|
Its home!
Friday afternoon i dropped off the green bronco (due for inspection) and drove this one home. I made it! Motor makes good oil pressure and is nice and quiet. Suspension rode pretty nice but i only got to drive it for about 15 minutes. Transmission (E4OD) shifts weird. She took it for a drive friday night, made it maybe 10 minutes from the house and then called saying the trans wasnt shifting. I went to go find her and drive it home and yup, it dont shift right. Wouldnt go into 2nd until ~3200 rpm, and 3rd & 4th were about the same. The downshifts are weird. Doesnt look like the converter is locking. I had the pan off a couple months back when i changed the filter and didnt find any debris in the pan, so i unplugged the solenoid pack, and the connector is wet:  Got in there with a mirror and sure enough the plug is full of ATF  Looks like the solenoid pack has failed. Hoping thats all that's wrong. Ive got a reman pack on order but i wont have it until Friday. In the meantime ive got the 96 back from inspection, but it needs rear brakes; it would appear the adjuster cable on the one side is frayed, so im rebuilding the rear brakes:  Once the solenoid pack shows up we'll drop the pan on the '90 and see what we find. Since it now runs and even stops, i backed it out so we could work outside in the sun!  Removing the aluminum trim from the fenders:
The fenders are in pretty good shape, altho it annoys me that Ford painted the truck after the trim was installed. I cleaned up the fenders & started installing flares while she worked on removing the glue from the missing trim:  That's when we noticed that Ford sprayed the blue, then put the moulding & trim on, then sprayed the silver, so theres no paint under the moulding either. Flares!  We're getting rid of the awful OEM headlamp housings in favor of something more modern. I have a set of these on the 88, and paired with a set of LED bulbs, they work really well. Link to housings on Amazon  Both in, and grill finally installed!  We went full LED for the exterior lamps as well, so i had to add load resistors  And we opted for smoked taillamp housings to replace the red  and then finally, we put new moulding back on the body:
...which i think really cleans up the look of the truck   Monday the bronco goes in to the shop to get an exhaust system made, and then it gets dropped off to get a proper alignment, and inspection. If all goes well, we'll be driving it home by the end of the week! Ive been running around trying to get the '90 done, and havent posted any updates. So here's where we're at: I couldnt get the brakes to bleed, ended up having to replace the RABS module because it was seized  I had a code for EVP below minimum voltage   Which turned out to be a defective EGR- the nipple for the EVP to seat against wasnt in the EGR  New one installed, problem solved!  I redid the battery cables, so i could add an anderson plug for the remote-mount winch:   and then i finished off the interior, by adding a pair of Autometer gauges; oil pressure and trans temp   Built a standalone harness for the gauges that has one plug for power/illumination, and a second plug that goes to both sensors   Back when i was putting the accessory drive together i installed the Autometer oil pressure sensor on a Tee with the OEM sensor in the factory port  I thought i had a pic of the trans temp sensor, but apparently not. Its in the test port for the E4OD. Pic of it installed on the 96:  While i was in the interior, i pulled the cluster out so we could go full led:  ..and done!  Fixed the center console!  The hinge was mangled, so that was an easy fix. Still gotta find a latch as i dont have one. Pulled the passenger door panel off to see why the window wasnt working  Predictably the gearbox was blown, so that got rebuilt  It was at this point that i realized the doorlocks didnt work from either door.  Did some troubleshooting and found out that both actuators are shot  While i was waiting for new actuators to show up i decided to put some sound deadener in the doors
New speakers for the doors:  ...And for the back too  So from there i pulled out the vintage tape deck...  ...which revealed this stellar job...  ...which is now fixed!  Unfortunately thats about all i got done. I forgot to order an install kit for the head unit so that didnt get installed, altho i now have both that and a new set of door lock actuators on the workbench. This week is spring break, so instead of working on this im hanging out with the little dude. So we'll get back to this thing next week. I have an evap code (31) i need to sort out. The code is EVP below minimum voltage which is weird because the EGR & EVP are new, so maybe i messed it up when i installed it, or its defective, or theres some other issue. Ill look into it next week. So it turns out the MLPS was bad. it was also the original one, so i had to repin the harness to use the updated one:   From there it was just a matter of priming the fuel system and it roared to life! Timing is now set, and of course it needs an exhaust system still. I backed it out of the garage to confirm that at the very least, 1st & reverse work. Brakes need bled again. But it runs! So this week ill be working on the interior since ive got a bad power window motor and the door locks dont work. Gotta fix the door panels and the center console. But its close to being a driver! Ok, progress Im basically done under the hood  new a/c condenser, new radiator, and the rest of the engine is now assembled. Im also replacing the a/c compressor and dryer and accumulator since im converting to 134a  New high pressure adapter fitting had the wrong thread pitch so i had to order a new one  ...and the a/c is now pumped down!  So i opened up the fuel pump housing:  its pretty gross, no wonder it didnt work
...and all rebuilt with new pump, strainer & float:  New tank, with rebuilt pump installed, along with a new valve & gasket since im guessing i tossed the old ones when i scrapped the tank  new galvanized skid plate from bronco graveyard  ...and installed!  Fuel lines are done, but when i went to hook up the vent line for the charcoal canister i saw it was all rotted out...  ...so i bent up a new one & installed it  With all that done i picked up oil, coolant, etc to get everything filled up:  Fortunately my first coolant fill was straight water because the tstat housing was leaking like a sieve  But that was a simple fix. So i hooked up the battery and keyed on to prime the fuel system. Had one leaky fuel injector oring (top of inj #1) which was an easy fix. So, i turned the key and....... ...nothing. So thats where im at now. The start circuit doesnt seem to work, im not sending power to the trigger wire for the starter relay, but the ignition multi-function switch is working so must be something else stopping it from starting. Jumped the relay and the starter cranks but the engine didnt fire so it may be an issue with the MLPS since it seems to be affecting the run circuit too. So it looks like ill be doing some troubleshooting... |
