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Reman ECU showed up Saturday but it rained all weekend so i got it swapped in this morning.  At least it looks nice on the outside  Cracked it open, looks good inside too  Much nicer repair job than the old one had  ...most importantly though, it seems to run just fine!  Drove it around this morning and so far so good. Gonna have to use it to run errands all week and see how it goes. So of course, her bronco got jealous and wanted attention too. We were all over the place last weekend in it, and it wasnt running right. Warm idle is rough, and its running rich. Only code it threw was "system rich". Not super helpful at all! So been troubleshooting it, and couldnt really find anything. This morning after work i pulled it up to the garage and dug in  Did all the typical tests for timing, fuel pressure, TPS, IAC, etc, didnt find anything. It has a cardone PCM in it from a year or two ago, figured id pull it out to inspect. Well, its bad.  Capacitor on the back blown, not even on the board anymore. On the flip side is one of the capacitors that usually fails, guessing the rebuilder damaged this one during the 'repair' and it recently failed. There are other suspect spots on the board as well, all near previous repairs. Dont have a spare 351/E4OD PCM so i ordered one from Blue Streak Electronics which is supposed to be here Friday. Here's hoping. So im doing more prep for the Ford Nationals. Monday i pulled the top off the 88:  Having the flat bed makes it easy to remove/move/store by myself  Figured since were going to a bronco event, and theres going to be all sorts of stuff there, i might as well do something different and put the half cab on  Unfortunately on the last wheelin trip i sort of crunched the passenger b-pillar, and the half cab no longer fits!  The back side of the pillar appears to have moved in a half inch! I messed around with it for about an hour and couldnt get it to move back even a little bit, so i said screw it and dug out the bows and tracks for the soft top. That was about all i had time for that day. Tuesday morning on my way home my wife texts me. Its super important. The kiddo said i have to wait until he gets home from school to put the soft top on so he can help! So me and him put the top on yesterday afternoon!   Just in time too- its absolutely pouring right now, and its supposed to rain for the next 5 or 6 days i think. The weather was nice yesterday, so we tackled something ive been putting off until it got warmer: The "chrome" trim on her hardtop windows is all shot, cracked, broken, etc  Clearcoat gone, no longer 'chrome', broken.....this is pretty typical of both sides   Bought new striping sometime over the winter  Comes in one long piece, need to cut to fit for each window  i bought the stainless corner pieces too, just in case. Turns out her's were in great shape so i reused them and put these on the shelf  I started on the passenger side...  ...while the little dude worked on the driver side  ..and done!  With the original trim removed i cleaned the dirt out of the track, and then with some soapy water the new ones went right in. Looks way better now, and took less than an hour to do both sides.
We got our packet from Carlisle in the mail the other day  All the Broncos will be up front in the Blue Section. I heard over 300 Broncos registered for the event thus far! We went to the 40th Anniversary event (and brought my big 88), then didnt go again until the 50th, but as spectators. This time we will be there with not one, but two broncos, the wife's 90 and my 88. Gotta represent the bricknose crowd!  Got this back in the garage:  After doing the ML Toys Paragon 775 motor/gearboxes in th ebronco, it is clearly way better in the yard. Not much faster, but the added torque makes it work so much better in the yard. But, it could be faster. So why not? Looking in the rear, there is a decent amount of free room, im pretty sure we can remove that 6v battery, and fit a second 12v battery in there  Looking in the rear left corner, there are these two embossments that dont do anything. So let's use em!  So i made a simple bracket that screws down in place, and has a tab on the right that should keep the battery from sliding around  From there i cut a piece of plywood to set down to serve as a more solid base, and then simply set the battery in place! I used a piece of scrap steel to make a hold-down strap for the battery  ....and all rewired!  The rewiring was simple, i just needed to replace a couple wires because they didnt reach now that the second battery is off in the corner. So, nothing left but to fire it up, and see how it runs!  Little dude zipped it around the yard the other day, and let me tell you, she gets up and goes now! Im going to have to get some video of it and get it posted online. Stay tuned... Gotta deal with this  Just a simple seal swap  i already have redi-sleeves on the axle, and theyre already showing wear so hopefully i dont have to rip this back apart and replace the sleeve. Got that done and had to rotate the tires on the DD bronco  At 8k miles they were overdue to be rotated. Minimal cupping, but there's still some so i really need to start rotating them every 5k miles i suppose  Lets do it!  the offending piece  Splitting it open
return spring  spring retainer
The piston comes out  looking down into the bore, its just a blind hole  same thing with the piston  simulating a pedal press (pushing on the linkage for the brake pedal)  for being 20 years old, the diaphragm is still good, and theres still grease on the seals  the piston is actually two pieces with a rubber seal in the middle  Speculating the extra piece goes here?  Honestly, no idea where that little pushrod goes, maybe there? Either way, of course i swapped the booster out and it fixed my problem. Its neat to see the inside of the booster, altho it wouldve been cool if i could say for absolute certainty where that little piece goes. Booster is in, and that fixed the problem  Couple other minor things ive got to deal with. #1, D70 has a pretty leaky wheel seal that im going to fix either tomorrow or Friday  Also, my junk aftermarket speedo drive gear in the tcase is starting to get wonky already, and the speedometer is getting very erratic as a result of it. Fortunately, i was able to get a good used OEM gear from Transfercase Solutions so when this gear inevitably bites the dust ill swap the OEM gear in. We are registered for the Carlisle All Ford Nationals this June (for the 60th Bronco Anniversary), which starts June 5th, and then the East Coast Bronco Roundup picks up from there and goes on for the whole next week afterwards. So im just going to be doing some minor tinkering this month trying to get the big 88 and her 90 ready for the event. |
