Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

Thanks, Bruce.  I have tabs open for those now and will check them out.  

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Bob, the new boots look great on the little Bronco!  

I love the stance it has now, and hope you have a great time at the off-road ranch!  

Thanks!  I really like the stance with these tires too.  I can't say I love the look of the black wheels.  It's a look that seems to have some attitude behind it, not really what I'm going for.  I'd have preferred brushed or polished aluminum.  Or even white or chrome given the vintage of the truck.  But white steel wheels turn into brown steel wheels pretty fast, you don't see chrome around much (not that that's necessarily a bad thing!) and aluminum get more expensive.  So we'll see what I do when I eventually need new boots.

Not really project-related, but not enough for a separate trip report, so I'll stick it here...

As I mentioned, last weekend I drove the Bronco 650 miles (~12 hours) from Minnesota down to southern Missouri to meet up with some virtual (now actual) friends to go 'wheeling in Southern Missouri Off-Road Ranch (SMORR).

The drive down was... OK.  It rained over half the time and the Bronco's top is not weather tight.  So I got a little wet and some of my gear got quite wet.  The tire noise wasn't bad with ear plugs, but even so I could still hear them.  There was quite a bit of vibration between 58 and 68 mph.  So I could cruise around 70 when the speed limit allowed, but on the smaller highways I was limited to about 55 mph.

Jumping ahead, the vibration was different on the way home, probably from dried mud on the wheels.  It was fine up to 60 mph and then got BAD until about 70, but never smoothed out.  So I was limited to 60 on the way home.  But other than the vibration the tires were very tolerable on the road.

I left around 5:00 AM on Friday so I got to the park on Friday evening, set up camp, had dinner and then found the people I was meeting.  There were a total of 12 vehicles.  The newest was a ~10 year old Jeep Wrangler.  Second newest was a ~30 year old Wrangler.  Third newest was my ~50 year old Bronco!  Fourth was ~70 years old and everything else was Jeeps from the 1940s.

The trails at SMORR are more hills and wet dirt (muddy, but not sink-into-it mud) than the rocks I usually 'wheel on.  It was a lot of fun doing something different and with new people.  A few of those Jeeps are really incredible to watch in action!

My dog (Kenzie) came along on the trip (it was just the two of us).  She'd never been 'wheeling before, and doesn't love car rides.  But she does love being with me.  It went pretty well with her, but definitely her favorite part of 'wheeling is getting out to scout the trail before driving it!

Here's the 12 vehicle lineup.  Some of them did some 'wheeling on Friday before others of us got there, we were all together on Saturday morning, split into two groups for the afternoon, and then all but 4 of us left Saturday evening / Sunday morning.  The rest of us 'wheeled Sunday morning, then headed for home (with me getting home ~1:00 AM on Monday).  Black dogs aren't very photogenic, but Kenzie is tied to the winch on the front of my Bronco.



Here's an optional V-notch that I opted out of, but to give an idea of the terrain.



A view through my windshield down the hill at a Jeep starting up the other side.  Sort of shows how steep some hills were!



And a "waterfall" that we had to get up.  I was able to get my front tires up, and maybe could've "bumped it" hard enough to get the rears up too.  But with needing to be able to drive it home I let the Jeep in front of me give me a little tug to finish the climb.



Edit to add in January 2022:  Here is some video of my Bronco on that trip:



And here's a ride that Kenzie and I got in one of the Jeeps:

Wow!

Very cool!

Man, that looks like fun!  But did the guy get through the v-notch?  That looks hard!

It was fun!

I don't think he made it on that pass, I think he backed out and tried again.  But he did make it.  Then again, he made it everywhere he tried.  That is one amazing vehicle, and he knows how to use it!  There was one hill (sorry, no pictures) where only three of the Jeeps tried it.  They all made it, but it took one Jeep about 15 minutes, with lots of backing up and trying new lines.  It took another about 8 minutes, also with quite a few retries.  This Jeep went up in under 3 minutes, and I think only twice did he need to take a second try at an obstacle.

Edit to add in January 2022:  here's video of these three Jeeps going up this hill:

Wow, he obviously knows how to handle his Jeep.  

The guy with that blue Jeep posted a video of the weekend.  My Bronco makes appearances at 4:18, 9:47, 14:05 and 20:20.  Also Kenzie and I make cameos a few different times scouting the trail or taking video while others are doing something worth taking video of (Kenzie is the only dog on the video, and I'm the only guy with a dog).  Plus at 8:03 Kenzie and I got a ride in another guys Jeep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkT1hGvs4Js

Wow!  That's serious stuff!  I didn't see anything I thought Big Blue could handle, and some of that was just downright awesome to see a vehicle come through, like the V-Notch.

That blue Jeep, and the green one as well, are serious machines.  And the drivers know how to handle them.  But the older Jeeps seem to be quite nimble.  And some sound like they are running the original 4-bangers. Are some of the serious ones autos?

Your Bronco did well.  But you had a rather hard stop at 4:25.  Did you bang up that new slider?  

