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With the fender repaired, its time to fix the bronco's tire carrier. Took a couple days, but parts have been sourced! First thing we need to deal with is these very shot hinges  They may not look or feel loose, but once the carrier is off the truck, both hinges were quite sloppy. Pulling the pins out revealed some very loose plastic bushings  Fortunately, Bronco Graveyard sells a hinge repair kit, which includes new Gr8 bolts, and oil impregnated brass bushings  New bushings getting installed
They fit the swing arm perfectly, and were easy to install. The next problem is with the latch striker on the tailgate:  Nobody sells a replacement striker bushing. Bronco Graveyard seels an entire replacement striker plate, but its not cheap, and i cant see buying it when we only need a bushing. So i did some digging around online, and found some garolite tubing which, as it turns out, is already the perfect size, and cheap  One small piece cut off the end  ...and done!
With that installed, all that was left to do was simply reinstall the tire carrier
Job complete! The new bushings have tightened it up quite nicely. It moves nice and smooth now, and the garolite seems to be holding up ok as a striker bushing, altho its only been a few days. As it turns out, the phantom squeak ive had coming from the rear corner seems to be gone now too! Last time...  Got a chance to mess with them, on a night where it wasnt raining  They hotspot a bit (i guess theyre more of spotlights than flood lights), but they still do a good job of lighting up behind the truck. The driveway isnt flat, so theyll probably nee4d some minor adjusting once i get it back on the road. But, thats good enough for now, lets move to the interior, shall we? After almost 30 years, i guess its time to replace the OEM paper core speakers. Oh and maybe switch to a double din headunit while im in there?  Out with the old...  ...and in with the new!
Had to buy a set of 1/4" spacers, because the bigger magnets didnt fit inside the C-pillar  Much better.  Moving on to the doors...
While i was in there, and since i had some extra laying around, i decided to add some sound deadener to the doors:  ...and done!  For reference, the one-touch window module i spliced into the down circuit for the driver window. The module is from, IIRC, a Taurus. Theyre in lots of mid 90s Ford cars.  Since the door panel was off, i took the time to install a repair bracket in the door from Complete Performance:
While i was in there, i managed to break not one but two pins in the socket for the door switches, rendering my door locks unusable. Guess we're gonna fix that too!  Theres a locking tab you can push in on, here, that will release whats left of the pin
I suppose you could cut the socket out of a junkyard truck, remove the pin w/ pigtail and splice it into your harness, but then the color wouldnt match! I very carefully removed a good pin from a junkyard socket, and then carefully recrimped it onto my original wire, because i like doing things the hard way:  With both wires now fixed i could finally finish up with the doors...
...and turn my attention to the dash. So, our nes headunit. A Sony XAV-AX3200, with backup camera, and an install kit from Metro
The first cut in the dash. No going back now!  While possible, it is not easy to get this bracket out of the dash. In my case, it was in the way of the radio, and had to go.  My dash was basically crumbling around the heater controls, and was going to need some work  I picked up this clever dash repair bracket from OBS Interiors. It fits in behind the dash, to clamp the heater controls against the dash. I also epoxied most of the pieces back into the dash, just to have a bit more to clamp against (you can see ive just started that, in this pic)  Cutting the trim...  ...and done!
The Metra kit fits the dash quite well! This is the most important part though...the backup camera!  I set the camera angle so the edge of the receiver is just in view at the very bottom, i figure thatll help me keep my perspective when backing up. Also, puts the hitch in a great spot in the view! ALso, my rear lights seem to work well, looks like backing up in the dark is going to be a piece of cake now:  This is going to be a game changer! Now i just need my shackles, and i can finish the SD spring swap! So my original setup after doing the aluminum bed, i put a set of large reverse lights right in the back  While they do work, the problem is the light isnt very usable, as you cant see that area from the driver seat. Also, i discovered that if i needed to haul something with the tailgate down, that the gate blocks the lights in the bed frame. While its unlikely ill need to do so (it is a 9' bed afterall), it still seemed like a good idea to do something about it. So step one, was to replace the reverse lights with a set of combo STT/Reverse lights. This should solve my potential taillight issue, but also still cast a little bit of light back there for backing up at night.  So now i need proper reverse lights. So i picked up a set of 4" lights from Nilight:  Mounted here, still need to be aimed. Pretty sure these will cast enough light down & out that ill be able to see better in the dark.  Wires run:  ...and terminated with Deutsch connectors so i can still unplug the lights if necessary  I think this will do better  Those should cast plenty of light down & out so i can see, and the two in the middle should be just enough light shining on the trailer hitch in the dark. Also, if you noticed, theres now a backup camera mounted on the license plate. More to come on that soon... So the F250 has been sitting idle...  ...because i made a tragic error. The PMF shackle doesnt fit in Sky's shackle hangar!  It might look like its close, but its not. The upper bushing is too big, and it uses a 3/4" bolt instead of 5/8". Dont know how i missed that, but i did. So i ordered the stubby shackles from Sky since i know they will work, as thats how i did it on the 90 bronco. You can see how much different they are in size in this pic:  Not sure how i goofed on that one, but i did. Hopefully the shackles get here soon. In the meantime, ive turned my attention to the green bronco, and its cracked striker bolt:  When i removed the striker, the captured nut & plate fell from behind. Seems the cracks started at the spot welds 
