Alrighty, I've had this Bronco for half a year now, and figure it is time to start documenting my progress before I get too much further in this project. Big plans ahead...

First, a quick introduction. 1990 Ford Bronco Eddie Bauer Edition, 351w, E4OD, 3.55 Gearing, Bone Stock when acquired.

Now, I'll tell you a little backstory. I bought it for cheap from a fellow who had bought it from the original owner, and then given up on it. Neither power windows or locks worked, and the rear tailgate window was hardwired to a couple jumper wires that hung out of the tailgate. It had just under 200 000 kms on it, and sounded great. The interior was surprisingly clean, with a little minor wear on the drivers seat edge. It had been sitting in a field for a few years, and so was musty and the paint was quite faded, but the body was surprisingly good other than a little rot over the rear wheel wells.

 

And so the first thing I did is bring it into the shop for a full checkover and service, which is a bit of a tradition whenever a new (to us) vehicle is procured. I don't know about you, but I think first impressions are important

When I looked into the tailgate issue, everything was such a mess that I just decided to make a new tailgate harness. The old wires had been exposed to the elements for so long the whole harness had become green. After getting everything tiddly boo in the back, I went to make the tailgate move, and the motor let the tailgate drop an inch before grumbling and groaning it's last groan. Guess it couldn't handle all the extra power . I wasn't too concerned, as I was making a big list of stuff to order (as the tradition goes)... The inspection went quite well other than that though, mostly just the basics plus a couple axle C clips for the rear. Even the brakes all looked fairly recent, except the lines..
Oh and since it came with a stereo with no faceplate, I chucked a new stereo in and cleaned up the botchy looking wiring from the P.O.

 

Next up was a change in the air intake system. We had an OBS ford truck that we were getting rid of, but I noticed it had a K&N filter kit sitting on top of its 351w, and I did a quick little exchange before seeing the truck on its way. Looked at the price of a new unit online, looks like I saved $2-300 if I was planning on buying a new kit.. Score!

I know that this kit on its own is probably worse than a factory air intake with a scoop, but I knew that this kit had potential with a little fab work..

 

I also opted to give the truck a good cut polish while I waited for parts to come. Needless to say I was very pleased with how well the original paint came out with a little elbow grease!

 

After that all the parts came, and oh boy was the Bronco happy!

- Oil change with filter
- New fuel filter
- new fluid in rear diff, and new axle shaft C clips.
- new rear axle seals and rear wheel bearings while its all apart
- new spark plugs, wires, distributor cap, rotor, and coil. (compression test amazing, 115-120 PSI all around COLD
- coolant change
- brake fluid flush
- power steering flush
- check timing, but it was spot on factory spec of 10*, so I didn't mess with that for now.

Wow! I had a broken plug, and so was running a cylinder short, and the spark plug wires and cap looked original, the once black boots had turned white with age. After doing everything listed above, the improvement in power was amazing, woke the 351w right up. I started getting an extra 100 kms per tank too! Now I can make it all the way to 400kms before dropping into the red zone. Before, could barely get 300 before the same point. Needless to say I was feeling good.

Sorry, no photos taken for this stuff, so heres one of the bronco doing a wimpy flex shot..

 

And so, the very first time I took the Bronco off road was not the best experience.. It was a Friday night and I was going up one of our local mountains, and when I got to the top and got out, I noticed a fluid trail leading up to the Bronco. Looked underneath and sure enough, there is a decent puddle already formed and hot liquid is dripping out from between my engine and transmission. I hightailed it down the mountain and to my closest friends house and threw a drainpan under it. There was still tons of fluid spewing out so that was reassuring, but the liquid was so hot that it was hissing and steaming when it dripped. Worried me some! (If you're wondering why I took that chance, it is because I much prefer manual transmissions, and an excuse for a 5 speed swap would have been welcome.) I had a several day trip planned the next morning, so I left the Bronco at my friends until I got back. Upon returning I grabbed the tow truck and got the Bronco into the shop. I had my local parts store send me a rear main engine seal, torque converter seal, auto trans filter kit, and a bucket of the proper ATF, while I pulled out the trans. After sealing everything up and flushing the lines, I put the trans back in and went for a drive. It was shifting better than ever! Slowly but surely, one thing at a time, this bronco was coming back to life! I went and washed it to celebrate the fact that the E4OD was OK.

