Well I finally decided to start my own thread on the buildup of my 1978 Ford Bronco, or as my 2 year old son calls it "Daddy's Big Truck.".

The back story is the first vehicle I ever had was a blue and white 1978 Bronco with a 400/C6/NP205 running around on 31's. I had it for 4 fun years and sold it to "upgrade" to a 1986 Jeep CJ-7 with only 49,000 miles on it. Sellers remorse took a whole 4 months to kick in but I couldn't get the guy to sell it back so I moved on. Fast forward 3 years and I found a 79 to play with for 3 more years before finances forced me to sell that and go without one until last spring. So after 7 years of absence I have another 1978 Bronco. And this one is NOT going away!!!

I was looking for a Bronco when Nick called saying he met a guy with a “project” 78 Bronco that he had been working on for 15 years. The guy had moved it 3 times including 1 move from Utah to Iowa and finally given up on it and decided he was going to junk it. My brother called me and I said I would take it sight unseen, by either of us. So the first time Nick went to look at it, with trailer in tow, he discovered just how much of a project it was.






The bad news.
If you noticed the lack of an engine that was just the first hurdle. The engine had been pulled to be rebuilt by a guy who had his own issues and the engine disappeared during a divorce I think. The automatic transmission and transfer case were going to be rebuilt by another guy. His shop was flooded in a "100 year flood" and after a week underwater the trans was a total loss. I have the transfer case but it also spent a week under water so it is also a no go. The front axle is the stock Dana 44 and the rear was upgraded to a Dana 60 so I had mis-matched wheel bolt patterns to deal with. It has a 6" lift but no shocks, the interior was all removed but there, and the front clip was off. My brother didn't get the tailgate secured very well inside the Bronco so it took a bad bounce on the way to his shop and the glass exploded inside the tailgate. The tailgate is also missing the wiring, window motor, and key switch. The body was rusty but in very good shape for its age as it was mostly surface rust.

I did get a lot of parts and pieces. Some are for the Bronco and others are just junk he was dumping out with us.






To be continued...

 

My brother informs me that I am a pack rat for all of the 70's Ford truck parts I have collected over the years. Since I am a diehard Ford man a plan was formulated. I was really missing having a manual transmission in my stable of vehicles so a stick was a must. I needed lots of power to turn the 40's (already have them) that were destined to get shoe horned under the Bronco. A 460 was the only answer in my deck of cards. I wasn't in the position to rebuild an engine and put the Bronco back together so a running combo had to be found. While we were searching for the motor setup my brother decided to take his frustrations out on the bronco and started the bodywork. For only being the second vehicle he has worked on it came out great! Thanks again bro!!!!
Through a lot of searching a 460/NP435/BW1356 was located on craigslist in my limited price range.



My wife and I made the 1300 mile trip up in July to see the family and my brother, dad, and myself did a thrash and got the engine in place in the Bronco. We had to trim the seam on the firewall and make our own transmission crossmember. We used 460 swap designed engine mounts from Performance Unlimited. and they worked pretty well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6169551137/http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6169551137/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/53700883@N06/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6170084674/http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6170084674/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/53700883@N06/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6169552157/http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6169552157/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/53700883@N06/, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6169553035/http://www.flickr.com/photos/53700883@N06/6169553035/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/53700883@N06/, on Flickr
To be continued...

 

So I must credit my brother for doing most of the bodywork and rust repairs.


He did wonderful work cutting out the little that needed to be removed and welding in fresh metal. He put in a little filler and blocked and sanded until it was way better looking then a 78 should be.

 

So after all of his prep work I drove up in October of '11 on a 7 day quick trip to hash out the final bodywork, paint it, and drag it back to sunny Florida. I drove 24 hours straight in my Excursion pulling my car trailer to get there. Then I did about 6 hours of work on the Bronco because I was too jacked up on Mt Dew to sleep.
We did a bunch a final sanding before throwing on primer. Then we did more sanding, and some more sanding, and some more sanding. I don't think I had fingerprints for a few weeks after we got done. Then it was time for paint!!





On to the primer.




I have always liked the two tone paint on the trucks and that this was an original two tome blue and white just like my first Bronco was a huge bonus. I did decide to change the layout of the two tone just a little to suit my individual tastes. I hope you like it, if you can tell what I changed.
And after some more of that wonderful wet sanding we got to lay color.
Started with the white areas.




To be continued...

