Nothing Special's '71 Bronco

[Gary Lewis]

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.

Looks like it'll work great.

(However, you may not need it this round in Moab.)

[Nothing Special]

Looks like it'll work great.

(However, you may not need it this round in Moab.)

I know your compressor will make short work of however many tires it need to fill. But I'll have a lot more capability than I was otherwise going to have anyway.

[Gary Lewis]

I know your compressor will make short work of however many tires it need to fill. But I'll have a lot more capability than I was otherwise going to have anyway.

Yes, and having that capability at the end of a long day on the trail is very welcome. You'll like having the new compressor.

[Nothing Special]

Yes, and having that capability at the end of a long day on the trail is very welcome. You'll like having the new compressor.

As I reported in the "What have you done..." thread, I got Pluto out of hibernation this weekend. Everything went great getting him running, so I've been driving him.

But on Sunday I couldn't roll the driver's window down. It stopped with an audible "clunk" so I could tell it was hitting something, not just binding up.

Last night I took the panel off the door and found that one of the two tabs had broken where the lower track is bolted to the door. So I pulled it out, welded it back up, threw a little spray paint on it, and tonight put it back together after the paint dried. Now it's as good as old! (it works like it did before, meaning it does bind up a bit, but will go up and down all the way)

Here a picture of the tab clamped together to be welded, and then a couple after welding and grinding the mounting surface back flat. Definitely not a show-worthy weld, but it's hard to weld something so small and thin. And I didn't burn through it or anything, so I'm counting it a win!

[Gary Lewis]

As I reported in the "What have you done..." thread, I got Pluto out of hibernation this weekend. Everything went great getting him running, so I've been driving him.

But on Sunday I couldn't roll the driver's window down. It stopped with an audible "clunk" so I could tell it was hitting something, not just binding up.

Last night I took the panel off the door and found that one of the two tabs had broken where the lower track is bolted to the door. So I pulled it out, welded it back up, threw a little spray paint on it, and tonight put it back together after the paint dried. Now it's as good as old! (it works like it did before, meaning it does bind up a bit, but will go up and down all the way)

Here a picture of the tab clamped together to be welded, and then a couple after welding and grinding the mounting surface back flat. Definitely not a show-worthy weld, but it's hard to weld something so small and thin. And I didn't burn through it or anything, so I'm counting it a win!

That looks like a WIN! And no one is going to see it, so who cares how it looks if it holds.

[Nothing Special]

That looks like a WIN! And no one is going to see it, so who cares how it looks if it holds.

Time to catch this thread up after our Moab trip. Pluto was obviously involved in the 'wheeling on the trip, but I covered that in the trip thread, so you can see that there.

Pluto did well on this trip (as he always does!), and I still don't have any changes I want to make. But I did come home with a few projects none-the-less.

The first one is already done (just not by me). For years Pluto has been weeping some coolant from the water pump. On this trip the weeping increased to ugly crying. I couldn't just live with it anymore. I've had the pump off a few times over the years, with less than great results stopping the weeping. So that and not wanting to spend too much time on Pluto as I'm trying to get started on Oswald made me decide to take it in. They did tell me there was some damage to the timing cover that might have been contributing to my inability to get it sealed. So there's a new cover now too. Hopefully this will last a while.

The second issue is done already too. I'll post more about it soon, but quickly here, the bed sides have been spreading out for a while, making it harder to open and close the tail gate. On this trip I finally couldn't get it closed. Short-term I used ratchet straps to pull the sides in, but now I put a bar across the top of the opening. It restricts loading a little, but it's not like this is a pickup truck where I'll be loading big things regularly. So I think it'll be fine. Again, more detail on that coming.

Third I need to address soon. I dropped off a bigger ledge than I should have (Lesley calls some of the ledges you drop off a "dippy-doo." This one was a "dippy-don't"!). I caught the spare tire on the ledge. It doesn't look like I bent the body where the tire carrier mounts, or the tailgate where the latch mounts. But I definitely bent both the carrier and the latch. I don't know if I need to do anything about the carrier yet, but the latch doesn't keep the carrier from swinging out at all now. Short-term another tie-down strap was pressed into service, but I need to fix this soon.

Last is tires. I'd been saying that I was looking forward to getting new off-road tires because the ProComp Xtreme MT2s are so loud on the highway. Well, careful about what you wish for! I sliced two sidewalls, one of them pretty bad. Both tires were still holding air, but I replaced the worst one with a used tire that's an inch smaller, so I definitely need to replace that now. I think I'll get 4 new tires, but I don't know what I'm going to get yet. The next planned 'wheeling trip is in October, and I'm back on my smaller street tires, so there's not a big hurry on this one.

[Nothing Special]

Time to catch this thread up after our Moab trip. Pluto was obviously involved in the 'wheeling on the trip, but I covered that in the trip thread, so you can see that there.

Pluto did well on this trip (as he always does!), and I still don't have any changes I want to make. But I did come home with a few projects none-the-less.

The first one is already done (just not by me). For years Pluto has been weeping some coolant from the water pump. On this trip the weeping increased to ugly crying. I couldn't just live with it anymore. I've had the pump off a few times over the years, with less than great results stopping the weeping. So that and not wanting to spend too much time on Pluto as I'm trying to get started on Oswald made me decide to take it in. They did tell me there was some damage to the timing cover that might have been contributing to my inability to get it sealed. So there's a new cover now too. Hopefully this will last a while.

