Full Build: Bringing A Left-For-Dead '79 Ford Bronco Back To Life

today on trucks it's the start of our low buck bronco build-up we're dragging a 79 bronco out of a field and stripping it down so we can bring it back to life and we'll spend as little cash as possible to make this bronco a weekend warrior we won't mind bouncing off a few trees hey welcome to trucks i got a question for you how many times have you seen a bunch of vehicles out in the field or behind somebody's barn or beside the garage and wondered if they're for sale wonder if maybe you should stop and ask a couple questions about them well that's exactly what we did we saw these trucks in the hollow from the road asked around a little bit and struck up a conversation with monty the guy that owns all these trucks and he gave us a pretty good deal on an almost solid sort of complete 79 full-size bronco and check it out it's all here and some of it's over there and most of it's right there and it's got no engine in it right now but this bronco's got huge potential it's got a 9-inch rear axle a dana 44 up front heavy-duty quad shocks a c6 automatic with a 203 transfer case and did i mention it was cheap so we loaded up our find but before we left monty threw in an unexpected surprise now what used to be under this hood was a 351m the last of the cleveland series of engines and since it was long gone think monty felt a little guilty so he threw in this 460 long block to make us feel better the big block on the trailer our project's got even more potential however in its current state i think the only thing still attached to this bronco is its potential but now that we got it here in the shop we can see what we really got man this thing is toast the last time this vehicle was tagged the spice girls were at the top of the charts and it served as a trash can pretty much until now so we cleaned out the buried treasure and worn out parts and lifted off the tub for a better look god this thing is rusted solid holy cow i think it's good right there i think you're right now the first thing we want to do is check out the front steering and suspension it actually feels pretty solid the ball joints and tie rod ends are in good shape there's no excessive play in the steering box but check this out this u-joint and that thing's beyond gone as far as the rest of the front end goes well these shocks and coil springs and bushings uh they're heavy-duty components but they're 30 years old and we want to create a little extra tire clearance anyway so we went to rough country picked up one of their basic 4-inch lift kits with coils dual shock set up front steering stabilizers and polyurethane seat bushings for the axle also comes with a drop pitman arm now as far as brakes go in the cab we had a nice solid pedal looks like we got a little rust from sitting out in the field too long fresh set of rotors some new pads we'll be all set now on our c6 we won't know anything about its condition until we pull the pan drop the valve body down and see what's going on inside now the np203 is a full-time chain driven transfer case with a mediocre low range it's gotten a bad rap over the years but since we're not building a rock crawler or a highway cruiser this thing will work great for our truck now a little further back well let's just say we've got some drive shaft issues that need to be taken care of this thing needs to be rebuilt or replaced all together in the rear axle well it's a ford nine inch there's tons of options and plenty of them that won't send you to the poor house as far as brakes go but we'll pull the drums off inspect what's going on inside and rebuild what we have to now who knows what's in this fuel tank after it's been sitting out in the field for a couple of years now you can take an old gas tank and drain it and flush it and try to reseal it but for about 120 bucks and a call to lmc you can have a brand new tank one you know won't contaminate your fuel system well now we can take a closer look at this body it's more than 27 years old and it's been sitting out in the field so it's no surprise that we found some rust this is not a big deal because lmc truck makes patch panels for almost every body part on this bronco including these stamped and coated floor pans all we have to do is cut the rust out replace it with solid metal now these rocker panels it's a rust prone area on these vehicles ours are good and solid but if they weren't we've also got outer and inner rocker patches our rear wheel arches and they're rusty and we could patch them with metal but we want to make room for a larger wheel and tire and more suspension travel so we're going to use these bushwacker fender flares that are going to enlarge this wheel opening by about three inches and just take care of that rust by eliminating it back here it's dented up so what some good old-fashioned bodywork will take care of that and we'll walk you through that repair as well now both our doors and our front sheet metal are in nice solid shape but if they were rusty there's lots of patch panels available for these parts as well lucky for us all we have to deal with is a little bit of surface rust from somebody's bomb can bodywork but this tailgate is rough it's rusty the back glass is busted out of it it weighs more than i do so we could kill two birds with one stone here we could put a swing gate with a tire mount on it shed a little bit of dead weight now this body is far from perfect but it's definitely solid enough to be repairable all it's going to take is a little bit of cash and a lot of sweat equity investment one thing we haven't talked about yet today is the engine now this isn't the original 351m that came in the bronco it's a 460 and it'll bolt right up to our c6 with a different oil pan and some adapters this thing is going to drop right in these engines were easily making 370 horses and over 400 foot-pounds of torque from the factory so with the cam intake and carb package along with some freshen