A 1972 Bronco for the wife

Well, I was going to start this a little later but I need a few things and thought it might be a little rude to just ask without at least a few pics...

so before I ask, I’ll introduce my lovely wife who, until about a year ago, was not interested in cars much and certainly not not old ones. 

She floored me when she announced that she might like to do a little project together and I immediately had visions of a cute little Miata we could resurrect and take autocrossing together. 

“No, I was thinking an old Bronco.”   

Great, only one of the most expensive, most desirable old vehicles on the planet.

well, I found the perfect candidate about 10 hours away.  The top pic is me about to do a u-turn and head 700 miles or so south. 

Many blanks to fill in, but was wondering if anyone had a cheap set of horns that either look nice or could be cleaned pretty easily???

we aren’t quite to that point but I hope to be soon and would like to have everything I need at hand!

Please stop getting cooler and cooler by the day. 

My wife loves these and wants one. I told her there was no way it was going to happen given their current pricing. Good on you, but if my wife ever sees these I'm a dead man.

You married one of the good ones. I've wanted an early Bronco since I was a kid, but the time was never right. Now they're quite spendy, so it's on my list of "maybe one day" projects.

You got off easy. My wife likes Land Rovers. 

Nice truck!

I was so sad when Chuck decided to sell his '73 Bronco. I was torn up inside but there was no talking him out of it, I tried. Someday when I win the lottery I'll get another one.

In reply to jfryjfry :

Horns like toot-toot or horns like moo? 

From the look on her face she was just waiting to set the HOOK!!!! I know you just got it , but is there a hardtop in the future??

When I read the title I thought " A 1972 Bronco for the wife.  That's a pretty good deal."  Now I've read the post and see that you have a wife that actually wants a '72 Bronco as opposed to finding someone who'll take her for a trade on a Bronco I'm now thinking "That's a great deal!"  I hope the three of you spend many happy hours together.

Man, the amount I miss my '67 is just crazy.   Yours is in the same color too.  I'll be watching and contributing as much a I can here.

Can't wait to see you start tearing into it.    

Ten years ago my boss had an old Bronco and he lived in Denver.  It had multicolored panels as it was a beater although no rust at all.  His son-in-law said it was scary coming down mountains as the brakes were awful.  He had a garage of parts too.   

He offered it to me for $3500 and I thought he was nuts.  

Turns out I was nuts.

That smile says it all!!!!  Best of luck on your new project, should be fun.

Nice project! I've always liked those. 

My wife's CX-9 was at the dealer today getting warranty work and she send me a text at work proclaiming that she liked her loaner car way better than the CX-9. A freaking Grand Caravan.

Your wife is cooler than mine. 

Yeah.   The pre-75 brakes are rough.   Non-power drums all around.   Highly recommended upgrade.   That and 76-77 steering if you aren’t doing serious off-roading.   The bump steer is fierce in the earlier trucks.

This is great, looks like fun!

My wife wants an E-type... ha

Hello neglected thread.  Meet somewhat neglected project.  
 

Quick 1,000 word update:

sooo cool.

Damn that's beautiful, need to see it in person!!

Love the color, looking forward to more info when you have time. 

Great color choice!

Thanks for the kind words!   Her choice but I agree completely. 
 

I painted the motor with a high temp over the counter spray paint that amazingly matches well. 
 

I had heard that you can drop the drive train in as a complete unit - engine, trans, xfer case.  I was dubious and had planned on doing transfer case separately but my buddy who was coming over to help was taking a long time so I put the case on while I waited. 
 

