Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

How's that Sony head unit working out for you?

I suppose the shallow frame allows even more room for 'Mission Control' wiring up in the dash.

Worked well until I installed that Garmin, at which point the Sony appeared to forget the iPhone from time to time.  I'd pair it again with the iPhone, although it might have already been paired, and we'd have a connection.  Then later it wouldn't work again.

That's when I did some sleuthing and found the Garmin appeared to be hogging the Bluetooth.  Don't know if it just doesn't play nicely or what, but it would pair with the Sony even when I'd told the Sony to forget it.  Somehow the Garmin would convince the Sony they needed to dance and it would automatically pair.  

Now that I've turned BT off in the Garmin it looks like the Sony connects to the iPhone reliably, but that's only been recently so the jury is still out.

Another small project knocked out.  Last year when I built the front axle I figured out how high I needed to mount my front bump stops to get them functional again.  But when I had it finished and tried cycling the suspension without the springs I realized that I had GREATLY underestimated the amount the bumpstops would compress.  So I needed to raise them still more.  After I got another round toit

Well I finally got that round toit.  The first picture below shows an original bump stop on the bottom with my extended one on top.  I tapped a sleeve so I could thread a piece of ready rod in to extend the stud.  And I made a spacer (to the left and between the two bump stops) to actually raise it.  The second picture shows the passenger's side bump stop installed.

That looks nice!  And the bump stop is not only functional but adjustable.  

Gary Lewis wrote

....  As for what name, it all makes sense.  So, are you going to slap a decal on him?

Nothing Special wrote

Pluto already has his namesake hanging from the rear view mirror and a magnet with his picture on the ash tray in the dash.  I may or may not add more "dog tags" in the future, but this is good for now!

Both of the "dog tags" on Pluto were inside, so it seemed like he needed something on the outside.  And actually having his name seemed like a good idea.  But Lesley thought we could do better than slapping a decal on.

So I touched up the scratched black paint on the bumper and Lesley made a stencil.  After hitting it with some yellow spray paint, Pluto has a dog tag with his signature on it!  (or maybe it's a tramp stamp???  No, Tramp is from a different Disney movie!)

That's cute Bob.
Lesley did a great job too!  

I agree!   (From France.)

Cool!

I was driving from Arizona Saturday and saw a very nice early Bronco, then came up on one being towed.

Then two or three more. Must have been some get together somewhere.

I believe I was on 395 down around Olancha California when I saw them.

They all looked great!

Thanks all!


We just got back from another trip to Southern Missouri Off Road Ranch (SMORR) with Pluto.  I'll do a trip report, but that'll probably take a while as I have a LOT of video to go through!  But for now I'll say here that it was a great trip, Pluto did great, but he did receive the worst damage he's ever received (it seems like I keep saying that...).

(edit to add: here's the trip report)

The worst was a big dent on the top of the right front fender from a tree root (yes, a tree root on the top of the fender, the video will explain it when I get it posted).  That one hurt a bit .  The fender is open behind there, so I might try to push it out.  We'll have to see what happens there.

I also broke one of my auxiliary backup lights.  That wasn't a surprise (the surprise was that I didn't break the other one).  But I knew they were vulnerable, so that's why I buy cheap tractor flood lights.

I don't know if the next issue was trail damage or just old parts wearing out, but the spare tire latch started letting go at inopportune times, letting the spare carrier swing around.  For now a rope is making sure it stays put, but a new latch is in the near future.

And I finally actually bent the rear bumper.  I've hit it a lot over the years, but until this trip it's just been scratches (I have bent both ends of the front bumper).

So here are the pictures of the damage.  Dented fender:


Broken light:


Bent bumper:

Ouch!  That has to hurt.  Hope you get the worst of it repaired.  

Wow!

Sorry to see damage, but on the other hand, I'm glad you use it!

Yeah, I should be surprised it took me this long to dent a (significant) body panel, not surprised that I did it now.  But it still doesn't feel great.

I probably do need to decide what direction I want to take things.  Or more appropriately, if I can justify the direction I want to take things!  As I've said, I really like where Pluto is now.  I can do some pretty serious trails, and at the end of the day drive 20 miles, first on a twisty 55 mph highway and then on a 70 mph freeway to go get pizza with the guys who have to drive their pickups to dinner.  So I don't want to do anything to Pluto to make him better off road, but I do want to keep pushing myself off road.  So I'd like to get another trail rig that I wouldn't be upset to lay on its side (that happened three times on this trip! just not to me!).  But I can't even justify that to myself right now, let alone sell Lesley on it!  So should I quit trying to push farther?  Or just expect more of this?  Life is full of such hard questions  

Hmmm...

Sounds like you need one of those Magic Eight Balls!

Today I repaired the tire carrier latch.  (As a reminder, when we were at SMORR in October it let the carrier swing open a couple of times on the trail.)  I had actually bought a new latch, but when I got it I saw that it was just rough stamped sheet metal, bare steel, with no coating on the handle.  By contrast the original latch doesn't have burrs or sharp edges, it's galvanized, and it has a rubber or plastic coating on the handle.  So I returned the new latch and finally got around to fixing the old one.

I thought I'd take a picture of the repair at some point, but evidently I was wrong!  I got it put back together before I bothered to get a camera, so you'll just have to trust me on this one!