up we're gonna have a torque monster that's cheap powerful and reliable so what do we have well we've got a solid foundation of bulletproof components wrapped by what some people consider to be the best looking bronco body ever made all the pieces are here for us to build a solid reliable weekend warrior that's not going to bust our wallet if we bounce it off a couple of trees and rocks out on the trail and all it's going to take is a little bit of hard work just a little bit we'll tear apart our 460 big block to see just what kind of shape it's in and then it's the tranny's turn oh man oh looks like we may not be so lucky there hey welcome back we've got our second gen 79 bronco spread out all over the shop we took the rolling chassis to a car wash and cleaned off most of the mud and dirt and grease that was caked on the frame and running gear now we've already inspected for obvious damage now we can take a closer look and really dive into this thing get it on its way to returning to the road and trail all things considered it's really in pretty good shape we found normal wear and tear plus the signs of abuse of a vehicle that spent most of its life as a city or county service vehicle in other words it's been rode hard and put up wet now getting a junkyard engine can be a bit of a gamble especially if you got it for free like we did but there are a few things you can check to make sure you at least have a decent core go ahead and rotate the crank make sure it spins freely then check for bent push rods and broken valve springs go ahead and take a look at the block make sure it hasn't spit out any freeze plugs from being full of water and sitting outside in the cold [Music] let's see what we got here not a whole lot of carbon buildup on that piston what you want to check for is deep scoring in the cylinder walls or cracks or holes in the piston i think we're in good shape she's dry oh man the hell is that what first looked like a handful of metal shavings turned out to be the remains of the nylon timing gear probably not one of ford's better ideas lucky didn't get pumped through the engine now they can definitely score it up a little bit that will have to be turned down looks like this 460 is going to be a great candidate for a rebuild so we'll send it to a local machine shop have him hot tank it and clean it up for us when we get it back we'll try some old-fashioned hot rodding tricks to make some serious low-end torque now from the outside there's no real way to tell if this transmission's in good shape or not so we're going to tear this c6 apart see what it looks like on the inside the first indication of a worn out transmission is a burnt smell to the fluid a more telling clue are the hunks of metal and shredded clutches that's not good [Music] oh man i don't know what that milky white stuff is and there's plenty of debris in here i think she could use a rebuild now with our automatic transmission out of the way we can take a closer look at this np203 transfer case first i want to show you guys something remember that sloppy u joint we showed you earlier well check it out the u-joint cap is busted the needle bearings are gone and this thing hasn't seen grease in ages i don't know how that thing even worked now back to the transfer case you can get a good idea of its condition by spinning the input shaft and running it through the gears as you run it through each range go ahead and spin the shaft and listen for any strange noises or feel for any binding this one seems to be okay i think maybe some new seals and a fluid change will be all right [Music] up next those rusty floors have got to go and that chassis has to go higher [Music] hey thanks for watching trucks we are knee deep in our low buck bronco trying to get it a little bit closer to being back on the road like we showed you before we got a little bit of flintstone rod in these floors that needs to be fixed now making floor patches out of flat stock is not very difficult but it's even easier using these stamped steel patches we got from lmc truck [Music] just because your metal looks solid doesn't mean that it is don't trust your surface rust but a good rule of thumb to follow is if there's still paint attached to the metal it's probably solid underneath be aware of emergency brake cables fuel lines and brake lines when you're cutting out floor and now we can use a rusty floor as a template to trim out our new patch panel [Music] now this first line that i traced represents the giant hole that we cut in the bronco the second line represents the metal is going to lap on top of the original floor [Applause] [Music] i'm using a pneumatic punch to punch holes all the way around the outside of my patch panel about two and a half inches or about three fingers apart now if you don't have a punch tool like this just get a 3 8 inch drill bit and make sure it's sharp now if we were building a show car we'd spend a lot more time creating a perfect butt weld that would be invisible from all angles but an overlap weld is a common practice very strong and much faster when you're working on a place without a pre-stamped patch panel even an area like this with all these crazy angles is no more difficult it just takes a different approach i like to use cardboard and create templates and then once i'm happy with the shapes i transfer it to a sheet metal about a 20 gauge flat stock then place them in make sure i'm happy with the way everything's sitting and just burn it in like a regular weld [Music] now our front brakes didn't need anything except for some new pads and rotors and since we were in there we went ahead and serviced the wheel bearings now if your truck's been sitting for a while like ours it's a good idea to flush out the brake lines brake fluid actually wicks moisture over time blowing out the lines and replacing the fluid it's cheap and easy to do now out back we're going to throw in some new shoes with some fresh hardware and since we're in there we're going