MY build thread...'88 Bronco II Desert Rat Patrol Edition: MAJOR update 2/23/2025

[lil_Blue_Ford]

On the transmission, with the A4LD, I’m always going to highly recommend doing a Transgo shift kit and a bunch of valve body mods. Clears up a few common issues with them and helps it run a little cooler. Also tighten the bands if you don’t know when the last time it was done. There’s a torque procedure for it. And I’m a fan of large auxiliary transmission coolers. Bit of tinker work and a bit messy for all of it, but 1,000x worth it.

 

[Peter Griffin]

@Uncle Gump you mean this for the sensor, yeah?

I'm using a universal fit hose with a inner metal "spring" (for lack of a better term) that I hope won't cause any issues...pretty sure I have a stock lower radiator hose laying around somewhere too...

When this is all over I'm gonna have all sorts of take-offs, etc. in the marketplace to unload!

 

[Uncle Gump]

I would just use the sender you removed. The gauge was working correct?

Just buy the hose adaptor that has a ground lug... and run a ground wire to it... install the old sender... extend the temp sender wire to the new location... done.

Just remember that it will be lower hose and reading the coolant temp after being cooled opposed to the hot water being pumped to the radiator.

 

[Peter Griffin]

I would just use the sender you removed. The gauge was working correct?

Just buy the hose adapter that has a ground lug... and run a ground wire to it... install the old sender... extend the temp sender wire to the new location... done.

Just remember that it will be lower hose and reading the coolant temp after being cooled opposed to the hot water being pumped to the radiator.

Yes Sir, the gauge was working just fine thanks to @Shran who completely hooked me up with a new gauge cluster after I broke the needle on my tach...!

Sooooo...this was interesting. Yesterday morning I noticed my coolant level (cold) was VERY high. I have a brand new tank/reservoir and since it doesn't have a high/low or hot/cold hash mark, I just put in a cold fill level arbitrarily, about halfway up it. I got out my handy garage use only turkey baster and removed the excess coolant until it was back to the cold fill line.

I had recently futzed with the lower radiator hose and lost some coolant, which I had replaced with fresh coolant, prior to that with the TWO previous radiators and innumerable flushes I did the cold fill line was consistent. I'm literally on my third radiator now, which is now an OEM-style replacement, so it's hard to keep up, even for me!

Anyway I can home from a test drive/"stress test" on the fans and the whole time I'm noticing the car is running significantly cooler than the previous day. I purposely left the A/C off at first, which was brutal because it was 110+ yesterday because I didn't want the e-fans running. It took quite some time for it to get hot enough to trip the e-fans, which immediately dropped the temp. Running up and down the interstate and throwing in a 1.5K+ of elevation up and down both ways with the A/C on and off it never exceeded 214 on the steepest grade and again stabilized to a steady 206...

The other day as soon I was off the interstate the temp began to climb, eventually reaching 214 or so before my idle test. That didn't happen yesterday. While the A/C unfortunately became less effective at stop and go, low speed driving the temp gauge didn't move and stayed right around 206.

So I returned to my house for the "idle test". I left the A/C off and let it idle for 5 minutes, and it would not go above 214. I turned the A/C on and it briefly went to 215 and stayed at 213/214 for 5 minutes. Unfortunately the A/C was putting out near heater-like air at that point, but that's a 12-degree drop under identical conditions.

I thought I had burped and eliminated any air pockets in the cooling system but with all of my futzing around that probably wasn't the case, and running hot goes hand in hand with elevated coolant temperatures in my experience so maybe I'm good to go now as far as that's concerned...?

The picture shows the coolant level AFTER my test drive. There was a small amount of coolant that leaked through the top so my cold fill hash mark might be a little too high I think....?

With the new temp gauge fitting I'll be futzing around with it AGAIN but I thought it was really curious.

The A/C has me a lil agitated. The e-fans are directly on top of the condenser so there's plenty of air moving through it in addition to the factory fan pulling air, so I'm not sure why it's only working well at interstate speed, especially if there's no corresponding increase in coolant temperature.

My A/C guy is gonna check, I think I'm low on refrigerant honestly, but I'll let him pressure test it and figure it out. It more important that the engine run cool than the A/C work but I can't have my family/dog uncomfortable during peak summer temps so I need to get that handled. The ENTIRE A/C system is brand new so there's no acceptable excuse that it's not working properly...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Out of curiosity, what orifice tube did you use? I can’t remember if you mentioned it and kinda don’t want to go hunting for it. Both my green Ranger and my red one had brown tubes factory. I might have gone with that in my red one (don’t quite remember), but I wasn’t really happy with it. My green one and my Choptop I put black variable ones in, but I don’t have either system fully working yet to say how they will work out.