 

So after letting the white dry we spent a ton of time re masking to get ready to shoot the blue. I must say I don't think the gray and white looks too bad together, if the gray wasn't primer.
My Brother decided to name my Bronco...

On to spraying blue.




The unveiling of the two tone.





I must say I am very happy with the paint and body. Especially considering it was my first attempt and my brothers second. We had a few issues with the paint not being the right shade of blue when we picked it up but the guy at the parts store blended it to exactly what I wanted before we left. There are a few runs in the paint and a couple of spots where the clear coat messed up the paint underneath. Most of our problems were due to the speed in which we were working (using the minimum dry times) and problems holding the temperature in the shop where it needed to be. He has a gas furnace in the shop and we weren't running it while spraying, fumes and all might go BOOM...

 

To catch up the interior work to where the exterior is. When it arrived it was a mess, to be kind.






So he started cleaning it before I got there and kept sending me pics of the animal poop and other nasty things he was finding.




Then it we time to add a little undercoating. the spray in the sides was great.


The roll on for the floor was garbage. It never fully setup so it was coming off every time you touched it. We decided to scrape it all off and I am ging to spray a better one on later.

 

You and your brother are making great progress on your truck, keep up the good work and keep the updates coming, with pics, of course.
I think you made the right choice in getting the 460 package as I had a Bronco very similar with a 351M and it was a gas consuming slug.
I had friends that had the same truck as mine and they spent a lot of time and money trying to get decent performance or fuel economy and got neither.
I finally off loaded mine to one of them for amost what I had in it. Oh happy days, my Bronco ownership was much like that of many boat owners, Their 2 happiest days are the day they got it and the day they got rid of it. Just a hole in the water that you pour money into.
The 460 is a much better engine in everyway compared to the 351M or the 400M and all of the other componants you got with it are much heavier duty than what came with your truck originally. You might want to check for a steel crank,SCJ rods and 4 bolt mains, just for grins.

 

Awesome post. And an awesome job on bring another 78 back to life.

Jim

 

Man, you started with a Bronco that's in worse shape than most I see in the junk yards here, and are doing an amazing job bringing it back to life. I love it!
Well done, and looking forward to seeing more of your progress.

 

Wow you have done an exceptional job so far. I am recently starting doing minor bodywork and painting. It's pretty fun, but at the same time when I painted my truck I was kind of rushed so it was stressful. It came out well though.

Keep up the awesome work and I can't wait for more pictures! Interior pieces may be pretty hard to find.. but who knows you could get lucky. I rarely find much for my bronco in junk yards but I'm getting there. Re-upholstery on the seats can be quite expensive.. but probably worth it in my opinion. I'm waiting on getting my Eddie Bauer leather seats partially reupholstered that I picked up from a junk yard. I hate my front bench seat... I miss cup holders and a center console!

 

Thanks guys. I already have another 460 in my garage waiting for the Bronco to be done so I can rebuild it for more performance then swap it into the Bronco. It was an engine from another of my trucks that got parted out and scrapped. I have a few interesting plans for the interior after I get the running gear all sorted out. I have a bench in front for now but it will end up with buckets at some point. I have the center console out of my 01 Excursion that will get modified to go in the Bronco if I can make it work out. I really like having cup holders! The fun part will be a roll cage. I want to take my son wheeling but I need some more safety features first.

 

Alright, we shall continue the back story. After we got all of the bodywork done, the primer and both colors on, The Bronco got a thick coat of clear. Too thick in a few places but I will sand the runs out one day. I then proceeded to load the Bronco interior with all of the parts that I could. This included all of the interior parts I have, all of the exterior trim pieces, and 3 of the 4 40" tires. Since I have no glass we cut a sheet of underlayment to the shape of the glass and held it up by screwing some 1x2 blockers on that sat on the tailgate edge inside the rig. Next I started laying out how to fit everything I was taking home with me onto my trailer. It has a 18' flat deck with a 4' dovetail so it requires careful loading to fit everything and have it pull nicely for 1300 miles. Included on the trailer was the Bronco, a spare 460, 4-40" tires on steel rims, a Dana 44HD front axle, 3 bumpers, engine stand, NP205, and the Warn 8274 that lives on my trailer. I was probably a little over the load limit of the trailer but it pulled like a dream all the way home. I checked the straps holding everything down at every gas and food stop. I had to replace 2 straps on the road as they were chafing and cutting through the straps and I didn't want stuff falling off.

 

Nice work on that Bronco so far, looks good.

 

I'm really linking it, you have done some great work.

 

Nice work man!!!....