to replace the wheel cylinders and our drums are not scored up or grooved out so we're going to reuse them now we want to lift this truck up but if we go any higher than about four inches you start having to think about custom length drive shafts and that gets expensive now with these bushwacker flares it buys us some clearance around the wheel opening and saves us from having to do this rust repair too bushwacker includes welting screw caps and detailed installation and painting instructions with their flare kits if you're going for a more street look but for us they look great just the way they are and they've saved us about 15 hours worth of rush repair as well yeah man now like kevin said we want a little more altitude and attitude so we'll start by replacing the stock front suspension with this lift kit from rough country that includes these obviously longer shocks axle seat bushings and check this out they're much larger coil springs now you can see what a difference this kit makes they also provided us with two steering stabilizers a track bar relocation bracket and a drop pitman arm [Music] now here out back the kits lift blocks new u-bolts and shocks allow us to use the original springs to get the height we want during the break our bronco's getting a brand new pair of shoes stick around hey welcome back well our goals today have most definitely been achieved which was to transform this worn out bronco platform into a road and trail ready rolling chassis not by spending a bunch of money but by rebuilding what needed to be rebuilt and getting it up in the air with an inexpensive four inch lift kit we also took care of some bowling ball sized rust holes in the floorboards and gained a bunch of extra tire clearance by using these bushwacker cut out fender flares all making room for these 37-inch intercoast super swamper radials mounted on 15 by 10 black steel wheels that we got from summit now these flares combined with our lift give us the room we need to run these big meets without having to spend tons of money on some high dollar suspension and that is going to be our theme from start to finish on this low buck bronco project doing what most of you guys would probably do at home and rebuild instead of replace what's already designed to be rock solid and that's going to get us out onto the trail faster and cheaper we've got a heck of a start but there's plenty of work left so stay tuned today it's part two of our low buck bronco build-up and we're working over our junkyard 460 for maximum torque after that we're adding a remand c6 and stiffening up the frame with just a welder then we'll bolt the body to the chassis to get our bronco ready for some more low buck work that's all today here on trucks [Music] hey thanks for watching trucks as you can see we're back on the low buck bronco project getting ready for some action because believe me it's gonna see it now if you're thinking it looks like we just dragged this thing out of some field somewhere well it's because we did we saw this rig just off an old back road one weekend and wondered if it was for sale well this time instead of wondering we asked about it and ended up dragging it home for next to nothing we even got a big block thrown in for free everybody knows about broncos especially you guys that get into off-roading and these second generation broncos have an interesting history ford almost canceled production of the full-size bronco but even a recession and an energy crisis couldn't hold back such a great vehicle and these 78s and 79s well they kicked the competition's butts plus they were the only full-size broncos that had the solid axle front end now our chassis it can definitely withstand the power and torque of a big block so like everything else on this bronco we're going on the cheap with our free 460 and a stock engine build along with a cam that's designed for a little bit more torque now we set our block out to the machine shop to have it checked and lucky for us there was no surprises no cracks but we did find a couple cylinder bores that were a little out of round so we had a mild 30 000 overboard put on it and we had the crank dress at the same time they put the bottom end together give us a short block for an extra couple hundred bucks now i know some of you guys are saying a truck didn't come with a 460. and you're right it came with a 351m which isn't a bad engine either but like the old saying goes there's no replacement for displacement and if you're anything like us you've got a real hard time turning down 100 extra cubes of free engine and if you find yourself in our position and on a budget let me show you a performance tip that won't cost you anything but a little bit of your time now i know you guys have heard of port matching before all that means is matching the size of the cylinder head ports and manifold ports to the size of the gaskets in order to eliminate restriction using your gasket as a template align it with the bolt holes as a reference and use a marker to color in the overlap or excess metal on the ports then remove the gasket and slowly trim the opening with a die grinder and a carbide burr until you have a smooth transition from the intake gasket to the port now don't get carried away and try and hog out the heads if you go too far and change the shape of the intake runners you can actually hurt performance now unless you have access to a flow bench keep things on the mild side because even a little goes a long way these techniques work on exhaust manifolds too even headers the engine is an air pump and all you're doing is enhancing its flow capability you can use brake cleaner a parts washer an air hose even hot soapy water but always clean the shavings out of your ported [Music] part every different cylinder head has its own torque sequence usually working from the center outward our new head bolts are torqued to 140 foot-pounds there are benefits from using cast manifolds instead of headers due to less expansion