My new (to me) 71 Bronco | Build Thread

[Mikes79Bronco]

I bought my first EB last week, I'm not new to the bronco world but I'm new to the EB world. I have a 79 with a full frame off restoration going on & decided I wanted an EB to enjoy while that one is down for the build. The 71 won't be going through a full restoration anytime soon but there is plenty of work to be done on in the meantime.

1971 Bronco
Engine: 289 V8
Transmission: NP435
Transfer Case: Dana 20 with twin sticks
Rear End: 9 Inch
Front End: D44 Disc brake (I believe its either from or it was converted to the 76-77 style brakes)
Tires: 35x12.5 BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain

I picked it up a few hours away from me in Wisconsin. He said he bought it from someone in Florida last year, other than that I don't know anything about its history (I need to get a marti report). It has some rust, it has some dents but overall I'm pretty happy with he condition of the body. It leaks & drips from just about everywhere, has bump steer, death wobble, wrist pin knock and is an electrical nightmare. I've already started addressing some of that, hopefully I'll have it more road worthy in the next few weeks. The goal right now is just to get it road worthy and enjoy it for the summer.

 

[DirtDonk]

Nice start! And another green ‘71 as well.
Must’ve been a popular color at that point, and three of us (two buddies and me) had them.

Is yours an early (with Dana 30), or a late (with Dana 44) front end?
Do you know what gears are in it yet?

 

[sprdv1]

I bought my first EB last week, I'm not new to the bronco world but I'm new to the EB world. I have a 79 with a full frame off restoration going on & decided I wanted an EB to enjoy while that one is down for the build. The 71 won't be going through a full restoration anytime soon but there is plenty of work to be done on in the meantime.

1971 Bronco
Engine: 289 V8
Transmission: NP435
Transfer Case: Dana 20 with twin sticks
Rear End: 9 Inch
Front End: D44 Disc brake (I believe its either from or it was converted to the 76-77 style brakes)
Tires: 35x12.5 BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain

I picked it up a few hours away from me in Wisconsin. He said he bought it from someone in Florida last year, other than that I don't know anything about its history (I need to get a marti report). It has some rust, it has some dents but overall I'm pretty happy with he condition of the body. It leaks & drips from just about everywhere, has bump steer, death wobble, wrist pin knock and is an electrical nightmare. I've already started addressing some of that, hopefully I'll have it more road worthy in the next few weeks. The goal right now is just to get it road worthy and enjoy it for the summer.

Nice ride make.. Congrats on the score

 

[sprdv1]

Oh and my apologies WELCOME ABOARD

You found just the right spot with all the know how

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

Nice start! And another green ‘71 as well.
Must’ve been a popular color at that point, and three of us (two buddies and me) had them.

Is yours an early (with Dana 30), or a late (with Dana 44) front end?
Do you know what gears are in it yet?

Thanks, it was repainted at some point. I'm not in love with the color but I've owned worse colors

It has the D44 front with disc brakes, which from what I understand the disc brakes wouldn't have been factory until 76? I was told it has 4.10 gears but haven't confirmed that yet. It feels right for 4.10s though so I have no reason to doubt that.

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

Oh and my apologies WELCOME ABOARD

You found just the right spot with all the know how

Thanks! Looking forward to being here and out of the FB groups!

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

Since I bought it I've done a few quick things to get it on the road.

Death Wobble:
The biggest factor in the death wobble seamed to be low tire pressure, turns out the valve caps were causing a slow air leak. I replaced those and seem to be holding air fine now, but that's where the quick fixes end. I found really loose wheel bearings on the drivers side, and bad lower ball joints on both sides. I tore into the bearings on the drivers side and replaced them since I was able to get them locally the same day. The ball joints I ordered, I have them now but haven't had time to get them in yet. I also have an adjustable trac bar sitting here & steering stabilizer kit.

Bump Steer:
I have a new pitman arm on the way that should help with the bump steer. The trac bar and drag link angles are way off of each other. It has what I'm 99% sure is the 2wd F100 steering box conversion on it along with a drop pitman arm. I ordered what I believe is a stock pitman arm for that box with no drop. The draglink is so low it hits the tie rod on bumps. Hopefully clearing up the bump steer issue will also help with the death wobble issue.

Electrical:
I started diving into the electrical, its such a mess that I'm just going to build a completely new harness. Its obvious that someone or a lot of someone's have patched it together for years. When I first turned the headlights on I just got a cloud of smoke from behind the dash. So in an effort to get it back on the road I did some temporary wiring to get the headlights, markers, turns & brake lights working. I've got a bunch of electrical components on order right now, I'll start patching in new wiring in the next few weeks.

I had to get into the turn signal switch to get the brake lights working, cleaned up the contacts and everything is working better but still needs work. I need to order a new switch & horn contact pad, the horn contacts are broken on this one and if you put pressure on the switch the wrong way sometimes the right rear turn signal will stop working until you move it around. The signals also do not self cancel, looking around at parts it looks like I have a pieces missing in my column that should be doing the cancel. I've seen some other threads mentioning that these switches are very problematic and fail frequently. Does anyone have any recommendations on possibly the best one or are they all the same?

This update got a little long winded but I wanted to catch the thread up. Right now I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do about the wrist pin knock. I'm leaning towards finding and engine or short block to drop in for the summer, I'd rather not do an engine build at this time. So if anyone has anything laying around let me know!

 

[svastano]

Nice Start! Get out your wallet! LOL

 

[sprdv1]

Thanks! Looking forward to being here and out of the FB groups!

you mean you don't just love FB?

