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With diesel prices being so high i havent driven the diesel since our last wheelin trip. So, fired it up, and went scrapping!  Visiting my favorite place to shop, MB Glick's, which is right around the corner from my house   Dumped all my steel here, then made a trip the next day in the bronco to dump all my scrap aluminum elsewhere. Ended up with 2040# or steel for $122, and 247# or aluminum for $174. I am officially done with the external tire carrier, it just causes too many problems. 35s are just too heavy to hang off of them. So, i dug out my old interior tire carrier, cleaned it up a bit, and threw it back in the bronco  Maybe down the road ill build some kind of bumper with an external tire carrier, but for now this will suffice. Here we go! XLT bumper off:  Teaser pic:  ...and installed!    Green was the right choice. Looks awesome! Started putting all the extra bits on the bumper this morning  One of the bumper brackets was bent from the deer strike (which i straightened), but i wasnt expecting the brackets for the lightbar to be bent too  all parts, lights & wiring installed, so as long as its not raining tomorrow the bumper swap begins again!  So this summer i built a 'scale' version of the wifey's one-ton bronco, complete with leaf springs front & rear   Meanwhile, in real truck world....i kinda miss my SD bumper  ...which got mangled by a deer last year  Finally got my hands on another one, this timer primer black  Trimming for tire clearance   This time im gonna try my hand at painting it. Never sprayed a metallic color before. Lets gooooo   ....and, i screwed it up.  sanding....  and round two!  This time it came out better. First time i used the wrong reducer, and the wrong amount. Lessons learned, this one isnt perfect either but now i know what to do next time. 3rd times the charm! Visiting family this weekend, so next week i will assemble all the trim, brackets, lights, etc and get the bumper installed on the bronco. Sneak peek from the trip!    Friday we ran a milder day of blues and blacks, but saturday we went out to the NE side in an attempt to run as many Black & Red trails we could get in. All told ran a solid 8.5 miles on Saturday. Only left when we did to get back to the campground so we didnt miss dinner. Ive got a few more pics & video i need to sort through, and i know some other cameras were flying, so we'll see what vid turns up. All loaded up for NOVA's Trailest 2026 @ Rausch Creek!  Taking the kiddo w/ me on Friday, no idea what we're doing but were doing it! Saturday ill be a trail guide for the event, taking a group over to the NE property for a day full of black & red trails. Lets go!!! Sunday we loaded up and went on home. Got everything unloaded and then just sat down and relaxed! Monday i decided to bust open my passenger door and see what happened. I think its safe to say the window isnt salvageable:  what a mess  Door all cleaned up, and ready for a spare window  ...and done!  Just in time too, ended up raining again Monday night. Also, just because i thought it would be cool:  New bearings for my alternator should be showing up tomorrow, which means Friday i should be able to get that rebuilt and then we'll be ready to go for the next trip Saturday! In the morning they got a bunch of broncos together for the group photo for the club. Ended up being too many to see and they had to take the pic with a drone:  Alternator in the bronco started squaling something awful (front bearing) so i opted not to go back out wheeling for fear of it dieing on the trail. So me and the little dude played some mini golf, hit the pool, drove some r/c cars around, etc....basically had a laid back vacation day :smokin: Went back to the pavilion for dinner saturday and the raffles, etc before heading back to the cabin for a fire and some smores!  |