The trails at SMORR have ratings from 1 (easiest) to 6 (hardest).  We were typically trying to stay on 3 and 4 rated trails, with some of the vehicles occasionally doing a 5.  The parts that were worth posting video were the harder sections, so you are seeing 4s and 5s.  If you were to take Big Blue to SMORR you'd find plenty of trails that you would be able to do.  But really Big Blue could do about anything I did on this trip.  Not to say that you would want to do it with him, or that you should do some of it given you don't have much experience with that type of driving.  But as you start doing some 'wheeling you'll find what kind of trail you can have the most fun on.  And that's the important part.

Yes, the blue Jeep and the green CJ7 (there are a couple other green Jeeps in the video as well) are serious trail rigs.  They are both running Chevy 4.3L Vortec V-6 engines and Torqueflite automatic transmissions and 37" tires.  But really, many of the other vehicles in the group are serious trail rigs as well.  Many (most?) of them have lockers in both axles, and the small vehicle size makes up for the small tires in many cases.  At least two others (the Jeep Kenzie and I got a ride in and the red Jeep) also are running Chevy 4.3L engines, and at least one other is running a Dauntless V6 (a Jeep engine from the late '60s).  Several are running 4 speed manual trannies with a low creeper gear, and at least some have lower than stock transfer case gears.  But I think there were some with stock drivetrains as well.  It's a fun group of guys who have old Jeeps in order to use them, and they know how to use them!

The "hard stop" at 4:25 looked worse than it felt.  I'm having some carb issues, and the engine tends to suddenly drop rpm every once in awhile when it's idling.  Sometimes when that happens the engine stalls.  That happened just as the front wheels dropped down that ledge.  With both cases in low, that resulted in a pretty abrupt stop, but I don't think I hit anything (although hiking up the right rear tire sure looked exciting!).  I did scrape up the rims of my new steel wheels (the reason I got cheap steel wheels instead of the nice factory Alcoas I've been chewing up), and I think I put some new scrapes in my left rear corner, but no major damage.  And I actually haven't taken a close look at the rock slider to see if it has any rashes.

I can see how the engine stopping with all that gearing would cause a pretty quick stop.  And, I can see the right rear wanting to come up then.  But is really did in the video!    Is it time for EFI?

Those guys, pretty much all of them, know what they are doing with those Jeeps.  I could learn a lot from them.  But, I don't think that's the kind of stuff I want to get into.  Janey is good for 1's and 2's, but I'll have to find someone else to do 3's.  And I'll have to learn a lot to do 4's.

I'll be happy to take BB on some overlanding trips where his capabilities are overkill.  But at least we ought to be able to make the trip w/o serious breakage.  And I don't like breaking what I've built.

Gary Lewis wrote

I can see how the engine stopping with all that gearing would cause a pretty quick stop.  And, I can see the right rear wanting to come up then.  But is really did in the video!    Is it time for EFI?

It's not time for EFI yet.  Mostly because there are other things ahead of it on the budget list.  But there's also some bragging rights in driving an old truck that's still an old truck!  But it IS time for a carb rebuild!

Gary Lewis wrote

Those guys, pretty much all of them, know what they are doing with those Jeeps.  I could learn a lot from them.  But, I don't think that's the kind of stuff I want to get into.  Janey is good for 1's and 2's, but I'll have to find someone else to do 3's.  And I'll have to learn a lot to do 4's.

I'll be happy to take BB on some overlanding trips where his capabilities are overkill.  But at least we ought to be able to make the trip w/o serious breakage.  And I don't like breaking what I've built.

  You'll start using it and you'll find what's fun for you to do.  That's what it's all about!

Like I said in the last post, it was time for a carb rebuild.  The biggest issue was the idle dropping abruptly every so often, with the engine often dying as a result.  Last summer once I sprayed carb cleaner around the outside of the carb while the engine was idling and got a big change when I sprayed near either end of the throttle shaft.  So a big issue to address was the worn throttle shaft bearings.

I found this kit on line that included a reamer to open up the existing bearings and bushings to press in.  The reamer shank is the right diameter to pilot the reamer, so the idea is to put the shank through the carb, grab it with a drill and pull it"backward" into the bearings.  That way the enlarged holes stay centered.

That was the idea.  Turns out it wasn't very well executed.  The first problem was that while the shank was the perfect diameter to pilot in the throttle shaft bearings, it wasn't long enough to even stick out the other side much less stick out enough to grab it with the drill chuck.  Oh well, I chucked it in the drill and took the front end to a grinder.  That gave me a good enough "shank" on the front end that I could grab it with the drill chuck there.  Problem one solved.

The second problem was that the back edge of the reamer wouldn't cut.  At all.  Even the soft aluminum.  So I took a grinding wheel in a Dremel and hand-sharpened the back edge of the reamer.  I didn't do a great job, but it would at least cut soft aluminum.  Problem two solved.

The third problem was that the 11 mm OD bushings slid freely into the 10.9 mm reamed holes.  So the reamer was cutting oversize.  I put some epoxy on the OD of the bushings and they're staying put now.  Problem three solved.