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

Nice Start! Get out your wallet! LOL

It's off to a pricey start

Bronco stuff definitely isn't as cheap as it was 17yrs ago when I got my 79.

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

you mean you don't just love FB?

Oh yes I really love not being able to follow a thread or even find the same thread 5 minutes later

But marketplace is alright, even if it does make me drag home a bunch of junk

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

Picked up a 302 last night out of a 72 F-100, supposedly running when pulled. Looks to be a completely stock engine other than a new aftermarket carb. I'll clean it up, go through it quickly, swap some parts from the 289 & throw it in the bronco for the summer. I'll likely do an engine build or order a blueprint engine for it this winter, I just wanted something to get me through the summer.

 

[sprdv1]

Oh yes I really love not being able to follow a thread or even find the same thread 5 minutes later

But marketplace is alright, even if it does make me drag home a bunch of junk

LOL, I get it brother..

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

I guess it's been awhile since I've updated this thread, so here's the updates:

The engine that I picked up may have been running when it was pulled but it certainly wasn't stored in doors like the seller said. When I pulled the plugs water came gushing out of most of the cylinders. I know I should have pulled the plugs and taken a peak inside before buying it but I trusted the seller, this ones on me for not doing my due diligence. After getting a camera in the bores some cylinders looked good, while others looked terrible. I'll spare you all the time of looking through the 150+ photos that we took in the cylinders and just give you 2 highlights (not necessarily the best or worst just 2 quick ones I found). Photos are from after breaking it free and cycling it a bit.

So after discovering that I had to decide what I was going to do with these engines again. I finally decided to order a stock long block, everyone was months out for this thing but Summit's site claimed it would ship next day but it was $500 more but the next day shipping made the decisions easy. I didn't believe it because everyone is using the same reman company and Summit was the only one claiming next day shipping from the ATK, so I reached out to customer service and they reassured me that it was in stock and would ship the next business day. Well after a week of waiting for it to ship I finally contacted them, it turns out it was also months out just like everyone else. So after a little bit of a hassle and some back and forth I finally got them to price match and kept the order. I ordered on June 16th, its not supped to ship July 29th, we'll see if that happens.

So that put me back in a situation where I had a ticking time bomb of an engine and no solid replacement. So like any other sane person decided to strap the water filled engine to a pallet and try to get it started. Threw a distributor on there and stuck a fuel line down in a gas can, ran jumper cables from the forklift to power this contraption and we had a running engine.

To my surprise it actually ran pretty damn well, better than the 289 that was in the bronco. So I made the decision to swap it in until the new block came in.

Its been running well and better than the 289 ever did, at this point I've put about 1,000 miles on this engine. It has more low end torque than the 289 did but the 289 had more high end, I have to send one of these back as a core but the other will be for sale at some point so if anyone has any interest in either one let me know.

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

A few weeks ago I found a hard top for sale on marketplace that looked like it would be good enough to get me through the winter (I didn't get any tops with this bronco). It was 150 miles away so I was a little hesitant thinking that it may be further gone than I wanted to deal with when I finally got to see it in person, but the seller sent some more photos and it looked to be in decent shape. So I went to go get that and found it to be in a bit better condition than I expected which was a nice surprise.

But then after driving around in the middle of summer with no top at all I quickly realized that I wanted a soft top to block the sun over the roof so I ordered the Rampage Extreme top. Got that installed this past weekend and have been loving it. I didn't realize how much stuff got bolted on for the soft top that would have to be removed for the hard top to be used so at this point I'm not sure if I'm keeping the hard top or not. I would still like it for the winter but I'm not sure that I'll drive it enough overt he winter to justify the hassle, just too much salt on the roads around here.

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

Now I'm trying to prep for the cold months here so I started investigating the doors that came with the bronco. I haven't dug in too deep yet, I still need to get the passenger door stripped down and start making a parts list and deciding if I keep these or start fresh. I started with the drivers door, started with just looking for rust and stripping anything in the way of finding rust. Removed 1/2" of bondo from multiple places on the door. The one thing that I've been looking for but haven't come across is replace sheet metal for the bottoms of these doors, does anyone sell them or do I just have to make them myself?

Thats about it for now, I've done some other random electrical repairs but nothing major has been done there yet. At this point just trying to enjoy it for what little is left of the winter and I'm sure a lot will happen this winter.

 

[DirtDonk]

Great update! Thanks. I’m glad things are rolling along. Even if it’s not quite as planned…

 

[sprdv1]

Now I'm trying to prep for the cold months here so I started investigating the doors that came with the bronco. I haven't dug in too deep yet, I still need to get the passenger door stripped down and start making a parts list and deciding if I keep these or start fresh. I started with the drivers door, started with just looking for rust and stripping anything in the way of finding rust. Removed 1/2" of bondo from multiple places on the door. The one thing that I've been looking for but haven't come across is replace sheet metal for the bottoms of these doors, does anyone sell them or do I just have to make them myself?

Thats about it for now, I've done some other random electrical repairs but nothing major has been done there yet. At this point just trying to enjoy it for what little is left of the winter and I'm sure a lot will happen this winter.

What little is left of summer you say?

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

What little is left of summer you say?

There's a little left

 

[Mikes79Bronco]

This thread is way behind, I'll start dumping some updates as I have time.

I was working on the dash and removed the windshield retainer knobs and realized how bad the window frame is. So I did some quick repairs on it to get through this next summer, maybe next winter I'll do a whole new windshield frame. I mostly just needed to be able to get the windshield bolted back in for now because the retainers for the nuts fell in. So i cut a few plates and welded some 3/8 nuts to the back to get it done quickly. It should work fine for awhile.