A 1972 Bronco for the wife

I haven't solved the brake issue but they are decent.  A new 1 1/8" master has the brakes feeing wonderful with the caveat that they still won't lock up at 100% pressure and will still get to the floor. 
 

I have bled the living' snot out of them.  The only thing I can think to do is to get a more aggressive brake pad up front as it feels like it is close to locking up. 
 

know of a good pad that works well when cold for a standard gm caliper (74 blazer)??

Also, I have finally started the fitech install. after I bought it used I started to realize there are some big horror stories about them.  Argh

since I had prewired it (but mostly because I'm stubborn and don't like changing direction mid-course) I decided to just put it in and see what happens.  
 

my air cleaner base won't clear but besides that I think I am ok. 

I just had a thought to make it work - I can cut the hole out of the bottom of the cleaner in a rectangle shape and 180 it to give me more room in the back. 

haha!  Perfect.   I figured it out!

edit: of course it isn't a great idea - I'd still have the cover to deal  with. And making an offset bolt isn't hard but would it seal properly??  Ugh.   I'll just look for a standard base and see if I have room. 

In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :

The Fitech sounded like such a great product, I was really disappointed to hear the number of problems people had with them.

Looking forward to seeing you Saturday 

your front and rear seats - did they come with the truck ? 

Rear seat we bought.  Fold and tumble from tom's or wild horses.  Front seats are procar - elites I think.  The company is by me in redondo beach.  The truck came with one so I went and bought the match. 
 

Excellent thanks ! 

Brakes: could the hydraulic hoses be ballooning?

They're as braided in front but could be in the rear....  honestly other little things have come up that have distracted me and the brakes have been "good enough" for now.   But I'll get back into them at some point.  
 

jfryjfry (FS) said:

They're as braided in front but could be in the rear....  honestly other little things have come up that have distracted me and the brakes have been "good enough" for now.   But I'll get back into them at some point.  
 

 

I am doing the full discs on mine. Waiting on new booster (backordered). Be happy to give you a hand, IF mine turns out ok :)

So it's been a while and I have both enjoyed this thing and chased down problems. 
 

one of the problems was a miss. Narrowed it down to one cylinder most of the time and another sometimes.   Tried everything.  Then a friend discovered that plugging the booster hose made it idle perfectly.  Turned out the booster was leaking but the brakes never felt lacking for assist.  And the signal for the booster came from a runner that directly fed one cylinder (that had the miss) and another one was tied to it (with the occasional miss). 
 

unfortunately a new booster didn't give me amazing brakes - they felt the same.  But the miss was gone. 

 

also, had increasingly frustrating issues with the fitech fuel injection   Finally just replaced it with a holley sniper setup   And then spent hours and $$$ chasing down a No-start issue, not sure if it was install error, a preexisting issue that might have been the problem with the fitech, or a sniper issue     Finally narrowed it down to a strong suspicion that it was the sniper and sent it back to holley     Sure enough, turns out it had a bad ignition driver or something with reading the  coil signal   
 

Now it runs great using the components that holley said wouldn't work (which is what caused me to buy a lot of other stuff I didn't end up needing)  

but what has been plaguing me for a while now are these squeaks and grinds, seemingly from the rear or middle.  One of the worst sounds is a grinding that sounds like the flexplate is warped and hitting something but it is not engine speed related and I saw nothing suspicious when I pulled the inspection cover. 
 

I've put new rear drum brakes on and gone through them a few times with no real change. 

i finally discovered that the squeak was in time with the driveshaft.  So I googled ujoint squeak and lo and behold, the noise on a video was the exact noise I had!  So I replaced one (the single rearmost one) and it had some weird wear pattern on it   Which was odd because it was brand new   
 

At the same time I inspected and moved around the front double Cardan joint and lubed it up really good and it seemed fine. Well, one noise went away with the new rear joint but there were other ones and the worst of them still persisted.

I finally decided to just replace all of the double cardan joint stuff since it was a big unknown from the previous owner anyway and I was running out of options short of tearing into the transfer case or the transmission.

As I started pulling it apart all of my nice fresh grease was everywhere and everything looked really good. The first you joint I pulled off, while dirty, was in great shape.

Same with the little CV joint yoke that goes in the middle.

And also the same with the last U-joint. At least as I pulled off each of the caps the first, second, and third all looked awesome. I was disappointed because obviously this wasn't my problem. But then I look at the last one and it didn't quite look the same as the others. It was a little drier and as I pulled it out I removed the cap and I found what I hope is my problem. If it's not THE problem it sure was A problem.

i spent a few hours cleaning everything up and ordered the needle fitting for my grease gun to get at that middle joint. 
 

I'll take a pic of it all gussied up and post it. 
 

very excited to get it on and take it for a spin!