill. It makes it look alot less 80's haha. I wanted to update the front end, but after looking at the red bronco that Solo has on their site with the early 90's grill I might just leave it, a lot less work!!!

[ChaseTruck754]

Look at Convoy's truck. LOVE whatever glass he has on the front of that thing. Makes the 87-91 style look SEXY!

[PELLEY]

Ok so I have been very busy with the holidays, work, and moving... but the good news is I have a garage again!!! Now I can start getting to work on this thing. The problems I was having with the truck not starting crept up on me again. This time it was in the rain on the side of the road, which made for a good time. After picking a few Ford brains I couldn't exactly find a smoking gun which was troublesome. I had read about bad fuel pumps and regulators, ignitions, bad cats... I ended up just doing a tune up on a few things and figured it was money well spent even if I didn't fix the problem. So I got new plugs, wires, cap/rotor, ignition modual, fule pump regulator and fuel filter. Put them all in and the truck has run great for about a month now, which has been great.

Then to top that off I put the used MTR's I got on this thing... went about 40 miles and the side wall on one of the tires went out at 70 MPH on the freeway. Luckily there was no further damage and nobody got hurt. Desided used tires was a bad call and went to the local tire spot and grabbed me some 33" BFG all-terrains. Much better, still my favorite tire, never had a single problem with these tires and they last forever! Wish I could have got 35's, but these will be great for a while.

So I took it out to Yuma for the first trip in the thing, have a bunch of trails behind my parents house and planned on hitting the dunes as well. Decided to take it behind the house and make sure the 4 wheel drive was up to par before I hit the dunes and found out that my auto locking hubs were crap. Also found out after taking things apart that I have one 3 bolt hub and one 5 bolt hub... Not sure why, but the guy who owned this before me did some crazy shit, check out the spindle nut!!!




I am guessing someone took this off with a hammer/screw driver at one point, cleaned it up and re-installed. So ya on new years eve I found some mile marker premium hubs in Yuma, and had my brother drive a conversion kit out to me from San Diego (so glad the conversion kit is new spindle nuts) and was able to get it in the dunes the next days.



Drama aside I have been collecting parts for my front end over the last month. As I mentioned before I got some Camburg radius arms from RDZ classifieds. They were missing the frame pivots. I have been trying to get a hold of Camburg to get new ones with no luck though... I emailed them at their sales email and on the forums, was able to get a ruff price, but for some reason they will not respond to my request for an invoice so I can buy the damn parts. I wish I had enough business to blow off paying customers. I will follow up with some phone calls this week I guess. My other option is to make some, which is easy enough, I just didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of figuring out the pivot point and mounting locations and all that jazz. Not to mention I have to drive from LA to SD to build the parts due to lack of tools at the moment. Anyone wanna PM me some specs from their Camburg pivots so I can get this going???? Not trying to sell these, just want to install my kit. Oh ya I gave them a sweet Kryla-coat paint job this weekend as well.



Also picked up some 2" coils from MKeifer. I got to check out his new Bronco, that thing is the ultimate incognito GoFast!!! Also gave them a sweet paint job.



So now all I am missing is the radius arm pivots, alignment bushings, and brake lines. Gunna run it this way for a little while while I get other parts dialed in. My wife is begging for a cage, she worries alot, but I am cool with the green light on that one. Also need to build the bumpers, maybe a roof rack, and then get to work on the rear suspension. Still not 100% on what I will do in the back. I plan on running some Deavers or Nationals, whatever I can get a deal on, or find used. But I am not sure if I wanna run the shocks under the floor (tuning nightmare) or just run them through the floor and right behind the back seat. Then once I get that settled I will tackle an entire frontend build with C/T, coilovers with bumps, and single swing steering. One thing at a time. Oh ya and I loved the drop center hood Mark had, so I wanna grab one of those and see if I can't talk one of my painter friends to spray this turd. I was messing around this weekend and took most of the sweet "roll-a-long" stripes off as well, looks way better!!!

.

Thats about it for now... Just need to get me some more parts, as always!!!

[Nick]

Get your pivot brackets from Keifer.

[CBDuner]

Looks good! I say just whip out your own pivots. Not hard at all. Your arms will place where they need to mount on the frame.