and contraction the bolts are much less likely to back out and since this is a low rpm engine the extra flow at high rpm that headers would give us will be lost on this bronco anyway depending on which cam you select you can actually change your engine's basic rpm range which is the place that it makes the most power now most big blocks aren't high revving engines they make their power down low in the rpm range which is perfect for our bronco because we're going to make a lot of power way down low in the revs that's going to be easy to control our crane cam is spec for off-road use and towing valve lift is right around 500 000 and the rpm range is between 1200 and 4800 rpm which matches the rest of our components and that means we won't have to wind this engine out to make good power since we're using new push rods and lifters there's no specific reassembly order to follow just drop the new parts in place valve springs are not as critical on our setup is on a high rpm race engine but they do wear out and if you're not sure of the wear or mileage on your valve train it's just cheap insurance to replace them now the valley pan keeps the hot oil down in the crankcase where it belongs and helps to keep the fuel and air charge passing through the intake manifold as cool as possible any of you guys that have changed out a cast intake on a big block can appreciate the substantial weight loss that an aluminum manifold will give you just because it's a big block doesn't mean that it needs a thousand cfm carb this edelbrock thunder series 650 will give us plenty of air and fuel it has spring loaded needles and seats for a consistent fuel supply and side mounted fuel chambers that are less likely to flood while we're getting sideways on some trails while ryan's putting the accessories on the front of the engine i'm going to give this water pump a coat of paint it's a raw casting and it'll rust if you don't now rust won't stop the water pump from working but it will make it look bad here's where you can take a little pride in your handy work a clean looking engine never hurt anybody's performance [Music] when we come back we're paying attention to the bottom end of our big block so we can mate it up with our new see drops right in hey welcome back with a combination of our basically stock 460 along with the cam that we picked out to go in it is going to give us somewhere around 400 horsepower and about 460 foot-pounds of torque that is stump pulling power now if you followed us along on this build you know that this 460 is not the original engine that came in our low buck bronco that's okay because the c6 transmission will mate up with the bell housing on the block perfectly the problem lies with the oil pan that came on here it's all wrong yeah this old pan is a front sump pan and we need a rear sump to clear our front axle and believe it or not they make a swap kit to put a 460 in a fox body mustang now this complete pan kit with pickup tube will work great on our conversion as well as give us an extra court of capacity plus it'll only set us back about 145 bucks we're using a stock replacement oil pump that'll give us all the pressure we need without the parasitic drag of a high volume pump and to whoever invented the one piece oil pan gasket we just want to say thanks now our stock transmission was chock full of nasty metallic hunks of stuff when we opened it up plus it made this cool grinding sound when we turned the pump around so we popped for this reman c6 from o'reilly's and we saved another couple hundred bucks by turning our core in now one area that we did not spend a lot of money on was by buying an expensive higher stall speed torque converter when this engine is a low rpm torque monster anyway that would have actually worked against us now this converter that came with this c6 it stalls around 1800 1900 rpm which is perfect for the 460 because that's where it starts making its peak power in the first place transdept offers these urethane adapters to drop a 460 into a full-sized bronco or f-150 that's simple enough they just bolted the side of the block so you can drop it right into your factory frame mounts if you're using a cherry picker to lower your engine in keep in mind that a fully dressed big block is right around the 600 pound mark so make sure you've got an extra set of hands to help guide it into place see drops right in the studs on your converter need to find their home and the dowels on the have got to be seated before you tighten your bolts up breaking an ear off on an aluminum belt housing on a c6 it's expensive to replace or repair there's a big boy oh yeah here you go now this front drive shaft was laying in the tub of the bronco when we dragged it out of the weeds we kind of lucked out the u-joints are good and tight with only four inches of lift we can reuse the stock shafts but the rear shaft was hatched so we got a stock length replacement from lmc truck and that's going to get us back on the trail real quick we've got some other tricks up our sleeve to help your on and off road performance that'll cost next to nothing up next our low buck bronco is all starting to come together literally yep there it is then we'll take care of our steering and our inner fenders stick around hey thanks for hanging with us here at the truck shop well we finally have a rolling chassis for our low buck bronco that features a 460 cubic inch stump puller backed by a reman c6 for the rest of it we threw a four inch lift on it and rebuilt everything else on the cheap now the original body mounts look like dry rotted rubber pancakes so we're going to replace them with these polyurethane bushings we got from prothane also for added rigidity we did a low buck chassis strengthening trick our cross members are riveted in at the assembly plant just by running partial beads from the frame to the crossmember you can stiffen up the chassis if you're wondering why we didn't finish these welds well in case this cross member