I ended up cutting a pretty big hole in the sheetmetal to get all of the cracks removed  New patch panel made, with captured nut plate all cleaned up and ready to be reinstalled.  I dont have a pic of it apparently, but rather than spot weld it to the back of the patch panel in two places like ford did, i fully welded it. It also seems i was in the zone and didnt snap any pics during the process, so heres the finished product:
For now the tire carrier is off the truck. I have some other issues i have to deal with. #1, this shot striker bushing:  ...which caused some heavy wear on the latch jaws:  ...all of which was probably caused by this pin/bushing being shot:  ...so ive got a few more things to deal with. Parts on order, so we'll come back to this one at a later date. all 4 leaf springs are done being rebuilt again. This time fully coated in graphite paint, and the steel shims from the excursion leafs are in the rear pack now instead of the plastic ones i made  Brought the truck around, and snapped the very last pic before i rip the suspension apart again  It already has a PMF 2.25" Superduty Shackle Reversal kit on it. This time around im replacing the original spring hangar on the frame rail with Sky's low clearance one:  Yesterday i got the driver side bracket on the frame:  Today its raining, so maybe tomorrow i can get the passenger side bracket swapped. I thought this was interesting- shows the difference between the X code leafs im removing, and the V codes im installing   The X code has almost a full inch more arch to it, and both leafs are 1/8" thicker in the middle & 1/16" thicker at the ends. So this pretty much confirms what everyone on the internet says, that the front end should go down ~1" and the ride should be nice & soft. We'll find out soon enough. One of my front shocks is shot, so i ordered a pair of Bilsteins which should get here tomorrow. Hopefully the weatherman is wrong, and i get some dry days here so i can get the front-end done and get it turned around so i can tear into the rear. Just a couple weeks to go before the East Coast Bronco Roundup, so i gotta get this thing done! Oh yeah, this is cool too. I tossed the X codes into the rear of the DD bronco and brought em to work, because a coworker bought em off me. I had some issues closing the tailgate though. Check this out:  Gotta hurry up and get the red one done, because it looks like the green one needs some sheet metal repaired asap!
Any job worth doing, is worth doing twice! Or something like that. I bought a couple cans of Slip Plate (which is graphite paint), so i disassembled the springs and repainted them. Ive also decided to use the steel shims from the Excursion packs, so they got painted too:
If i have time this weekend im going to start assembling them. I also have to get the 4th pack apart & painted. Going to try to get that done so i can hopefully start the front spring swap monday. Theres been lots of rain in the forecast, and theres more coming so we'll see how this all goes. So im starting the suspension upgrade. From top to bottom: rear Excursion (G code) rear Superduty (B code) front Superduty (V code)  ...and a set of the correct helper springs  I also bought a set of Sky's low clearance shackle hangars & their adjustable tracbar.  Springs coming apart:  ...and after some wire wheeling and paint
i bought a whole bunch of new anti-friction pads from Dorman, because most all of them were shot Amazon.com  Ford used these plastic shims between the leafs, but all of mine were broken except for one  Fortunately Speedway sells it in a roll, which i already had from rebuilding the leafs in the '90, so i made some new ones  ...and now ive got the rear springs all back together!  I added the 2 lower leafs from the Excursion pack to the B codes, hopefully itll work out well  I goofed on the front leafs, the new center pins i ordered have a shoulder thats too long for a 2-leaf pack. Also apparently the local spring shop closed their doors so i had to order another set online, which i wont get until probably Friday. So i guess its going to be another week until i can swap the front springs. Been working on a few projects around the house/garage. First up, we actually used the AL bed to haul a yard of mulch for the garden beds
With how much bigger this bed is, 2 yards should fit in there just fine. Next up was to fix the remote mounted Warn x8000i. After 20 years the cable was sprung, and one of the solenoids was only intermittently working, so i opened it up and swapped them out. 
 ...and finally i also got 2 small projects done in the garage. #1 was adding a light to the drill press  ...and the other was replacing the old bottle jack on the press, with this new pneumatic one  ...and with all that done, its time to start building some new leaf springs for the F250  |