The second issue is done already too. I'll post more about it soon, but quickly here, the bed sides have been spreading out for a while, making it harder to open and close the tail gate. On this trip I finally couldn't get it closed. Short-term I used ratchet straps to pull the sides in, but now I put a bar across the top of the opening. It restricts loading a little, but it's not like this is a pickup truck where I'll be loading big things regularly. So I think it'll be fine. Again, more detail on that coming.

Third I need to address soon. I dropped off a bigger ledge than I should have (Lesley calls some of the ledges you drop off a "dippy-doo." This one was a "dippy-don't"!). I caught the spare tire on the ledge. It doesn't look like I bent the body where the tire carrier mounts, or the tailgate where the latch mounts. But I definitely bent both the carrier and the latch. I don't know if I need to do anything about the carrier yet, but the latch doesn't keep the carrier from swinging out at all now. Short-term another tie-down strap was pressed into service, but I need to fix this soon.

Last is tires. I'd been saying that I was looking forward to getting new off-road tires because the ProComp Xtreme MT2s are so loud on the highway. Well, careful about what you wish for! I sliced two sidewalls, one of them pretty bad. Both tires were still holding air, but I replaced the worst one with a used tire that's an inch smaller, so I definitely need to replace that now. I think I'll get 4 new tires, but I don't know what I'm going to get yet. The next planned 'wheeling trip is in October, and I'm back on my smaller street tires, so there's not a big hurry on this one.

Here's the "more detail."

I thought about what I might do to get the bed sides to pull back in where they belong, and I couldn't imagine anything that would be likely to work and not be a MAJOR project. So the easiest option seemed like the best: attaching a bar across the top of the tailgate opening.

The Bronco tub has stake pockets at the back corners, so I could put backing plates inside the pockets rather than just attach to the sheet metal. Here's a picture looking at the passenger's side corner from the front. The Phillips head screws hold the backing plates in position. There's a backing plate against the front side of the pocket and one against the inside surface, to spread the load. There are two nuts welded to each plate. You can see the nut threads in some of the holes.

Then I welded up a bracket to attach to the two plates.

Then that all was repeated on the driver's side.

I didn't get pictures of the next step, but I cut a 1" square tube to be a tight fit between the brackets on the two sides when the sides were pulled in to where the tailgate fit correctly. Then I tacked the bar to the brackets and removed it all to weld and paint it.

Here is the finished product.

As I said above, yes it partly blocks the bed. But this isn't a truck. I can't put anything very big in there anyway, because there's so little room behind the seats. I'm sure there will be times when it's in the way. But I don't thing it'll be often. And worst comes to worst, it's just bolted in. But at this point I'm happy with it!

[Gary Lewis]

Here's the "more detail."

I thought about what I might do to get the bed sides to pull back in where they belong, and I couldn't imagine anything that would be likely to work and not be a MAJOR project. So the easiest option seemed like the best: attaching a bar across the top of the tailgate opening.

The Bronco tub has stake pockets at the back corners, so I could put backing plates inside the pockets rather than just attach to the sheet metal. Here's a picture looking at the passenger's side corner from the front. The Phillips head screws hold the backing plates in position. There's a backing plate against the front side of the pocket and one against the inside surface, to spread the load. There are two nuts welded to each plate. You can see the nut threads in some of the holes.

Then I welded up a bracket to attach to the two plates.

Then that all was repeated on the driver's side.

I didn't get pictures of the next step, but I cut a 1" square tube to be a tight fit between the brackets on the two sides when the sides were pulled in to where the tailgate fit correctly. Then I tacked the bar to the brackets and removed it all to weld and paint it.

Here is the finished product.

As I said above, yes it partly blocks the bed. But this isn't a truck. I can't put anything very big in there anyway, because there's so little room behind the seats. I'm sure there will be times when it's in the way. But I don't thing it'll be often. And worst comes to worst, it's just bolted in. But at this point I'm happy with it!

That looks good to me, Bob. Easy to remove but very solid when in place.

[mat in tn]

That looks good to me, Bob. Easy to remove but very solid when in place.

this may be a great example of the simplest solution being the best. well done.

[grumpin]

Here's the "more detail."

I thought about what I might do to get the bed sides to pull back in where they belong, and I couldn't imagine anything that would be likely to work and not be a MAJOR project. So the easiest option seemed like the best: attaching a bar across the top of the tailgate opening.

The Bronco tub has stake pockets at the back corners, so I could put backing plates inside the pockets rather than just attach to the sheet metal. Here's a picture looking at the passenger's side corner from the front. The Phillips head screws hold the backing plates in position. There's a backing plate against the front side of the pocket and one against the inside surface, to spread the load. There are two nuts welded to each plate. You can see the nut threads in some of the holes.

Then I welded up a bracket to attach to the two plates.

Then that all was repeated on the driver's side.

I didn't get pictures of the next step, but I cut a 1" square tube to be a tight fit between the brackets on the two sides when the sides were pulled in to where the tailgate fit correctly. Then I tacked the bar to the brackets and removed it all to weld and paint it.

Here is the finished product.

As I said above, yes it partly blocks the bed. But this isn't a truck. I can't put anything very big in there anyway, because there's so little room behind the seats. I'm sure there will be times when it's in the way. But I don't thing it'll be often. And worst comes to worst, it's just bolted in. But at this point I'm happy with it!

Good job!