My 89 Bronco II Choptop project...

[lil_Blue_Ford]

bring it on down, i'll weld it up for ya.

like i said in my PM a few months back, the house up there burned down, so i dont know if we're coming up in august or not. i might be able to sneak the welder in the car without the wife noticing. lol

lol, that's a little far for just a few welds! Although I wouldn't mind the road trip.

I have a Lincoln MIG welder here that can be used to put it together. Big honkin 220V one, IIRC it's a PowerMIG 200 with the Diamond Core feature. Big bottle of argon/co2 mix and a like 40 lb spool of .35 wire.

I just can't get anyone to weld it up. I'd like to be driving it this summer. Right now the windshield is smashed and I figured it would be a good time to weld up the cage since the windshield could be removed. I really just need the main hoop, halo bar and front posts welded right now. I'll worry about the back later since I still need to buy some tube and get it bent up. Finances are not really permitting for that right now, I'm going to have enough trouble paying for a windshield and installation plus my F-150 needs new coil buckets, dam cancer eating 'em out, they might make the summer but deff not another winter. And before winter I want to refabricate my plow mount on the F-150 since I'll have to take my butchered mount off to replace the coil buckets. Wish I either had one or had access to a CNC type cutting table for steel, I'd just manufacture my own coil buckets and design 'em so it makes my life easier for fabricating my plow mount.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Compressed to roughly ride height.

Full droop, I was hoping for more drop but I think I need longer springs and to skip the F-150 spring perches to get it.

Without the tape measure in the way....

For the upper spring retainers I got some F-150 coil spring retainers. They were relatively cheap and I think they'll do a good job.

I got the broken bolt drilled out (finally). Had to drill a 1/4" hole, then work at it with a couple round files till I could get the remains of the old bolt chiseled out, then I was able to get my grinding burr on my die grinder in there to open it up enough for the new bolt. I'll have to flatten out where the nut will sit a little with a grinder yet and get the new caster/camber bushing in place and the passenger side will be done aside from the axle shaft and outers.

The I got the stub shaft for the drivers side ground and painted today. Hammered in the U-joint, slid it in and tapped the spindle in place. Have to tighten down the nuts yet and assemble the outer (rotor, hub, brakes) plus drill out for the upper spring retainer. Aside from that, the drivers side is done.

I had to get a load of manure for mom's garden and was talking with the guy at the farm, he said his neighbor was a welder. Oddly enough the neighbor showed up right on cue, he said he'd take a look at welding up my cage for me so maybe I'll finally be able to get it welded up soon.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

One 35" tire is on... it's temporary till I check the clearances, get the passenger side axle shafts together, and find my Warn hubs (or my Ford hubs). I have two sets of manual D-28 hubs and at least 2 sets of D-35 hubs (more than likely I have three sets) but would you think I could find the D-35 hubs? Of course not. All I could find was my one lone brand new D-35 hub (motorcraft).

Of course, my shed is a mess. I have the stuff to organize it, but I haven't spent the time to really go and do it. I'm pretty sure all the hubs are in there somewhere. I really need to build two or three more shelves and move a bunch of stuff out while I organize.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Spent a lil bit of time on it today. Poked around and found a half-trashed hub to use for fitting the passenger side together - for whatever reason the lock/unlock switch is half melted and stuck in the lock position. Guts on it look good and one of my Warn hubs has a bad set of guts, IIRC, I was going to swap the guts over so I have a good pair of hubs. Of course, I have to find the other hubs first. Was pulling stuff out of my shed that I set aside for a run to the parts store to warranty stuff and saw another set of hubs, pulled them out and they look like D-28 hubs but I'll have to see if they'll fit. I have the next two days free, so hopefully I'll be able to spare some time to work on the choptop, I have another load of manure on the F-150 I need to unload and it's hooked to the trailer that has another load of wood chips on it, so I got a bit of unloading ahead of me.

I got the passenger side axle shafts cleaned up, still need to finish grinding for the full circle clips though. Managed to kill my last wire cup brush for the grinder, thought I had a spare but no such luck. Fortunately dad had one that I was able to finish up with.