ever has to come out you've got to break out the grinder to get rid of these rivet heads anyway and by doing it this way you don't create a bunch of unnecessary work for yourself if your body's still on the frame and all you've got to do is change body mount bushings you can get it done with a floor jack or an old bumper jacket [Music] go ahead ryan yep there it is [Music] perfect [Music] all right now with the body back home on the frame we can connect the steering and braking systems now we had decent pedal right from the start so all we did was flush the lines out and if you remember ryan put a couple wheel cylinders in the drums out back as for this booster and the master cylinder you guessed it we recycle since we've ditched a couple of hundred pounds of parts as well as put fresh pads and rotors all the way around on a braking system designed to stop a 5500 pound truck but we shouldn't have any braking issues but here is a problem this is the original steering shaft and u-joint that came on our bronco enough said so we're going to use this double d shaft we had laying around the shop from a previous build as well as use a new borgus and u-joint steering is one of the areas that you don't want to compromise safety it doesn't cost much to make sure you've got a solid connection to the road this is the original fiberglass top for our bronco and it is very obvious that this thing is in sad shape it's moldy the gel coat's gone it's down to the matting plus look it's broken a bunch of different places this thing is done our original inner fenders are beat up nasty and they're rusty our battery would have fallen right down onto the tire not good so we spent a little bit more money went to lmc and got a pair of these inner fenders that bolted right in and they come with a primer on them now our outer fenders on the front yeah they were rusty but the rust was only where we cut out for the bushwacker flares so we saved a little more money we get to run with our original sheet metal hey welcome back to trucks well take a look at the low buck bronco now the stance is awesome we got tons of wheel and tire clearance but we're not quite done yet that's just sheet metal we need a little more protection so we're going to make our own roll cage and uh we might need a windshield too now on both ends of this truck we're going to build some heavy duty bumpers on the cheap and we might as well plan on adding a winch because this thing's got some weight to it and we just might get it stuck in the mud we're not done with the body yet either and this d.o.t yellow paint it's got to go but we've got a great plan for a paint job and it might be something that your great grandfather might recognize but the best thing about it is that it's going to cost a fraction of what a conventional paint job will cost not only did we get an extra four inches of height from our suspension lift by going to a taller tire we gain another four or five inches that'll help keep the axles out of the mud now you guys are gonna have to keep watching to see how this thing turns out it's gonna be awesome and remember our biggest investment in this low buck bronco is our time and labor so if it breaks what the heck as the saying goes it ain't broke till you can't fix it anymore today it's part three of our low buck bronco build-off we're using three different steps for knocking the dents out of the body and we're making our very own custom roll cage after that we're building heavy duty bumpers and getting our bronco ready for one of the most unique paint jobs you'll ever see that's all today here on trucks [Music] hey thanks for watching trucks well our low buck bronco has come a long long way since we first started working on it if you remember we found it out in the field ways high in weeds and spread out over about a half acre but it was still worth saving and the price was right too so we dragged it back here and immediately dug in to see what we needed to do to get this thing back into shape or at least back on its own legs [Music] the floors were rusty the engine was gone the steering was shot and the we had no clue if it was any good the drive shafts they flopped around more than fish out of water but we did end up with a free 460 long block is a little extra incentive to haul it away so we dug in repaired some rust holes refurbished the axles lifted it four inches threw on some serious 37-inch swampers and went through the big block tossing in a hotter camon intake and massaged the airways a little to help her breathe and since these broncos are built on the exact same platform as the f-150 there are literally millions of these trucks still around so if you're building one of these the replacement parts it takes to get yours up and running are cheap and they're only a part store away now the rusty floors were by far the worst part of this body a couple of new floor pans later and we're good and solid again now the rest of the truck was actually in pretty good shape except for this corner back here ouch so we prepped the rest and we wanted to show you how to get this metal back into shape now one thing you've got going for you when it comes to bodywork is that this metal wants to go back to the way it was originally stamped it's called cell memory position and rule number one with bodywork is access you want to pull these dents out right here so we're stand we've got great access well this is senior knocker it's a slide hammer that packs a pretty mean wallop and it has a hook on the end that is perfect for getting in behind areas like our taillight recess where you don't have room to swing a hammer [Music] now this is the work part of bodywork sheet metal that's stamped with corners and style lines is much stronger than a flat panel and it shows [Music] give it a bigger hook [Music] she's coming back now while kevin's fighting the good fight back there i'm going to give us a little extra security here in the cab just in case this thing gets inverted while we're