[bajascott]

i second nick on this one. unless you make them. there really is nothing to them,but for the time it taked=s to build them, i would just go see mark.

[PELLEY]

So I talked to Mark, getting pivots plus he has a white hood to replace my dented up one and an extra spare tire for me which is sweet!! Mark is good people for sure. Just waiting for a final price from him so I can hopefully pick all the stuff up next weekend.

Also picked up these bad boys from RDZ!!!!


I am no expert, can these be shortened with an internal spacer like other bump stop brands or do you need to order shorter shafts? If new shafts are needed, they will probably end up on the rear suspension and ill order 2's for the front. I may be off, but it is best to run 2" bumps if mounted behind the bucket right?

Also, still trying to plan things out for the front. I still plan on installing the 2" coils and 2" bilstiens just for now, but can't decide if I want to build buckets and run a single 2.5 or just say F* it and go coilover. I do drive this thing every day and I don't want it to be too lossy goosy down the road, not sure how c/o broncos do on the street.,, any thought from experience?? How noticeable of an advantage are c/o over buckets and 2.5's????

[tcm glx]

So I talked to Mark, getting pivots plus he has a white hood to replace my dented up one and an extra spare tire for me which is sweet!! Mark is good people for sure. Just waiting for a final price from him so I can hopefully pick all the stuff up next weekend.

Also picked up these bad boys from RDZ!!!!


I am no expert, can these be shortened with an internal spacer like other bump stop brands or do you need to order shorter shafts? If new shafts are needed, they will probably end up on the rear suspension and ill order 2's for the front. I may be off, but it is best to run 2" bumps if mounted behind the bucket right?

Also, still trying to plan things out for the front. I still plan on installing the 2" coils and 2" bilstiens just for now, but can't decide if I want to build buckets and run a single 2.5 or just say F* it and go coilover. I do drive this thing every day and I don't want it to be too lossy goosy down the road, not sure how c/o broncos do on the street.,, any thought from experience?? How noticeable of an advantage are c/o over buckets and 2.5's????

C/O'd Bronco here, drive it on the street whenever pretty much where ever. Usually doing about 80 on the freeway on the way home from races, and it feels great!

Save the hassle of the coil and 2.5", most end up going to the coilover after anyways.

I believe the Bilstein bumps can have a spacer inserted and shortened to 2" stroke.

[PELLEY]

So still with no luck and no radius arm pivots, time to make a change. Ordered me up a Hobart 187 MIG machine today!!! Should be in next week. No more waiting for other people to work on the Bronco!!! Heading down to San Diego this weekend as well to pick up my few remaining little parts and a sheet of 3/16 so I can make my pivots. Then I will be able to post some go-fast type updates instead of just parts collection, haha.

Next on the shopping list: tube bender so I can build my cage and bumpers!!! I think I am going to go the GotTrikes build it yourself route (http://www.gottrikes.com/Tube_Bender.htm). It will probably cost the same to build as it would to buy a model 3, but at least this way I will be full hydro. I don't own my house and don't have a place to bolt a manual bender to the ground so hydro is a must for me. This bender looks leggit, uses pro tools dies which are nicely made so it should work good. Plus I will be using mild, not chromoly for my tube work, this thing isn't full race...

[PELLEY]

Took apart my bumps today to get ready for spacers. They came apart ok, oil looked a little dirty, and with this being my first pair of bilsteins I have worked on, some was spilled as well. No prob, gallon of bilstein shock oil ordered and in route.

Seals and everything appear to be ok. With the lack of available local parts I think I will just re-assemble with spacers and see how she goes. Here's a few shots if you haven't been inside of one of these yet...




Trying to pin down the placement of the spacer. I am thinking it will go above the spring in the space shown on the lower bump in the picture below... gunna be a 2" maybe 1.5" haven't made up my mind yet.



That's about all I can do now... cutting spacers this weekend on a lathe at my friends shop for the re-build. Then just need to get my welder, MIG mix and 3/16 so I can rock and roll... Oh ya and some bump cans, may make but I saw some for $35 each on some parts site, may just save myself the trouble... we will see.