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So me & a 20% coupon went to Harbor Freight, and bought their trans jack. Its actually pretty nice.  Dropped & split the tcase.  It appears the problem is a badly stretched chain. Playing with it on the cart, it appears the chain is so sloppy it falls behind the shift lever that engages the fork for the 4wd engagement, and sometimes prevents it from going in. Explains why it felt like it was in 2-Low the other day. Got a new chain on order, but it wont be here til friday. I went thru the whole case last year, so it doesnt need anything else. Shouldve just done the chain then. Got the trans dropped too:  Trans jack made it super easy. Got the rear main seal replaced, and the trans is already back up in the truck. Sucks installing an E4OD by yourself. Just waiting on the tcase chain now, to finish reassembly. Time for a facelift! First off excuse the pic quality, my phone is on the way out, and i cant get a clear pic out of it for some reason. The OEM headlights leave something to be desired, so its time to do something about it!  LED Headlights from Beamtech. I use them on my F250, as well as my wife's Nissan Juke, and they work good. Theyre also cheap, which is a bonus!  Ive removed the adjusting collar, and trimmed down the OEM lock rings for the headlamp housings. The ones that came with the housings are pretty junky.  Disassembly  the new housings   These are the black/clear housings found all over Amazon. They look good.    Im really diggin it, looks a ton better.   Before you ask: I started aiming the housings last night, need to take it for a drive and see how they look, dont think ive got em quite right yet. HOWEVER, i have bigger fish to fry. The tcase is not engaging 4d Hi or Low. Looks like im gonna have to drop the case. While im in there, im probably going to pull the trans too cuz the rear main seal started leaking pretty badly. So i wont have any good pics of the bronco outside, or of how the new headlights work, until im done with that. Progress! I was trying to install the fender liners to see how i want to finish the cut on the fenders. But, the core support was repaired by the previous owner, and i wasnt thrilled with the job he did, so i said screw it and ordered a new one from LMC. So that delayed me a bit. Ginormous box!    Old core removed...  ...and new one installed!  Modifying the core body mount brackets for tire clearance    While i was waiting for the core support to come, i started on the floorpan repairs. This is the worst spot on the whole body, already cut out:  This is the next worst spot. Once these two are done, itll just be minor repairs.  Well i promised an update on the '88 around Xmas, so here it is: First things first: Reinstalled the brake booster/master on firewall and then removed the steering column in trade for my original column. I also managed to find an 87-91 wheel w/o the cruise buttons which will be going on at a later date  So, then this happened: Front clip + 42s back on!!!  Truck is so big, the garage door wouldnt open if the hard top was on!  The front clip was inevitable. I needed the 42s on though. Since i want it to be a bit more streetable, last year i bought a set of Bushwacker cut-out flares. But, i dont like the look of the 87-96 flares, so i bought 80-86 instead. Since they technically dont fit, i couldnt follow the directions to install them. So instead i needed the tires on the bronco so i could figure out where the flares actually need to go. So, here we go! I started at the rear left, because gas filler door. Cardboard mockup of sheetmetal to be removed:  some rust thats gonna have to go:  Bam! Flare mocked up!  Its impossible to get good pics with this side against the wall. I have the filler door cut and sitting on my work bench, need to get that reinstalled.  Passenger side installed!  Looks good, i really like the shape of these flares  They just barely cover the tires  With the rear done, i can move on to the front:  This shows the absolute minimal amount of sheetmetal you can remove to install the flares. Its mostly in the corners    Flare mocked up  The corner will get cut off, but not till way later down the road, when i get around to building a front bumper   The money shot: This shows how much more material i can remove w/o impacting the install of the flare. More on this later.  Driver-side cut  Rust: repaired  So, here's the plan. Once all 4 flares are 'installed', ill then remove them. Plan is to install riv-nuts in the fenders, and use machine screws to hold them in place. I want to be able to easily remove them when i go wheeling. Theyre too expensive to smash on a tree! So, back to these two pics: This actually looks like a pretty good amount of room for the 42s. Most of the clearance issues i ever had were at the corners anyway, not at the top.  However, as you can see from this pic, theres lot of more sheet metal i can remove, and still be able to reinstall the flare:  So the plan now is to open the wheel wells up a tad bit more, install riv-nuts and then weld them back together again. My goal is to have a nice open wheel well for wheeling, and then install the flares over top of them for when im not offroad. But before i can cut the wheel wells any further, i need to reinstall the fender liners, and see what i can get away with. Thats why im doing the front first; once i get a final shape to the fronts ill remove the rear flares and do the same. Then the flares can go back in their boxes, and the 42s can come back off, until way later down the road. So ive been thinking about the OBA on the 88. When i first put the 460 in, i put the York where the factory a/c compressor used to go. While this worked well, it caused problems with the factory air intake. I figured while the front clip is off, is the perfect time to come up with a better solution. Looking at it, there is definitely some room down where the smog pump used to be  Problem is, it would require a ton of work to the bracket to get it in there. As it sits in that pic, its laying on the frame. I considered putting it where the alt was, and moving that down as it would be easier to do  I rejected this idea as well, because i dont like having the alt down that low. So i pretty much had no choice but to see if i could build my own accessory drive bracket. So, here we go! With the stock bracket gone, there is a ton of room  York mounting plate  Making some spacers
Main plate, roughly cut to size    York hung, plenty of clearance to frame now:  threading some bar stock  Designing the alt mount. Reusing the bushing from the OEM alt mount  Reusing the OEM tensioner bracket  CAD (cardboard aided design) for the 2nd half of the alt mount   Welding it all up  final fit on the motor  ...and all done & painted!   Final install on engine:      Its a tight fit, but it looks like its going to work well. This took me a while as the little guy consumes most of my free time these days, but it worked out well because it gave me time to stand back, take it slow and make sure nothing interferes with anything else. It goes together pretty easily, no bolts in awkward places or anything like that. Hopefully it works well, but the motor wont be running any time soon, so i guess we'll have to wait until later to see it in action!