out wheeling instead of buying a custom bent cage we'll just bend up our own using inch and 5 8 120 wall dom tubing we got from our friends at california metal supply [Music] manual tubing vendors start out at about 300 or you can spring for a pneumatic bender like our tube shark either way you still need to carefully plan each bend okay the shape's starting to come back pretty good and we've done just about all we can do with senior knocker so i'm going to take an egg dolly get it back in behind the panel and just chase down my high spot with it the dolly is used to support the metal and pinch it between the dolly and the hammer think of it as a small anvil well it's looking good but we're not ready for filler yet we've still got low spots here here and here now one way to get rid of low spots in sheet metal is to drill holes at the lowest point of the dent screw in one of these tips to your slide hammer and then pull the dent out that way well that introduces corrosion because there's holes in the panel bad well you can get the same results with a stud gun and no holes in the panel [Music] the stud gun actually spot welds the pins to the metal letting you change the shape of the panel without drilling holes in it the slide hammer twists and locks onto the pins and by pulling out it lets you raise low spots also the pins give you a leverage point to work on the surrounding metal now it may take you a few rounds of hammering to get everything back into shape now your goal with body filler is to have no more than a quarter of an inch of thickness and this shows us that we are right in the ballpark we're looking good after grinding the stud welds off plan on at least two applications of filler if you try to overcoat your repair you lose control of the thickness and it tends to run off onto the floor cool let that set up about 10 minutes and work it down [Music] now it's time to rough out your shape using 36 grit paper on a dual action 8-inch sander once you've got it into a basic shape step up to 80 grit and take over with the long board with the repair shaped up with 80 grit a final coat of finishing putty will fill in any pinholes or inconsistencies now if you guys plan on doing any serious wheeling a roll bar or a cage of some sort is a necessity these cabs are nothing more than 20-year 22 gauge sheet metal spot welded together if you get upside down they're not going to give you a whole lot of protection but there are a few things to remember if you're building your own roll cage always remember leave yourself plenty of head room you don't want what's designed to protect you end up giving you a concussion now if you're not tying your cage directly into the frame remember to use foot plates large enough to distribute the load and never never attempt to build one of these at a plumbing pipe now that is feeling good a little bit of elbow grease and polyester surface enhancement material this sucker is ready for primer after the break we're gonna build tough bumpers that won't be tough on your wallet and we'll show you an inexpensive twist on a traditionally costly paint job stick around hey welcome back to trucks now that we got a little protection inside the cab there let's talk a little bit about protecting the body as well this stock rear bumper oh it's seen better days not to mention it's a light duty bumper at best the original front bumper was probably still sitting in the field that we dragged this whole bronco out of now there's no limit when it comes to custom bumpers for your truck as long as there's no limit to the bottom of your wallet now don't get intimidated by the idea of building your own bumpers if you can weld and hold a tape measure steady you can save some money and it might be easier than you think now first figure out what you want to protect then make some measurements and if it helps go ahead and put your ideas down on paper now i went ahead and added these braces in this cross member not only to give me a flat surface to work off of but it also ties the front frame rails together looks are secondary when it comes to designing a bumper you want to make sure that it protects the body doesn't interfere with approach angles and is made from strong enough material to more than make up for the factory bumper being gone oh yeah we're good now with our bumper frame done we're gonna finish it off using eighth inch plate on either side of our winch mount then we'll cut the tube ends off flush cap them and fill in these gaps with more eighth inch plate for a nice finished look with the bumper off there's access to every joint so we can get good strong welds which is especially important here since we'll be mounting a heavy duty winch on top of it now we told you we're gonna do a cool paint job on this bronco and one with a little bit of historical significance and on top of that we're going to show you how to do it without spending a ton of cash a modern professional painting system can cost you hundreds even thousands of dollars for all the materials it's going to take to lay down a nice custom paint job you got special primers base coats to consider different hardeners clear coats a bunch of different reducer selections so it gets very complicated at the same time as it gets very expensive you have expensive equipment that you need to use to shoot this stuff properly and by the time you factor in all the safety gear it takes to be safe while you're using a catalyzed system we've sunk a ton of money into your project probably more than we've sunk in that whole bronco project lacquer paints used to be a lot more popular partly because they were a lot cheaper to use lacquer's roots can be traced back thousands of years and lacquer is what most of the major auto manufacturers used to use in the assembly plants now due to the huge amount of solvent that's engineered into the lacquer paint itself tighter epa regulations forced lacquers out of the auto manufacturers by the late 1970s now don't get me wrong i'm