I removed the front wheels and dropped it as low as I could. Luckily I realized that the lift's legs wouldn't clear the axle before trying to drive the lift in. So I raised it so there was about 1/4" clearance. 
 

the good news was that I was able to place the leveler to get the whole shebang high enough to clear the grill.  The bad news was that after 45 mins and having it inches from being home we discovered that the leveler was going to foul on the firewall.   Somehow, my buddy noticed just as we were mere millimeters from gouging the shiny new paint with sharp shiny metal brackets on the leveler. 

after much groaning we pulled the whole thing back out.  At this point my buddy said to pull the xfer case and reposition the leveler.  Spoiler alert - he was right. 
 

but that would have meant needing to get another gasket to reattach the case when the time came. And draining the fluid.  So we just moved the leveler forward and I figured my strong friend could just lift the end of the drivetrain over the grill as I pushed it in.  
 

that didn't work because he could receive it while standing in the bay but couldn't move while I pushed it in. 
 

so after much head scratching, I put a ratchet strap from the tail to the end of the lift boom and was able to lift it enough to clear the grill. 
 

This time it worked and we were able to get it home.  Of course, after the initial struggle with plenty of attempts we never scratched the paint.   But this time, even with blankets everywhere, we discovered that we had gouged the firewall somehow.  
 

actually, it was me getting a little western with it at one point but I didnt realize it had hit anything at the time.  Pretty bummed about that....

eventually got it in and started putting all of the stuff in. 
 

the only really hold up was running the transmission cooler lines and the alternator charge wire. I had spent some time and money to run the starter wire through the frame so you can't see it for the entire 12" it would have been on top of the frame. 
 

I eventually bit the bullet and spent a few hours drilling more holes in the frame that were exceedingly difficult to reach now that there was a motor in place and running the wire and lines through the frame. 

here it is after I added the alternator wire along with the starter wire

i'm happy that i did it but it was some effort. 
 

The moment of truth came last night and a few buddies came over to help/watch/harass. 
 

I had taken great pains to make sure the motor was at tdc #1 when I built it.  So after priming the motor and getting the very reluctant distributer to finally drop in (it was no less than 10 minutes each time to get it to clear whatever thing it was fouling on), I was super bummed when it wasn't starting.  Wasn't backfiring or anything. 
 

after checking all kinds of stuff, we finally got the motor to tdc #1 and lo and behold, the rotor was not pointing where it should be.   I think the problem happened when I bolted up the torque converter.  I must have turned it once and that's it. 
 

after that, in spite of the starter sounding less than powerful, it fired right up!  Right to about 2500 rpm for 25 mins.  Amazingly, only a few small issues -there was a lot of oil coming the front of the oil pan making a large mess. My heart dropped, thinking it was a bad pan seal as they can be notoriously bad at the corners.  
 

 Fortunately it was the two large bolts on the front of the oil pan. They were both loose.  I can only imagine that I tightened up the others (7/16" heads) and forgot to hit these two outliers (1/2" heads). 

the other issue was that I had filled the power steering reservoir before starting but it had emptied out into the system while running.  So I topped it off while breaking in the cam.  Unfortunately, I put way too much because I didn't think that when I stopped the motor it would fill up. It immediately puked about 1/4 quart. 
 

but small issues overall. The other oddity was that the temp gauge barely moved.  We could feel the air get hot and cold as the thermostat cycled so I figured everything was ok. 
But I realized later that I had moved the sending unit to the back of the intake so my fuel injection sensor could be at the front.  I think/hope that is the difference. 
 

I tried to restart it afterwards to set idle and, frankly, just to hear it run, but the starter was turning over pretty weakly and it didn't catch. 
 

tried a new battery and on a charger to no avail.  Poor grounding of the starter through the painted bellhousing came up but after snugging the hot lead, the solenoid was now just rapidly clicking.  I suspect the solenoid was spotty and just died but since the starter is a used unit that came with the transmission, I'm just going to get a new high torque mini starter from a 90's mustang, replacing both the solenoid and the starter. 
 

funny enough, I expected a bit of smoke with all of the paint on the motor and exhaust.  But it was pretty smoke- and drama-free. 
 

jist have to finish the interior so we can take it out for a proper drive now!

In reply to jfryjfry :

Awesome, congrats!

Sweet!