Checked the clearances and my 35's are hitting the extended radius arms just before full lock, I think I may just throw a 1/4" spacer on 'em and call it good. I bought the rims based on the recommended rim size in the tech archives. Not sure if my fenders and bumper are going to interfere or not when flexing. At ride height, it's close. If I have to I'll ditch the bumper and trim the back of the fenders. I really didn't want to go trimming the fenders though. The bumper I'm not too worried about since I wanted to build something for it. Only problem is, I don't have the time or money to build my bumpers right now.

Out of the three recent people I asked about welding up the cage, two are out of town for a couple months and the third hasn't got back to me yet. Once I get the front axle done I may end up trying to fit the cage together and take all the trimmed pieces to use for practice welds. If I can pick up using a MIG easy enough, I may just do it myself. Oxy-act torch welding I can do easy, stick is not so pretty though. And that's all I've ever really welded with so far. Not sure I can really torch weld that together though, not much room for running a flame in there.

Hopefully I can get it squared away in time for the trailride....

I'm a little skeptical of the axle shafts in the front though, they were all a bit on the rusty side, some serious pits in spots. After having snapped a couple D-28 shafts and seeing that the D-35 shafts are not all that much thicker to begin with, not sure how well it'll hold up. Wish there was some aftermarket alloys to go with.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Spent a lil time on it yesterday, got the axle shafts all ground for full-circle clips, got the last U-joint I needed, tightened down a bunch of bolts to final torque, dug the rest of my 35's out of the shed and put all the 33's in the shed and cleaned up my shed a little more. Still not sure where the heck my sets of D-35 hubs are - I found that I apparently have 3 sets of D-28 hubs that are not on an axle (I also have three D-28 axles with manual hubs on them) - no idea why or how I ended up with that many. I got the 35's on the rear axle and cleaned up around the choptop a lil too. Hopefully I can get the passenger side assembled today. Only one little sticky point... I found my one 35 isn't holding air.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Fought with it some today, managed to make a little progress despite problems....

Needed to tack weld the cap on the slip joint for the front axle shaft, as luck would have it I wasn't able to use either the stick or mig welder here, had to break out the oxy-act torches, which worked, but left the part quite hot for quite some time. Finally got some paint on it and wouldn't you know it, the paint stayed tacky for HOURS. Got fed up waiting and just hammered the joint in anyway. Messed up the paint a lil but who's really looking at it anyway. Of course, in the process of putting the last two joints in I managed to smash a needle bearing so it had to come back out and do it again.

Spent a bit of time messing with the tire that lost pressure... aired it up to full pressure and went over it twice trying to find the leak to no avail.

Also found that the spindle was a lil less than perfect and had to carefully file a ridge down. Checked it with the bearings after I was done and it seems to be fine. But more time wasted.

Of course, in my bag of spare axle parts I'm missing a C-clip for the outer and the driver washer. Or rather the washer that's in the bag is destroyed beyond use. So now I have to dig through the not-so-organized parts in my shed in search of a C-clip and driver washer along with a pair of D-35 hubs.

Also have to put the caliper and brake pads on the passenger side and adjust the tie rods. And I need some more lug nuts. And money. And my cage welded. And a windshield.

But for all that, I was finally able to pull the big jackstands out from under the frame in the front. I shouldn't need to have both front tires off the ground at the same time anymore now, I'll just be working on one side or the other at a time. Pics to come, probably post 'em up tomorrow night, I gotta get something to eat and get some rack time since I have to be up in 6 hours for work.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Pics delayed due to technical difficulties.... ie, my camera and computer refused to play nice. But.... I got it sorted out.

35's on front and rear....

And no more big jackstands in the front.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to finish up the front and take it for a test drive around the block. Then I plan to start fitting the cage and tack it all together. Then I'll try my hand at practicing MIG welding and go from there.....

 

[88_Eddie]

looks good dude

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

looks good dude

Thanks! It's been taking forever and starting to really drive me nuts. Especially on the warm days we've been having. I want to be driving it again.