not bashing lacquer most of your purists know that some of the most beautiful paint jobs you've ever seen are the hand rub lacquer paint job so it's not bad technology it's just old technology well duplicolor has brought lacquer back and kind of made it new again with this paint shop system and they've replaced some of the older solvents in it with newer more environmentally friendly ones it comes pre-packaged in a variety of different colors has its own primer even its own clear coat it can be layered up like a conventional base clear system or even multi-layered like the old lacquer paint jobs back in the day another cool thing about this system is that you don't need to go to a conventional professional jobber to buy it you can buy this system pretty much anywhere else the dupli-color products are sold now is this a replacement for your professional system no it's not but for 19 bucks a quart this is going to allow us to do a cool-looking paint job for about 120 bucks check it out look what just showed up oh cool little guy man what's a load rate on that 12 500 pounds ought to be plenty to pull this up out of the mud it should well ryan's got a couple of bumpers to finish up i've got a little more paint prep to do and you guys unfortunately are going to have to wait a little longer to see what we're doing with this paint job but i'll give you a little hint it may be a little hard to recognize that she comes up over the horizon [Music] up next our low buck bronco is in the booth getting taped up for a paint job inspired by german u-boats it's a free history lesson on camouflage in one of the coolest paint schemes ever hey welcome back well in keeping with our low buck theme on our 79 bronco our paint job is no exception so we're using duplicolor's wallet-friendly paint shop system but we're not going to lay down just a regular paint job on this rig we've seen some really cool looking military and off-road vehicles with camouflage paint jobs on but a regular run-of-the-mill camel job is not going to cut it we're going to use the very first camouflage paint scheme ever in existence and the whole reason that the word camouflage is even in the english language in 1917 during the first world war the british navy was taking on huge casualties from german torpedoes so a lieutenant commander named norman wilkinson came up with a new paint scheme for naval vessels one that depended on distraction rather than blending into the horizon or background he called it dazzle painting and it proved very effective in confusing the u-boat gunners as they were sighting in their torpedoes they literally could not tell what they were shooting at but by the time the second world war came around submarines relied on sonar rather than sight and dazzle camouflage was no longer effective but it had saved a lot of lives for both british and u.s naval fleets and it just looks cool so we're going to use dazzle on our bronco and i've already got the gray ground coat laid down so now we can start taping out our design what i'm doing here is a technique that the airbrush guys use it's called positive masking where a ground coat is taped off and it's going to end up looking like the very last coat that we put on this technique saves you a lot of time and a lot of intricate masking and spring [Music] okay with the first tape up done we can start spraying the second color and get out of my booth the fun part of dazzle or any camouflage is that there are no hard rules and you can do your own design it's fine if things change a little along the way just chalk it up to creative freedom [Music] loosely following the guide on the wall the black graphics are outlined with masking tape then filled in like before [Music] finally with the previous two color schemes laid out and masked the whole truck gets a couple of coats of white which even though it's the last color to go on will actually look like the first one sprayed [Music] all we gotta do is take off our tape throw down a couple coats of clear we're [Music] the ready shop clear coat is easy to spray and two coats will give us good tree branch protection taking a few lessons from some of the airbrush gurus you can learn to think backwards and plan your paint jobs in your mind before you even have a paint gun in your hand [Music] when we come back it's a quick easy and cheap way to bring old seats back to life and make them look brand new again hey welcome back well check out the dazzle camouflage paint job [Music] not bad for less than 200 bucks and that includes two extra coats of clear for protection and gloss and we also use some of dupli-colors truck bed coating on our bumpers as well as some interior panels for corrosion protection and a good rugged look now for the floors we wanted something that was not only good looking but something that was easy to clean just in case we give it a mud shower so we went to lmc and got some of their heavy duty rubber mat now you're not going to see this thing out on the trail without a spare tire well we don't have a mount made up for it yet next time you see this thing it will come up something well one thing we have figured out is that the original seats that came in our 79 bronco well they're nearly destroyed and even if we decided to go ahead and put new seat foam and seat covers in well it's a low back bucket design with almost no bolster however we ended up with a pair of these in with the deal it's a nice high back leather seat with nice bolsters now they're kind of dirty and the color doesn't match but we've got a fix for that and that will get us one step closer to getting that bronco out and playing with it well here's something that's only going to cost you about six bucks in a few minutes of your time we told you we had a quick and easy fix for these leather seats changing the color and cleaning them up the first thing you want to do is clean them off real well with a glass cleaner next you want to rub over the whole surface of your upholstery with the