 

[Peter Griffin]

I previously wrote about the complete show I had with the "extreme temperature" orifice tube I bought from Rock Auto...that didn't fit the new lines I bought from them...and they refused to refund because I didn't have an "extreme temperature" A/C system...I kid you not. I was like trying to explain particle physics to a particle...

When I drop it off with my A/C guy on Monday I'm gonna ask him to swap it out and see if that helps...

Chasing the engine and occupant cooling issues is getting really old at this point and has cost me a small fortune. I know it's part of the learning process and I certainly try to do things right the first time but that is certainly not the way it's been working out!

It really is starting to come together with the new wheels/tires and suspension dialed in along with the interior work starting. I never put a timeline on it because I wanted to take as much time as it needed, but I can see it being October-ish by the time the interior is wrapped up and the exterior is Raptor lines and it's as good as it's gonna get!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I previously wrote about the complete show I had with the "extreme temperature" orifice tube I bought from Rock Auto...that didn't fit the new lines I bought from them...and they refused to refund because I didn't have an "extreme temperature" A/C system...I kid you not. I was like trying to explain particle physics to a particle...

When I drop it off with my A/C guy on Monday I'm gonna ask him to swap it out and see if that helps...

Chasing the engine and occupant cooling issues is getting really old at this point and has cost me a small fortune. I know it's part of the learning process and I certainly try to do things right the first time but that is certainly not the way it's been working out!

It really is starting to come together with the new wheels/tires and suspension dialed in along with the interior work starting. I never put a timeline on it because I wanted to take as much time as it needed, but I can see it being October-ish by the time the interior is wrapped up and the exterior is Raptor lines and it's as good as it's gonna get!

Oh boy, lol. I didn’t put a black variable one in my 92 because it didn’t seem to want to fit come to think of it. Fit in my Choptop fine though. Strange.

Anyway, I know there’s a couple different options and some are supposed to be for more cooling in hotter climates and such.

And it do be like that sometimes, getting frustrated at throwing time and money at it and don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Chin up, when it’s squared away you’re gonna be happy as a clam. Or at least until something breaks. My F-150 I did a major overhaul once on, took a lot longer than I wanted at the time and I was throwing money at problems, but aside from some breakage just due to having a 300-6 with a stage 2 clutch and ZF-5 transmission being capable of transferring some ridiculous torque around, which also seems to be related to my heavy right boot and light left boot, it made it 10 years before coming apart again. I’m currently limping it around, but it needs another overhaul. I can’t complain about 10 years in the rust belt. I also have some new ideas for potentially extending that this time around, which of course means more time and money. Is what it is, we are car guys. Lol.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I'm really not crazy about those fan mounts, they are asking for problems with radiators/condensers.

My fans bolted together and then had two mounting bolts on each side.

 

[Peter Griffin]

Good news...best news actually and I'll TRY to get it short...I know I'm a Chatty Kathy!

Two things I said from Jump Street when I started this build; I'd put out exactly what was up, warts and all, and that given the extreme summer temperatures here in SW AZ, both the engine and occupants needed to be sufficiently cooled.

With that being said I took it back to my A/C-mechanic to have him take a look at it since at idle and lower speeds the A/C turned near into a heater. I also asked him to perform a compression test while he was at it, for gits and shiggles!

The other issue which was chappin' my backside was the passenger side e-fan kept blowing fuses. Wired directly to the battery it was fine (duh, no fuse) but there was definitely something up with that fan as it worked fine for a few days and suddenly quit and started popping fuses like Ralphie's dad after wiring up the family Christmas Story tree!

Well, turned out my e-fans were pullers not pushers because I had them wired backwards. The passenger e-fan was defective and pulling near 50A...! Also, since the A/C was originally an R-12/Freon system and it was converted to R-134 there's a whole fine tuning process with refrigerant charge and pressures.

Since I was on vacation for a week I told him to have at it and I'm glad I did. While I'm disappointed one of the e-fans is bad it is NOT necessary, not even close, for my environment with everything else I've done to the cooling system.

Now that the one e-fan is pushing in the right direction, with the A/C constantly on my coolant temp peaked at my thermostat's setting...180. It blipped up to 181 but close enough for government work!