The main issue was that the pivot hole was all wallowed out.  So I welded it back in, ground and filed the excess away and drilled a new hole.  That took care of the slop in the movement of the latch, but there was still some slop where the latch grabs onto the carrier.  So I built up that point on the latch with the welder and ground and filed it back to where it fits tight.

Hopefully that will take care of that issue!

Hey Bob!

I tagged you to another thread....
How do you feel about Richmond gear for a spider set?
I can find Dana/Spicer for the rest of what I need, but it's that or Motive for the spider & pin..

https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Source-for-repop-axle-tags-tp145638.html

I'm glad you got that fixed!  I'd hate for that to swing open and knock me down.  

Seriously though, that sounds like a good fix, although pics to prove it would have been nice.  But maybe I'll just look at it in 117 days?

As I think about it, getting ready for a big trip is about as much fun as the trip itself, so I'll bet you are having fun.  Little (big?) improvements like that make all the difference.  

It mostly swung open when Pluto was starting to flex a bit on an obstacle, so I think you'd've been safe!

And yes, planning a trip (and also reporting on it afterward) extends the fun!

Today I finished a project that I started pre-Covid!  When I was first building Pluto I converted the rear brakes to disks.  But I found that the rear disks weren't really necessary, and they cost me a parking brake.  So in January 2020 I converted the rear brakes back to stock drums.  Well as of today I finally have a working parking brake!

There were a few things other than just getting back to drum brakes that was required.  First I had to modify the parking brake pedal so I could reach it past the roll cage.  But early Broncos don't have the cable from the pedal pull directly against the cables to the brakes.  I tried hooking it up that way, but there's not enough leverage in the pedal assembly.  I only got a couple of clicks before I couldn't press it any farther, and it wasn't setting the brakes nearly hard enough to work at that point.  So I had to recreate the lever they have underneath, to get more travel from the pedal, with more leverage.

The problem I had was that I had cut off the pivot point for that lever (it was in the way of the line lock I had been hoping to use as a parking brake).  So a while back (some time when I had the transfer case out for another project) I welded this plate into the bottom of Pluto, with a couple of threaded holes where I could bolt in a pivot point (circled in red).


Now I finally got around to making a piece to bolt into those holes and provide the pivot point.  I was able to get the rest of the stock parts and put it together.  Pluto is in the garage, so I can't REALLY test it, but I can push the pedal almost all the way to the floor before it won't go any farther.  So I'm definitely getting more leverage.  Hopefully that will translate into a solid parking brake!

Here's a picture of the pivot point bolted in (sorry, kind of hard to see black-on-black)


and here's the entire linkage hooked up

Well done!  I'll bet that works very well.  

Pluto has an on-board air compressor, mostly for powering the "toad brakes"* when I'm towing him behind the motorhome.  But since I have on-board air I use it to run the front locker and to air up tires when we get off the trail.  The compressor I've had for many years now does great with the first two tasks, but it's a bit slow when airing up 4 big tires from 12 to 30 psi.

A year or so ago I heard about an air compressor that Napa was selling for a pretty good price that was supposed to be really fast for a 12V compressor.  I picked one up, thinking I'd hard-mount it in place of the old compressor.  But now when I finally got around to unboxing it I realized that wasn't going to work.

It's quite a bit bigger than the old compressor, and I don't think it'd fit in the same location.  But the bigger concern was how thick the power cables were!  I checked the stat sheet in the box and saw that it draws a maximum of 90 amps!  When I'm towing Pluto I'm keeping his battery charged through the +12V wire in the trailer light connector.  That's not going to handle the current this new compressor will draw!  Maybe it would've just run on Pluto's battery and then trickle-charge.  But it didn't seem like a good thing to do.

So instead I put an Anderson plug on the new compressor's power cable.  That lets me plug it into the electrical connections I have for the winch rather than count on alligator clips.  There's a relay that shuts off the power to the winch connection when it's not in use, so I added a wire from the old compressor's power supply to the relay.  That way both compressors will shut off when the pressure gets above 100psi.

Finally I made a hose that connects the new compressor into Pluto's air system.  So now I can run just the old compressor (which I'll use for the toad brakes and the locker) or both compressors (when I'm airing up tires).

Pluto has a 2.5 gallon air tank, and I also hooked up an additional 5 gallon tank.  With just the old compressor it took almost 10.5 minutes to come up to pressure.  With both compressors it only took 3 minutes.  And the test wasn't quite fair because I had the engine running for the first test, but not for the second.  Both compressors would be faster yet if they were getting the higher voltage from a running alternator!

Here's a picture of the new compressor hooked up to Pluto's air system and plugged in to the Anderson connector.  I don't have to use it this way, I can use it as a stand-alone (I have Anderson connectors on Oswald (my pickup) and on Lesley's Jeep Renegade).  But having the air tank is nice enough that I decided to do it this way on Pluto.



* I've described this before, but toad brakes are brakes on a vehicle that's being towed.  Pluto has an air cylinder that pushes on the brake pedal, with a proportional solenoid providing more air pressure when it sees a higher voltage from the conventional trailer brake controller in the motorhome.  That keeps me legal rather than if I was towing a 4000 lb trailer with no trailer brakes.