The Miata experience: his and hers.

Good thing, $200 was all the damage ! 

Finished up the passenger seat install in the Bronco today.

For the passenger side, I used the Bronco mount and sliders to retain the 'slide forward' function for rear access.  This required removing the Ram sliders, which were riveted to the seats.  After the PITA of dealing with the rivets on the driver's seat, I took a different approach:  hack the E36 M3 out of them!

I started by cutting away the rails, as close to the rivet points as I could get...

I was then able to cut the remaining rails lengthwise, and split them to pull away from the rivets.  Then I just had to cut off the rivet heads and grind them flush.  The result was a nice surface to weld on some crossmembers for the Bronco mechanism.

Next, I pulled the Bronco slider mechanism from the Bronco seat.  Four bolts = easy peasy.

Then, it was a simple matter of drilling four holes and bolting the mechanism to the steel crossmembers I had added to the Ram seats.

Test fit...

Everything fit, and worked as intended, which left one thing to do...  add a lever for the release mechanism for the forward sliding function.  On the Bronco, this uses a linkage to activate with the the seat back lever.  I simply added a separate lever to keep things simple.  Down the road the lever will get some paint and a cap.

After modifying the seat trim cover for the lever, I put everything back together.

It was a good thing that was the lest weld required, because this is how much gas I had left for the MIG:

Usually that happens at the beginning of a project...

Finished:

And here's the forward position.  Plenty of room for access...

Parts keep arriving for the upcoming brake job on the Bronco.  I think all that's left is a new booster, and fluid, which I'll get locally to make it easier to get the core $$ back on the booster.  It's 85* today, so I think we're done with snow for the year, though Mother Nature does like to throw an early May snowstorm at us from time to time...

In the meantime, I painted the tailgate today...

My plan is to piecemeal the thing, one panel at a time.  I hope to have it done in a month or so.

After having some difficulty spraying the top, some research uncovered an entire industry dedicated to spray paint 'artists'.  I ordered up some 'fan' pattern nozzles from Amazon, which work quite a bit better than the off the shelf rattle can nozzle.

Today I started the Great Brake Refresh project on the Bronco.  Basically, its getting everything new except the master cylinder (which I replaced not too long ago), and the hard lines:

Power booster.

Front hubs, bearings, rotors, calipers, pads and SS hoses.

Rear drums, shoes, and wheel cylinders.

Jacked, and ready for surgery.

I had actually replaced the power booster not long ago, but it was making hissing noises, even though it seemed to be working fine.  I figured a torn diaphragm, so I tossed in a new one.

That part of the job should have taken about 20 minutes, but took over an hour because of one bolt.  Why do engineers insist on always putting something directly in front of at least one bolt on every job? 

Next up was the front hubs/rotors, which I had picked up as assemblies.

First step was some paint to protect the hub.

Everything went fine on the driver's side, but when I pulled the Warn manual hub on the passenger side, it fell apart...

Not sure what happened, but it's FUBAR'd.

Got the hubs and new (rebuilt) calipers installed, and the locking hub back in on the driver's side.

I ordered a new set of locking hubs, which should be at the local parts store in the morning.  After installing that, I'll get started with the rears.  Once the mechanical parts are in place, I'll flush the lines and install the new front hoses.  I hope to be able to finish this up tomorrow.  It sucks getting old and slow!  

I was actually awake early enough to get started on the rears before going to get the new hubs.

The old:

The new:

I'd forgotten what a PITA drum brakes are... ugh.

Anyway, got it all back together, picked up the new locking hubs, got that installed, and started on the new front hoses.  Got seriously delayed by a recalcitrant retaining clip on the front driver's side brake hose.  I finally discovered that you have to disassemble the hose connection to remove the clip.  Brilliant... just allow brake fluid to run all over the place while you're fighting to get the clip off... 

Before I had connected the wheel cylinders in the rear, I had flushed everything with new fluid.  The new hoses on the front, and all the drooling while I was undoing clips resulted in the fronts being well flushed.  I got my wife to help me with a final bleed, and put it all back together.

Holy crap, I'm wiped out...  it sucks getting old.

Finished up today with adjusting the rear shoes, and bleeding the ABS valve.  It stops better than it ever has, and finally has a good pedal...  I should have done this years ago, but I was paying too much attention to Miatas and other distractions...  

Next up is the transfer case rebuild and swap...

It's amazing how a brake overhaul makes all the difference in the world. 

In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :

Absolutely!

I'm happy to finally be giving it some attention... for quite a while it was only getting driven about 1000 miles/year so it was easy to neglect.

Making piecemeal progress on rattlebombing the Bronco.  The back half is now an appropriate desert color... 