Still sorting out the belt length; guessed wrong and got one this morning that ended up too short by an inch or so, gotta return it and get one a little longer sometime during the week. So a buddy found a Warn M12000 for sale on FB. Missing electronics, but at $500 still too good of a deal to pass up, so i ended up buying it last week. This thing is massive, it dwarfs my 8000Xi   The M12000 is supposed to come with 3/8" cable, this one came with 7/16", which is what Warn used on the M15000 (15k winch)  So i did some digging. Turns out this winch came off of a Dodge Powerwagon. It uses the 7/16" cable that the 15k winch uses, and the cable spools off the top of the drum instead of the bottom like the regualr 12k. Also, it uses the same planetary & all internal components of the 15k winch, which means that for all intents & purposes, this is a 15k winch! Apparently Warn sold Dodge a 15k, which was de-rated as a 12k, presumably due to liability issues. Once i get the front clip all done and back on the '88, ill have to build some kind of beefy bumper to carry this thing. 351 #2, all cleaned up, ready for install:   Dropped the motor in friday morning after work:  This motor came with all the parts for the OEM oil cooler, so thats on there as well.  ...and the money shot, taken about an hour ago. She runs!  50 psi oil pressure cold, 25 warmed up. Drove it around the block for the 1st time earlier, motor feels strong. Its got a tick, i think its a lifter on the passenger head. Its not super loud, so im gonna run it and see if it gets quieter once i put some miles on it. Here's hoping this motor lasts longer than the last one! So! progress has been slow, but it has been made. Had some delays and other projects around the house to tend to, before i could really tear into this thing. So, here's what i found. So the verdict is in, the 351 is blown. Turns out when i cranked it over, i bent the #8 rod, and the crank hit the piston and broke it. Blown head gasket:   One of 3 chunks that broke off piston  Motor apart:  Lots of metal in the pan  patiently awaiting its demise  Did some searching online, trying to figure out what to do. Rebuild, replace, used motor, etc. Ended up stumbling across another 351 with 70k on it for $400, so i snagged it up, and then sold an 8' truck bed i had kicking around, to cover the cost. ...and the donor 351, coincidentally also out of a 97 F250    Broke 10 of the manifold bolts. Extracted em all, and chased threads in every hole  Degreasing   Sloppy chain replaced  This pretty much gets me to today. i snapped a bolt off for the water outlet, thats been removed and the threads chased. Also snapped one off in the timing cover, but that was fixed before i did the chain. So many broken bolts! Took forever to take care of them all. I am reusing the valve covers & oil pan off the original 351, but since they got all beat up pulling the motor, they got a fresh coat of paint this morning. I need to order a water pump and a couple other seals i dont have laying around, and then i can paint the block and begin putting the motor back together. My goal is to be able to drop the motor in the truck next weekend. The donor motor had the oem oil cooler on it, along with all the hoses. Im going to reinstall it, as soon as I source a replacement o-ring for the cooler adapter to the block as well. Left for work Saturday night, everything was fine. But when I went to leave Sunday morning it wouldn't start. Engine wouldn't turn over. Didn't sound right. Yanked the starter and a buddy/coworker brought me to Autozone to test it. It failed. Bought one and put it in. Engine stopped twice, then turned over and fired. Got out to listen, sounded like it was stumbling a little bit. Walked around to back and saw it dumped almost a gallon of coolant out the tailpipe:  Shut it off. He drove me home, where another buddy/coworker met me. We hitched the trailer up to the diesel, unloaded it (its got a bronco top on it, plus an 8' bed), and drove back to work. So all said, I was gone about 2 hours. Couldn't get trailer to truck, had to start it. Same thing bumped it 3 times before it started. Didn't sound good. Moved it about 20' and shut it off. Positioned trailer and winched it up onto trailer. On ride home, had a blowout on trailer. Front right, never seen one go like this before   I always carry 2 trailer spares so we pulled over, swapped it and got home. Unloaded truck in driveway, and used buddies jeep to pull off trailer, turn around, and then get into garage. Monday I drained cooling system. Only 1 gallon of coolant left. Drained and replaced oil, got about a quart of coolant out of pan. Pulled plugs, #8 had coolant on it. Cranked motor over to clear cylinders. Went to put plugs in, got to the last one, dropped it and broke it. Done for the day. This morning I got the last one in. Fired up motor. No serp belt on it so the water pump wouldnt pump fluid, and no lower rad hose hooked up either so cant run it for too long. Engine was hammering hard. So it looks like its gonna be coming out. So I figured since I have money & time invested in the engine & trans, I might as well get some gauges to monitor them. Enter a set of Autometer's GS gauges:  Trans temp probe in the usual location; the test port  Built a simple manifold to allow me to use both the stock pressure sender & the autometer oil pressure sender  Working on the wiring harness. Since the GS series are LED, I have a resistor in-line to dim them a bit, so they match the dash brightness  some wires poking out of the a-pillar...  ...and gauges done!  Looks like the motor is ~45 PSI cold, and never drops below 20 PSI even when hot @ idle. Haven't seen trans temps above 140º yet, altho I haven't driven it much since I finished em.
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