The A/C is ICE cold, at extended idle (I'm talking 30 minutes at 108 degrees), or highway speed.

I'm actually rethinking putting in a stock temperature (192 I think?) thermostat now that this whole engine cooling issue I was having is resolved...?

He did a headgasket test after I told him I was chasing my arbitrary reservoir hash mark and said all my futzing caused air pockets (which I thought I had burped, but clearly hadn't) and they're fine. That coincided with the excellent news from the compression test, where he got between 136-145. There's a lot of variables with testing compression but for a leak free, 35 year old motor, I thought that was pretty good news.

Cruise control is OK...it's just for extended interstate travel at the speed limit (75) it's not quite as swanky as what I'm used to in 35 year old newer cars...so I need to get over that!

Now I can focus on finishing up the interior soundproofing, insulation, etc. before moving on to some minor bodywork before Raptor lining the exterior...WHEW!

 

[Uncle Gump]

Just one word...

 

[Uncle Gump]

But seriously... I'm really happy things are starting to look up.

 

[Peter Griffin]

It's a process which I'm enjoying as frustrating as it's been at times. Once the windows are tinted and the interior is back together it's gonna be an ice box!

With all the suspension work and a proper alignment it tracks beautifully on the interstate @ 75...can drive with one finger. Pretty nice for a 35 year old truck!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Very glad to hear you got it sorted out finally!

Don’t suppose you know what the exact refrigerant charge and pressures are? I’m thinking it might not matter on my Choptop since I run the 4.0 with a newer pump that should have been R-134a and I’m not sure how much the rest of the system would really be different. But my 88, when it gets put back together, will be a 2.9 likely with the old R-12 compressor. But I might use your information as a starting point on the Choptop.

 

[Peter Griffin]

Out of curiosity, what orifice tube did you use? I can’t remember if you mentioned it and kinda don’t want to go hunting for it. Both my green Ranger and my red one had brown tubes factory. I might have gone with that in my red one (don’t quite remember), but I wasn’t really happy with it. My green one and my Choptop I put black variable ones in, but I don’t have either system fully working yet to say how they will work out.

Very glad to hear you got it sorted out finally!

Don’t suppose you know what the exact refrigerant charge and pressures are? I’m thinking it might not matter on my Choptop since I run the 4.0 with a newer pump that should have been R-134a and I’m not sure how much the rest of the system would really be different. But my 88, when it gets put back together, will be a 2.9 likely with the old R-12 compressor. But I might use your information as a starting point on the Choptop.

I asked him specifically about the orifice tubes since they make one for "extreme temperatures over 105 degrees" which I thought would be a no-brainer since here it gets to 10 degrees or more hotter than that. He said there's fitment issues with the lines using those, which is exactly what I experienced. He said we ended up using the red one...

He didn't particularly like my aftermarket condenser either and thought the OEM was much better. I replaced it since the entire system was trashed from the compressor slowly disintegrating and sending metal material throughout the system. I know I could have brake cleaned and power washed it but a new condenser was relatively short money and the one I bought at Rock Auto was their super duper one with additional corrosion resistance or some such nonsense...

More Information for GPD 3608C

He ended up getting it to work keeping the condenser I had and checking the notes on the invoice the charge was 1.3 pounds and high side psi was 250-300, low side, 35-45 psi.

I hope this helps, especially after all the help y'all have given me!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I asked him specifically about the orifice tubes since they make one for "extreme temperatures over 105 degrees" which I thought would be a no-brainer since here it gets to 10 degrees or more hotter than that. He said there's fitment issues with the lines using those, which is exactly what I experienced. He said we ended up using the red one...

He didn't particularly like my aftermarket condenser either and thought the OEM was much better. I replaced it since the entire system was trashed from the compressor slowly disintegrating and sending metal material throughout the system. I know I could have brake cleaned and power washed it but a new condenser was relatively short money and the one I bought at Rock Auto was their super duper one with additional corrosion resistance or some such nonsense...

More Information for GPD 3608C

He ended up getting it to work keeping the condenser I had and checking the notes on the invoice the charge was 1.3 pounds and high side psi was 250-300, low side, 35-45 psi.

I hope this helps, especially after all the help y'all have given me!

Thank you! Hopefully it works for me too. I was having a little trouble finding some solid information on what to do with these AC systems awhile back when I put my 92 together, so I just took a stab at it and it worked, but not as good as I would have liked. I just have to nail down what’s leaking in my Choptop and I can test things, lol