I'm pretty sure our Bronco had a front end repair at some point in its life.  When we bought it the trim panel under the headlights/grille was a different color, though I never saw any specific signs of repairs.  The hood, however, was definitely not factory paint...  it only took a few minutes with some wet 320 to get it here...

Much better

Just the doors and fenders left...

Gonna be a paint man after this.

In reply to Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) :

LOL... not really, though I'm not a stranger to DIY paintwork.  My first paint job was racebike bodywork that I painted using a 6x12 enclosed trailer as a paint booth.  

The hardtop and passenger door on our NA both got sprayed in our garage, but it's not big enough for the Bronco.  If I had access to a paint booth I might well have gone a different direction with the Bronco.

Through the midst of the rattle bomb project, the Bronco was also getting new shoes.  Stepped up from 33s to 35s, but stuck with GY Duratracs.  I've been very happy their performance across the board.  I decided to upgrade now, while the previous set still had good tread... I think I already have the 33s sold.

And, the rattle bombing is done.  Spraying paint on a windy day sucks.  It's even worse with spray cans... 

The next project is on the bench...

I need to make a trip to the local JY before I start ordering parts... 

After washing the ZL1 and the dually this morning, I hit the transfer case with the power washer.

A look at the tag, showed it came out of a 1995 Bronco... perfect match for our '92.

I also remembered I had a coffee can full of stuff that came with the transfer case, and pulling that out saved me a trip to the junkyard.

Not only do I have a shifter, it's actually the correct one for my transmission.

Now it's time to order the rebuild parts for the 1356...

truck looks great 

after seeing yours, makes me want to upgrade my 33 to 35s

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

Thanks! 

I was surprised at the visual difference it made... doesn't seem like it would be much, but it is.

All the transfer case rebuild parts finally showed up, so a couple days ago I started tearing the TC down, and promptly ran into a problem.  The snap ring on the output shaft was way too stout for any of my wimpy snap ring pliers.  Nobody in town had anything suitable, so off to Amazon...

After a 24 hour delay, I was back in business, and should never again need to buy a snap ring plier*

With that snap ring out of the way, I was able to split the case, and found this:

This thing is pristine inside... looks like it got rebuilt and never run.

I bought the TC off CL, and it looked to have been sitting around a while, but I have no idea of the provenance on the thing.  All of the parts that would be replaced in a rebuild look brand new.  The inside surfaces of the bearings I've looked at so far look new, the filter for the pump looks new.  The chain looks new.  All the rubber seals I've accessed so far are soft and pliant, just dirty on surfaces that were exposed.  The groove where the oil pump arm interfaces with the case (a known problem area on the 1356) looks brand new.

I'm not all that excited about the plastic range fork, but I guess that was an updated part from Ford, and I can't seem to find a metal replacement anywhere.

I'm seriously considering just slapping this thing back together and running it.

* there's one snap ring deep in the TC that has the reputation of being a cast iron bitch to get out... that may require something special, if I need to tear it down that far.

If it ain't broke... 

For some reason I can't nail down it's been my belief that factory stuff runs better and lasts longer than rebuilds. 

In reply to spandak :

I'm in agreement on that point.  Especially factory stuff made 25 years ago, compared to current off-shore produced replacements.

Transfer case is back together.  I replaced the seals I could get to, and the drive chain.  The rest is going back in as is.

Also got the TC shifter installed.  Fortunately Ford uses access panels for this kind of stuff instead of different sheet metal, so I just had to remove the block off plate.

Unfortunately, the sealer is some seriously tenacious stuff, and I pretty much destroyed the block off plate getting it loose.  Not a big deal, since it's going in the trash anyway.

Shifter is in, all I have to do is hook up the linkage when I install the transfer case... hopefully tomorrow.

Another small project that got done while I was waiting for the TC parts was installing some LED floodlights I bought about 3 years ago.  They're wired into the reverse light circuit, so now I can see when I'm backing up at night.  The original backup lights were like a couple of Bic lighters back there...

I just made a couple brackets from angle iron

And welded them to the bumper swingouts.

Literally a night / day difference.  

Swapped out the transfer case yesterday... in the rain.

Old case was glued to the transmission with an excessive amount of RTV... I had to break out the come-a-long to get it loose.  Once loose it came out easy enough.  Surprisingly, the HF trans jack was tall enough to do the job.

No more pics... too busy dodging raindrops, but the new T case is in and working perfectly.  One more pre-trip project checked off the list.

Next up:  tow bar construction.

Started working on the Bronco tow bar... got the 'A' frame arms bent and cut this morning.

Still going to be some minor adjusting to do, but that's going to require some fitting up.

Another minor job done... replaced the opaque dome light lens with a new clear (but faceted) one from LMC Truck, and replaced the anchient incandescent bulb with an LED.   Now I can actually see when I open the doors.