 

Well well, when the carpet got pulled back, a whole new can of worms made its way onto the to do list. I noticed a couple little rusty patches, and decided to deal with it before the wet season came. When the next weekend rolled around, the Broncos interior got stripped down to metal, and I got to work. First came the hammer blows, transforming what seemed to be surface rust into full on holes, and causing little holes to grow in size at an alarming rate. But it was all for the best. After that was all done, out came the welder. I ended up doing 11 patches in total, varying in size, and several patches were large and complex enough to need several pieces of sheet metal. Once that was done, I sealed all the welds from the inside and the outside, and proceeded to coat the entire inside of the bronco with a rubberized undercoating. Now that was a nice sight to see just before the wet season! And to top it all off, when I pulled the carpets out I soaped, scrubbed and pressure washed them, and they were all dried up and looking good as new when I finished all the metal and paint work on the interior. I also found the build sheet hiding under the carpet by the rear tailgate, that was cool!

 

 

 

Well, now that I am finished with the interior for now, I decided to change it up a bit and do some engine mods. First up, stop sucking in hot air from the engine bay! I had anticipated doing this from the day that I swapped the K&N intake setup onto the Bronco, but a friend had just given me a whole skin from a large hot water tank, and so I now had everything I needed for the project and no excuse to not do it. The project ended up being pretty simple and lots of fun, certainly requiring a little bit of creativity. The part that surprised me the most was the noticeable difference in power, especially at any speed above 50km/h. Very cheap project too considering the gain! I spent about $30-40 on some miscellaneous stuff from the plumbing department of my local hardware store.

 

Okay, now this part is still a work in progress, and I will post updates as I make additions to it.

First, I'll tell you why I did it. I love going out on the logging roads and going on spontaneous camping trips, I want to be able to sleep in the Bronco, I have a 100lb dog who needs lots of space, and I also still wanted to be able to carry 5 people legally in the vehicle.

The factory bench seat system was just not cutting it for me. The amount of space that was lost when it was folded up was ridiculous. I had seen bench systems that when folded down made one large flat surface, and I thought that this would be more ideal to suit my needs. On top of this, I also wanted some extra storage space, and to get my sub and amp out of the way / more secure.

So, since I was not happy with the current layout, I opted to delete the bench seat system in the rear and build my own rear bench seat / bed / storage unit. Time to get crafty! So far, I am very pleased with the progress, and it converts from bed to bench or vice versa in under a minute. It is very sturdy, and when in bed mode it is 6' long by 5'4" wide. More than enough for myself (5'9") and one other, plus my dog. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

 

Well, with the installation of a 1000w amp and a 15 inch subwoofer, my power consumption was suddenly above and beyond what my stock 65 amp alternator could handle. It survived for about a month before calling it quits (with some wonderful fluctuating light shows in time to the music near the end of it), but since I install voltmeters in all my vehicles I caught it and took the opportunity to do a 3g alternator swap.

After a bit of research and price comparison, I had an alternator for a late 90s Ford Mustang delivered, and quickly realized to my downfall that I had ordered a large case alternator when I should have ordered a small case, which would have bolted right in (feel free to correct me anyone if my understanding on this is incorrect). Since I didn't feel like going to the store as I had already removed my alternator and entire charging system, I decide to get crafty and make it work with a little fabrication and shaving. I ended up using a slightly larger than stock belt (97 inches instead of 93.5). This belt was perfect, as it was almost on the brand new mark on the tensioner, and was just big enough to slip on with the tensioner maxed out. Voltage went straight to 14.7 at idle, and while under load it never even gets close to 13. Looks good in my books.

But, after looking closer at the positive and negative cables, I decided they had to go. Luckily I keep 4g wire in stock and connectors as well. I also threw the load tester on the batter, and it was between the pass and fail range, so I threw a new battery in as well. I paid good money for the alternator, and wanted to make sure my electrical system was as healthy as possible!

After all, healthy voltage means brighter lights, better spark, good sounding music for you audio junkies, and everything just works better at healthy voltages.

All in all it was a fairly simply swap, I spent the most time reading different 3g swap articles, as I never really found one good writeup with all the information I needed and ended up piecing together bits of information from several different articles, and still not feeling too sure about myself at the end of it all. However, it had held up just fine for 2 weeks and 1000kms, so I think I can safely say Mission Success! I may do a writeup on the topic in the near future.