Only sticky point right now is that I just flat out do not have the cash to spare for a windshield. Hoping some work turns up soon. If I skip going to the trailride on the first, I can put a windshield in. Not really sure I like my options there, lol.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well... it's been down the street twice and around the block once....

Managed to get most of the "little" stuff cleaned up today with dad's help. Managed to get all the important stuff checked off the list except for adjusting the one tie rod adjusting sleeve, which shouldn't take long at all. I was really hoping to make the spring roundup ride tomorrow, but I'd have to be out of here by 6 and I wasn't able to get things hooked up and ready to go before dark (and I wasn't about to make my dad hold a flashlight while I pulled half the stuff out of my shed to get the tow bar out).

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Got some more work done on it here and there. Tore the two broken hubs apart and managed to make one good one out of 'em. Still have to put all the parts back together for it, trying to decide exactly how I should lube it up for assembly, if I should use some grease or if I should just soak it in 85-140 gear oil. Lots of gunked up grease in those hubs.

Also got to work on the roll cage. Got the main hoop trimmed and set in place, notched the halo bar (still have to take a flap disk to clean up the notches a lil), trimmed, notched and tacked one front post and trimmed the other. Trying to decide if I should put a cross bar above the dash between the two front posts and if I should put a center brace or not. Almost seems a little excessive for a mild wheeler. Still have to tack the main hoop to the floor plates, notch and tack the other front post and get the door braces trimmed and in. Weather permitting, I'll be working on it Friday and Sunday. Monday I'm scheduled for a windshield and inspection.

Pics to come soon as I get around to taking some more.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Got things tacked and got the windshield out. The whole bottom of the windshield area is rusty but I think I can hit it with a flap disk and shoot some paint on it and it'll be ok. The one top corner is kinda rotted, not quite sure how I should go about fixing it (probably should have grabbed a pic). Still have to pull the cage, weld it up, stick it back in and clean up a few things.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

New windshield is in and sporting a new inspection sticker!

Although it's not exactly fun to drive it in the rain, lol.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I've been driving it here and there, weather permitting mostly. Last day I drove it though my voltage regulator took a dump on me, since it was cheaper than a new alternator, I replaced it but haven't had a chance to drive it since because of rain. I keep cleaning up odds and ends on it: re-mounted my cb (after a little bit of thought on how to do it, I attached it to the cage using a couple exhaust clamps), replaced the broken tailgate handle, took the 4x4 shifter out - lubed it up and cleaned the bolt holes so I could get it properly fastened, added a shift boot for the 4x4, etc. Going to try to clean up a few other loose ends but work will probably be coming to a stop here since my F-150 needs serious attention - I hit a deer a few weeks back with it and as things ended up, insurance cut me a check so I get to order the parts to repair.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Since the F-150 has been up on jackstands (and I put a build thread up for it in the non-rbv build section), the choptop has become my DD.

And I've been finding all sorts of bugs....

The E-brake cables need adjusted (possibly flat out replaced). It takes a LOT of force to get it down to the first notch then it doesn't want to release. Of course, my cage is kind of in the way of the E-brake too, lol.

Voltage regulator died, swapped in a new one and it's working fine. The brushes were just about shot (and the ones in my spare alt were even worse) so I ordered a new set, just haven't had time to put them in yet.

MAJOR idle problems. Cleaned the IAC and that seemed to help, but it still doesn't want to idle down until after you've hit the gas. While poking around I found that the rubber vacuum caps I bought and put on (Dorman) to cover some of the unused vacuum ports had rotted and split apart so I rigged some hose to plug them into one another.

Output seal on the steering gear box took a dump on me (the one for the pitman arm). Literally. I have a new seal on the way and while I was at it I got a complete seal kit to use to rebuild one of my spare gearboxes. I had thought about replacing it but I don't have the extra green right now. I had this crazy idea of trying to see if an F-150 steering gear could be made to work until I did a little looking and discovered that Ford used the same steering gear for Rangers, BIIs, F-series, FSBs and the like from like 1980 to 1997. Go figure. You'd think a replacement one would be cheap as all get out, lol.