BII Eddie Bauer question

[MeanMark87]

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Using the facts that you list your home as Minnesota and that you are looking at an 88 B2 that is a good drive from you, I surmised that you used craiglist to find the vechicle in question since most people post on there since it's free and that would give you access to the knowledge that it is for sale. Knowing a majority of the population of MN lives near the Cities, I hedged my bets and I used this a basis to search craigslist using my favorite craigslist search engine, searchtempest.com, which allows you to quickly search many different cities around a starting point. Searching for Bronco only yields a few dozen results and looking through for an 88 Eddie Bauer narrows it down to a couple within a couple hundred miles of the Cities, and knowing that he didn't have very good interior photos or mention whether it was 4x4 narrowed the search to one B2, the one I posted.

Glad you got the B2 you were looking for, did you get a good deal on it?

I do feel like Watson to your Holmes

Yeah, I whittled him down from 1800 to 900. I wasn't expecting there to be as many little nagging things wrong with it as there were.

Basically it needs:

- Steering needs to be gone through...it's sloppy and has rattle inside the column when you go over bumps. I'm going to go through the linkages this week and see what's up (tie rods, pitman/idler arms etc)
- Oil pan gasket...it's seeping very slowly...not enough to lose any real volume between oil changes but it bothers me so I'm going to do it.
- Needs a muffler....it's missing the muffler and I drove it back from Des Moines almost 300 miles with ear plugs in. This is going to be JOB 1, lol.
- Needs a bushing/spacer in the tailgate handle mechanism....that's easy enough to fabricate on my own
- Needs the headliner replaced, needs both dome lights repaired
- Lot of rust work to do and cleaning up a horrible hack n' pack job done previously
- Needs a fuel tank sending unit as the gas gauge doesn't work
- Needs door mirrors (luckily I have a spare set I pulled from a '92 Ranger)

That and some cosmetic clean ups and little things like a headlight switch pull, a hood release handle, etc.

But, I drove it back here and it got 23 MPG highway! So that was one real positive to come out of it. Old girl can still sip gas.

 

[wildbill23c]

Glad you got it and brought it home, yep definitely needs work, but so does my 84 B2. I love mine, and I'm glad mine doesn't have any power options, less crap to go wrong with a 30 year old vehicle LOL.

I'm really curious to see what my bronco 2 would get for highway fuel economy, I rarely get out of the town I live in so I still have no clue what fuel economy it gets, all I know is I can run around town for quite a while on a tank of gas.

 

[MeanMark87]

Glad you got it and brought it home, yep definitely needs work, but so does my 84 B2. I love mine, and I'm glad mine doesn't have any power options, less crap to go wrong with a 30 year old vehicle LOL.

I'm really curious to see what my bronco 2 would get for highway fuel economy, I rarely get out of the town I live in so I still have no clue what fuel economy it gets, all I know is I can run around town for quite a while on a tank of gas.

I was floored that it was able to do 23. EPA says an '88 4x4 bronco II with a manual tranny should do 15 city 21 highway.

Then again I usually beat EPA numbers in all my cars. I've done upwards of 30 in the Ranger before.

I'm pretty obsessive about my mpg, so I plan to keep a good eye on it and see how it improves as I tune up the engine on the Bronco.

 

[wildbill23c]

I was floored that it was able to do 23. EPA says an '88 4x4 bronco II with a manual tranny should do 15 city 21 highway.

Then again I usually beat EPA numbers in all my cars. I've done upwards of 30 in the Ranger before.

I'm pretty obsessive about my mpg, so I plan to keep a good eye on it and see how it improves as I tune up the engine on the Bronco.

EPA numbers on vehicles are never true. I don't even bother looking at them in the first place. I can say this though, the EPA numbers on my 2008 Toyota Tundra said 15 city, 17 highway with the 5.7L V8. Well it actually it will do about 14 city consistently, and with non-ethanol fuel I can get 23-24mpg on the highway with it. Its a truck, I didn't buy it for fuel economy, but when I first got it 5 years ago I was curious and tracked it for the first year and it was pretty consistent 14 city and about 23 highway.

I know my 84 Ford Ranger 4x2 was lucky to get 20mpg, but it was the 2.8L V6 with automatic transmission. My 84 Bronco 2 is the 2.8L V6 and manual transmission and 4x4. Kind of curious to see what it will do.

 

[superds]

I'm glad you got a pretty good deal. Make sure to let us know if you need any advice doing any of the repairs.

 

[MeanMark87]

I'm glad you got a pretty good deal. Make sure to let us know if you need any advice doing any of the repairs.

Will do. I'm definitely going to have some questions...there's a lot of work to do on this thing, especially the front end.

One of them I can think of right away is, what exactly is the right term for the joints that link the front axle shaft to the front wheels? All my trucks have been 2wd to this point and this is my first 4x4. I know on front wheel drive cars it's the CV joint but those usually have a rubber boot which this Bronco doesn't have. It basically looks just like the axle shaft goes into a U-joint style assembly that's on the backside of the knuckle.

 

[wildbill23c]

Will do. I'm definitely going to have some questions...there's a lot of work to do on this thing, especially the front end.

One of them I can think of right away is, what exactly is the right term for the joints that link the front axle shaft to the front wheels? All my trucks have been 2wd to this point and this is my first 4x4. I know on front wheel drive cars it's the CV joint but those usually have a rubber boot which this Bronco doesn't have. It basically looks just like the axle shaft goes into a U-joint style assembly that's on the backside of the knuckle.

The joints on the older vehicles were U-Joints. The only CV type joint is on the rear drive-shaft of some models and is covered with a rubber boot.

If you can post pictures for us as you have questions it usually helps the guys provide quicker responses. However your answer here are U-Joints.

 

[MeanMark87]

The joints on the older vehicles were U-Joints. The only CV type joint is on the rear drive-shaft of some models and is covered with a rubber boot.

If you can post pictures for us as you have questions it usually helps the guys provide quicker responses. However your answer here are U-Joints.

Thanks a lot!

I was going to post a pic but I thought in this instance you guys would probably know right away. This thing is so freaking rusty it's going to be an interesting challenge to get all this stuff apart, that's for sure.

Hopefully by the time I get done with the bearings, ball joints, brakes, rotors, tie rods, etc. it'll ride a little better and I won't have that steering clunk on bumps.

 

[wildbill23c]

I know how you feel, my 84 B2 is extremely rusty, when brake time comes for me I'm going to have to replace brake lines, calipers, pads, and rotors from the looks of everything.

Its going to be an extremely long process for me but I'm planning on restoring mine to at least close to factory condition eventually. Right now its my daily driver and around town I'm averaging just under 16mpg with it, sure beats the 13mpg around town with my full size truck. even the little bit of difference helps me out on keeping more money in my pocket LOL.

 

[MeanMark87]

okay, another question.....will a 1990 lift gate fit my '88? There's a guy selling an all new gate for 20 bucks and I want to take him up on it.

 

[wildbill23c]

Yes.