 

Ok, well, it was a sad day for the bronco today. I was always proud of how straight the bronco was for the most part, and was also proud of the fact that the spare tire carrier had never swung too far and made those nasty dents in the rear quarter panel that are dreaded by bronco lovers everywhere. Well, I hit a particularly nasty series of potholes driving through town the other day and my tire carrier swung loose and slammed open, then slammed into the tailgate as if the first blow wasn't enough.

I pulled over as slowly and smoothly as possible and got out to assess the damage. Youch! not a pretty sight. I kicked myself for not making a safety catch for it (I had thought about it from time to time) and vowed to make one in the near future. I went straight to the shop and pulled it in, and set about straightening things out as best I could.

The tailgate seal was separated from the window about 1/2 an inch for most of the length of the window, and the tailgate itself had taken on a bit of a Salvador Dali like appearance. But the worst of it was around the corner. The fact that there was rust running through the rear fender and behind it certainly didn't help, and the whole section behind the wheel well was bent right out of shape.

After an hour or so I had it pretty well back to normal, but there were nasty cracks riddling the original paint and the metal was certainly not straight yet, just close.








All better (kind of...)

You can see where the tailgate separated from the impact too *sigh*. Luckily I do have plans to paint this down the road, and will be installing a safety so this never happens again...

 

Since the bronco was already in the shop for some unplanned body work, I decided to work out my frustrations and pick a couple little things off the list. I replaced my reverse light bulbs with some nice bright LEDs, and then went about doing a Headlight relay upgrade, something I had wanted to get done ever since I bought the Bronco (and was reminded so every time I felt that warm headlight **** after a long drive *cringe*).

- Note: for those of you that don't know, the factory light system in 90's fords is a bit silly, with all the power for all your lights (headlights included) going through the headlight switch, instead of using a relay. This puts much more load on the switch, and creates a fire hazard, as the switches are not designed to handle that much continuous load, and often melt or catch fire. The way to fix this is install relays to power your lights, diverting the load from your light switch to the relay, and only using the light switch as a trigger instead. One day I will write a more detailed writeup on the subject and include some diagrams.

What a difference it made! The bulbs in there were decent already, so I decided to keep my new bulbs in the glovebox until I needed them. My regular lights are now very noticeably brighter and my high beams are ridiculous! And to top it all off, since there is less load on the rest of my light circuit, now all my other exterior lights are brighter, as well as the lights in the dash. Bonus!

Now I feel almost like I'm in one of those fancy new cars when I drive at nighttime, with my bright lights and cool white reverse lights

This made me feel a little better about the earlier fiasco, at least at the end of the day it was 1 step back and 2 steps forwards...

Here is a comparison between stock bulb and LED bulb for reverse lights. LED is on the left, much whiter light and I find I can see way more backing up at night

Brighter than my old headlights!


Now, the above photo is my regular headlights being powered by the stock headlight system, and below is my regular headlights being powered by the relay upgrade.
The next picture is my high beams. With them, I can now see everything bright and clear.
Keep in mind, these bulbs are a little on the higher side for light output as well, but are still just your plain old halogen 9004s.


Difference is noticeable in daylight hours as well.

 

Okay! Been making some good progress, and I figure it's time to share! I've been doing lots of dreaming towards my end goal, and I figure, at the end of this camping / hunting season I will be rolling the bronco in to the corner of the shop and going the whole 9 yards with it. Pulling off the body, and starting from the frame up.

But, for now, the progress! While digging around on Rockauto (if you haven't heard of them, check them out! - www.rockauto.com ) I came across rear wheel arches for 17$ apiece! I couldn't believe my eyes! of course, shipping was another $50, but $90 for both rear wheel arches still seems like a screaming deal to me!

When they came, I was actually quite impressed with the quality of the stamp and the thickness of the steel. Definitely got my moneys worth!

I welded them in one weekend, however, I simply hit them with primer after welding, as I plan on repainting the entire truck in the near future once I finish all of the bodywork. (not much left!)

I also scored a whole rear corner panel from the junkyard for $40, I know the trucks are a little different at the top, but I'll be able to use almost the whole piece to fix the gnarly dent from the tire carrier!