So now it's back together.  The throttle shaft moves freely through its entire range.  I started the engine and let it idle briefly.  It idled great, it's not spewing fuel and the idle didn't change when I sprayed carb cleaner around it, so I think I was successful!  I didn't let it idle long since in in the garage, and I'm not taking it out for a drive until the salt is gone, so time will tell how complete the success is.  But for now I'm happy with it.

Man, that is a bunch of problems!  Glad you got through them, and glad the carb now seems to work well.  Good job!  

Good job!

Another small maintenance/repair project completed.  Last fall when I went 'wheeling in Missouri I had a partial power steering pump failure.  I say "partial" because it worked all of the time above about 1500 rpm, but below that every so often the power steering (and power brakes since it's now hydroboost) would suddenly go away.  Kind of exciting when you're idling past a big rock and suddenly need to pull HARD on the steering to keep from veering into it!

So I replaced the power steering pump this weekend.  I borrowed a puller from NAPA to get the  pulley off the old pump and on the new.  That went pretty well.  Took a bit of effort, but everything worked out.  I also had to pull the reservoir off the old pump and put it on the new, but that went easily.

The biggest issue I had was that I had to take the brackets all the way off the engine to get the pump out, and doing that required removing two of the water pump bolts.  While they were out I had a little coolant weeping out of the seam, so I'm afraid I'm going to have a coolant leak there now.  Oh well, that might be a project for this summer.

After getting the fluid flushed and everything buttoned back up I backed the Bronco out of the garage, turned it around and backed it back in.  The next projects require access to the driver's side which I couldn't get at when it was pulled in forward.  The significant thing about that is that I did have a bit of Ford power steering pump whine.  We'll see how that goes once I'm actually driving it.  And the other thing was that it kept dying on me.  Since this was the longest it's run since rebuilding the carb I'm guessing I need to clean or adjust something there.  But it runs like crap any time it's cold, so who knows?  It might be fine once things warm up.

You are running a Saginaw pump and it has a C-II whine?  I've not heard one do that.  Interesting.  Hope the noise goes away.

And even with the rebuilt carb it sometimes dies?  Even after it warms up?  Any chance you have a vacuum line loose?  (You probably don't have many vacuum lines on it?)

Plus you have a coolant leak/weep?  How new is the pump?  Maybe it'll stop with the bolts back in?

As for the next project, doing the driver's side like you did the passenger's side?

Gary Lewis wrote

You are running a Saginaw pump and it has a C-II whine?  I've not heard one do that.  Interesting.  Hope the noise goes away.

Not a Saginaw.  It's for a '76 Ford Bronco.  I don't know when the C-II pumps were used, this might possibly predate that.  But definitely not a Saginaw.

Gary Lewis wrote

And even with the rebuilt carb it sometimes dies?  Even after it warms up?  Any chance you have a vacuum line loose?  (You probably don't have many vacuum lines on it?)

I haven't warmed it up yet.  This was just backing it out of the garage, turning it around and backing it back in.  Having it die today certainly isn't good news, but it's not particularly bad news either.  I'm not really going to worry about it until I do get a chance to warm it up.  On the plus side, it started great every time I tried!  So it'll get there, but there may be a little more carb work before summer.

Gary Lewis wrote

Plus you have a coolant leak/weep?  How new is the pump?  Maybe it'll stop with the bolts back in?

Pump is pretty new.  Maybe 10 years at the most, but even if it's that long it's still only 30K miles.  And it has stopped with the bolts back in, but that's with no pressure.  I'm going to have to keep an eye on it when I get a chance to get it hot.

Gary Lewis wrote

As for the next project, doing the driver's side like you did the passenger's side?

Not quite next, but soon.  First up is finishing the rear drum brake conversion by getting the parking brake working.  The pedal is hidden behind the roll cage "A" pillar bar, so I'm gonna hafta get a little crafty on it.  Driver side rock slider is next after that.  I'm hoping to have both of those wrapped up around the beginning of April.

Interesting.  Learned something.  In this thread on FTE Bill/Numberdummy says:

1965/66: Ford/Thompson P/S pump (1965/66 misc. cars & 1966 F100/250 2WD) had a much larger filler neck and dipstick than...

1967/77 Ford/Thompson "pencil neck" P/S pump (Most FoMoCo vehicles except 1975/77 Econolines & 1972/77 cars with Hydro-Boost).

Has a steel reservoir, P/S pressure hose threads onto the pump.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1978: FoMoCo introduced the new C-II P/S pump, installed on most everything well into the 1990's (and beyond for some) except Econolines & 1978/79 cars with Hydro-Boost.

C-II pump has a plastic reservoir, P/S pressure hose connects to the pump w/a qwik connect fitting.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eaton P/S pump: 1953/64 (edit: except M-E-L engines w/Vickers Drive pump) & some 1965/66 Passenger Cars (mostly 200/289 Mustang/Falcon/Fairlane/Comet).

Depending on applications, the separate reservoir was either mounted on top of the pump or remotely mounted on the left fender inner apron.

As for the running, maybe it'll clear up when it warms up - both the engine and the outside temps.

And you'll be nervous about the water pump leak, so good luck when it does warm up.

On the parking brake pedal, can you space it out and be able to get to it w/o it, or you, hitting the clutch pedal?