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Got out of work late today. Walked in the garage to see this:  That didnt take long! Got the rear end up and tires off:  That flexible Olsa light is pretty cool  Yikes  Popping the diff cover  This 10.25 had 150k on it when i put it in 125k ago. Looks pretty decent inside for 275k!  I got the drum all cleaned up but thats about all i had time for. Tomorrow morning ill pull the hub and get those oil soaked brake parts swapped out. Success  Did a quick spin around the block, no highway speeds yet but the alignment seemed good. Made an adjustment to the draglink to center the steering wheel better, will need to drive again later in the week. Got it done just in time; the green bronco got jealous and decided that it would be a good idea to have a rear wheel seal start leaking, so that one is now in the garage so i can do wheel seals and rear brakes tomorrow  Havent driven the diesel in two months so i pulled it up to the garage door so i can drive it to work tonight. Immediately afterwards i lost the leys. Spent about a half hour looking for them before i gave up, went inside and grabbed the spare set. Guess ill look for those again tomorrow after work. Ok, so. High-steer just doesnt work with coils & radius arms, its a packaging nightmare. So lets do something else. One new draglink and tie-rod custom made by my friends over at EMS Offroad, with a fresh cvoat of Chassis Black on them. The draglink is 1.25" .250" wall, and for the tierod we stepped up to 1.5" .375" wall. Beef!  If im replacing the tubing, im replacing the TREs. For the draglink im running ES2027L and ES2234R. For the tierod im running ES2233L and another ES2234R. The ES2233L needed to be reamed larger to fir the ES22334R  Since the tierod got bigger my original clamp mount for the steering ram wouldnt fit, so i made a new one
After 20+ years of wheeling abuse, the tapered holes in the knuckles were getting a bit sloppy. So i ordered a set of tapered repair sleeves from ORD. There's a re bit mnore expensive than most other, but they are also a lot nicer than pretty much everyone elses too.
With the steering links installed and a rough alignment done, i found a problem  When steering left to full lock, the bigger ram clamp contacts the diff cover   The simplest solution, seemed to be to move the fixed ram mount left towards the center of the vehicle, so the clamp could go further left as well, and hopefully clear the diff cover. The original mount:  Tabs cut off/cleaned up:  ...and flipped around, to move the ram 1.5" closer to the center of the truck. I also added that small gusset between the tabs to stiffen it up a bit  Much better now!  Full right:  ...and full left. Much better now  Nothing left to do now, but a proper front-end alignment, and then i threw the rollers back on. All thats left now is to get it outside, put the 42s back on, make sure the brakes and steering are 100%, and we're done!  Ive had a CB radio or two in this thing over the years. But, no one really uses citizens band on the trails anymore, so i havent actually used it in a few years now. So, since the bronco is already in the garage for the winter i figured nows the time to replace my old Cobra, with a proper GMRS unit. Enter the MXT575 from Midland:  Comes packaged nicely, and includes everything you need for install, from power wires to a small magnetic base antenna  The radio itself is smaller than some CBs ive had in the past, and looks like itll be pretty easy to mount  Step one is to open up the dash and remove the old CB unit. Can you see it?  This is an old Cobra 75 WXST All-In-One CB units, where all the controls are in the mic, leaving a small TX/RX unit you can hide somewhere (like i did inside the dash). Here's the whole thing:  Ok enough chitchait, lets get this the Midland installed. So right off the bat its obvious its not going to fit inside the dash, but it will fit where the ash tray is. Since i dont smoke, it seems like the perfect place to put it! I removed the ash tray from the mounting bracket  Had to make some room for the radio mount, so i trimmed the sides a bit, and added a couple rivnuts for a mounting location  ...and there you go! That was simple enough  The original power source for my CB radio...  ...now modified for the new radio's power plug  ...that was easy enough to do. Next up is the antenna. I could have used the small magnetic base antenna it came with, but i figured with the tight trail network in our area, it would always be getting knocked about by tree branches. So i opted for this antenna from Retevis. I figure with its flexible base it should probably survive getting caught on trees, and if not, well, at least it wasnt very expensive
Now all we have to do it run the antenna wire, and get the radio hooked up  ...and the final install!  Fits in the space like it was made to go there by Ford  |
