Okay Okay.

I know it's been a year sense my last visit. Life Happens. We went from the 1975 F-250. Then we went to a 1989 Bronco II... Then to a 1995 Ford Explorer Sport (manual trans)...

Long story short. We're doing a 'fire sale' on the Explorer. (I'm still driving it until the Bronco is all set to go street legal....) Did a ton of work on the Explorer, and then the transmission started to "sing" badly in 5th gear. Was told it needed counter shaft and input gears..and a rebuild for the bearings. We still drive it, just not in 5th gear.


Okay, fast forward. Decided to either do a Ramcharger or a Bronco. Set a budget of $1800 Total for everything.... Found this for $1500.00. I should have haggled more, as of course- Not everyone is honest on Craigslist.



Bronco-2 photo


Bronco-1 photo



I was able to drive it back to the families place. Didn't drive that bad really. Wanders all over the road, so the steering is typical ford-loose. And it has a broken RF brake line. So it was kinda fun driving it 70 miles with only rear brakes. LOL.


Okay, started working on it yesterday after it sat for a couple of days. Wouldn't start. Cranks great, but acts like no spark or fuel. Checked for fuel-About 40lbs fuel pressure, about 30-32lbs when it's running (we did get it running....)

Replaced the cap and rotor, found the cap was very loose fitting on the disty, and loaded with dead metal on the contacts. Pretty badly worn out. New Rotor button?...yep. I sprayed some raw fuel into the intake and had the wife try and start it. It tried...but didn't make it. (So fuel wasn't the issue) I checked for spark at the cap, and its got a strong spark!.... Time to pull some plugs-maybe we flooded it?...

We found FACTORY spark plugs from 1994 and a matching set of FACTORY spark plug wires from 1994. Wires brittle at the boots, and the spark plugs where roached. Gap's supposed to be about .44. These had to be twice that distance! I could fit about 3 quarters between what was left of the electrode and the ground. Soaked in fuel as well. Blew out the fuel, and I rebent the gap to about .46ish or so. Had to bend the snot out of it. Severely worn out, and the electrode was barely peeking out the ceramic.

Only could do that with 4 of the plugs. The passenger side is going to be more of a challenge. (need a step ladder LOL) But once that was done to only 4 plugs? The ol' girl started up decent and we drove it around and changed out the sludge oil it had for fresh.

There's the back story.
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We have new plugs, fuel filter and wires for I hope tomorrow to be installed, along with rear brakes and the front brake line.


P/O stated he was changing the oil for 30w in the winter, and 40w in the summer. I can only hope he meant 10w30 and 10w40. He did mention a twitch with the oil pressure gauge at stop lights.....(have a bad feeling already about that..) (I know all about Fords Dummy gauge). This has the 351w engine. It's fairly quiet running, and during the drive 'home' it arrived after an hour drive still 'quiet'. The auto parts house stated 0w20 oil was the recommended oil. So right out of the box I suspect a lot of 'extra' wear on the engine that's sitting at 177k miles.

We changed it out for 10w40 Dino oil and a qt of Lucas for the time being. It was already a qt low and black and gassy. So for a short time we should be okay.

Question: Where is the oil pressure sender on this one? Can this be modified with the older sender and the bypass trick for the resistor on the cluster? Or should I just install a new switch/sender and "T" in a real oil pressure gauge?

Question: Considering the massive lack of maintenance on this: Oil recommendations- (we ditched the 'fram' filter already LOL) He admitted to running way to thick oil. 177k on the clock. Normally I'd go with 5w40 syn. at this point. But unsure. I'd hate to open another can of worms. And the 5w40 synthetic that I used to run in our old Bronco II? Was made for Diesel engines, but carried the API rating as well. I checked when buying oil, and the rating was diesel only on the newest blend.

I rather think we're going to be stuck running 10w30 and 10w40, as the last owner must have been a bit of a twit.


Question: Brake line. Anyone know off the top of their head the type of fittings? ABS? Bubble or double flare? I can double flare all day long, but do not have a decent bubble flare tool. (nor would I want to risk the DIY method on youtube using a normal flare tool to make a bubble flare. I'm good, but not that good....)

That's it for now....Pretty good size book so far.

Thanks!

S-

 

Had an eventful day yesterday.

Replaced the broken brake line. Went to bleed the brakes- 2 of the 4 bleeders snapped off by the P/O when he replaced the rear line. (And that was leaking at the union near the fuel filter....)

I'll be swinging by NAPA and getting a couple of wheel cylinders. Ten bucks a shot and that will take care of the 1 that is already snapped in the back, and the other one that is likely to snap when I start working it.

As for the broken one in the caliper- I'll snag some reverse drill bits and see if I can apply some heat to the bleeder and crack it free. (Also have easy-outs already....) calipers are pretty reasonable, so if I need to? I'll just RR it.

All the plug wires and plugs got replaced. Word of advice: Don't go for the Napa Mileage Plus wire set. The coil wire isn't correct (no retaining clip) and each wire was 3" to long.

While working on the truck, I noted more nonsense:

Lower radiator hose leaking where it goes into the oil cooler plastic assembly. (We're already planning on doing all belts and hoses All original parts made in 1994! after all...)

Small amount of coolant just under the intake manifold at the drivers side head 'ledge'. Think it's the intake leaking/seeping. We'll clean it up and I'll drop in some UV die to see exactly where that's coming from.

Tried the parking brake. (needed for inspection) Snapped the cable connector. Cables aren't seized (that's a plus) But the connector was rotted.

Noted 1 of the 4 shocks at the front end: It has new shocks, but the right front shock has a busted lower shock bolt. That'll have to get fixed for inspection.

Then we tackled the rear gate that was jammed shut. Talk about opening a HUGE can of worms....


Rear window decided to crap when we got the gate to work. No up...and No down. We ran out of sunlight and used a battery charger at the motor wiring to raise the glass up. (rain the next few days....) I already shorted the safety switch (pain to do with the glass in the down spot..) And that didn't help.

So there's the daily update. Next one will take a few more days. We're expecting rain for the next few days and then I'm back to work and will have limited time to work on this.

S-

 

just run 10w30 or 10w40. no reason to go with anything else. I hope you ran copper motorcraft or autolite spark plugs. anything else doesnt run well on these motors.

the oil sending unit is near the oil filter I would recommend installing a manual gauge so you know exactly whats going on.

best of luck

 

We've got 10w40 in there currently for what we where hopeful to be the 'spring/summer' type temps. We've been running a lot colder then usual.

We did the Autolites. OEM copper type.

Had to double check the fuel filter. 177k on it. This filter was covered in heavy rust, clearly factory. Need to dig out my tubing release tools to undo the garter springs in the filter lines. So far it seems to like having maintenance done to it. Still lots to be done.

I'll get a decent digital oil pressure gauge or a full sweep one for the oil. It's a concern when the P/O states the needle at idle for stop lights was twitching. Could be dirty internal contacts, or pressure problems lurking in the background.

Might do the "T" if there's room and run both dash gauge and a real gauge.

Have a good day!

S-

 

my 96' had that same twitch once it got up to operating temperature. I was running 20w50 though. Once I put an actual mechanical gage on there......2 psig at idle and 7 psig at 2000 rpm. Mine was neglected as well. The replacement pressure switch isn't that expensive and worth a shot. It is kind of a pain to get to though. There are people out there that claim the oil pickup could be clogged and is "worth a look", but my engine was shot at 228K miles. I hope you have better luck than I did.

 

Any updates?

 

My old 1990 Bronco loves the straight 30W. Copper sparkplugs. Had the radiator boiled out, the water in the cooling system was boiling chocolate milk because PO had put in "Stop Leak" so many times that the water pump wouldn't pump and the radiator had clogged tubes. Replacing the water pump and boiling out the radiator fixed that problem. Then the overflow tank got a leak, if it's not one thing it's another, but all the 4wd does not let me down when I shift into 4 Low it's all go.