red scuffing pad this is going to lift up the grain of the leather and the plastic now you want to wipe everything down with acetone not paint thinner but acetone which is a much stronger solvent and will actually expand the pores of the leather and plastic with the surface clean and the pores opened up it'll really lock the color in after you're finished with your first coat give it about 10 minutes to dry and then throw another one on it you can get vinyl and fabric dye at almost any auto parts store in pretty much any color now the dye looks great but it's a little too shiny so to give it a more natural leather look you can take a gray scuff pad which is a finer grit and just gently rub on the surface kind of give it an aged look and that natural look of leather thanks for watching trucks see you guys next week today we're launching our low buck 79 bronco to prove just how tough this whole battleship really is that's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks the moment is finally here we get to test out our full-size 79 bronco and in honor of our military style camouflage paint job we've officially named this rig das bronco and i don't care who you are this thing looks mean but it wasn't long ago that it looked a heck of a lot different and was closer to a sad ending in a junkyard than a new beginning out here on the trail but that's the beauty of these rigs they're tough and they're worth saving just ask the guys at fullsizebronco.com and the potential for an all-around trail truck well it's not out of the reach of the average guy even if you want to build an expensive elaborate weekend toy or street truck well these full-size broncos are built on a bulletproof platform that have stood the test of time and they still prove themselves out on the trail and that is exactly what we're gonna do today and this is an experiment on how much money we did not spend but first let's take a look back at where we began our bronco like a lot of trucks had seen a hard life as a service vehicle but it had all the right stuff like heavy duty running gear and suspension and although it didn't have an engine in it we got a 460 long block throwing in on the deal so the potential that we saw with this 79 definitely outweighed the huge amount of work it was going to take to get it up and running so with our bronco and the trailer and a plan in mind we dragged our new treasure back to the shop and set to work on some of the body rot and basic chassis maintenance and with dos bronco torn apart new floors in the tub we decided to focus on the drive train and with our new short block back from the machine shop we did a few inexpensive hot rodding tricks to it ryan gasket matched the intake and exhaust and we threw in a hotter cam edelbrock aluminum intake and carburetor along with stock accessories now the 460 needed a new rear sump pan and some transdap engine mounts to bolt it in between the rails but it bolted right up to the new reman c6 we threw stock drive shafts back in and rolled the dice on the tula 3t case with just a fluid change since it checked out okay with some simple tests and we'll know soon enough if this thing has what it takes to get us out of trouble or better yet into some trouble but one of the things that gave this bronco its most dramatic change over stock the rough country four inch lift kit we decided right from the start to keep this project real and not throw tons of money in a bunch of expensive parts of this bronco the four inch lift gave us the height we wanted without having to go to custom length drive shafts and that combined with the bushwacker flares gave us enough ground and tire clearance to do some pretty serious wheeling so with the body back on the frame we decided to shape up the sheet metal most of the bodywork was simple just some surface rust and road rash but the left rear corner was mashed in pretty good so after a few rounds with senior knocker our stud welding gun and some good old-fashioned polyester surface enhancement material and that stretched out dented up quarter panel was now a distant memory and looking like new again like we've talked about before this cab offers very little protection so roll cage was definitely in order so ryan went to work designing and building a basic six point cage out of one 105 8 dom steel he anchored it down with large foot plates welded to the tub floor and lower a-pillars and that's going to give us plenty of headroom and lots of protection using the same one and 5 8 inch tube and 1 8 inch plate he designed bumpers that give us increased strength steeper approach angles as well as a winch batting surface and staying with our low buck theme on das bronco we found a paint system from dupli-color that allowed us to do a unique paint job with three different colors and clear coat all with the historical significance for cheap we used the lacquer based paint shop system and a design taken from world war one navy ships and laid down a three color camouflage paint scheme and then gave it two coats of clear to keep the tree branches from digging into the color we also covered the back of the bronco in a rubber mat from lmc then we put our focus on finding a way to mount the mandatory spare tire in the back so here's what we came up with using some leftover tubing from the bumpers we designed a mount that would distribute the load and be more than strong enough to handle this big heavy swamper plus if we want to go to a little bit bigger tire in the future well it'll handle that too and with this 12 500 pound rated super winch sitting on top of ryan's new bumper we ought to be able to hang this sucker from a tree and one last thing before we hit the trail we're going to throw in this double trouble recovery hook that's why we incorporated a receiver hitch into our rear bumper design okay so here's what we spent to get to where we are now here are the big chunks including the bronco itself for 750 bucks the five super swampers cost us more than 1200 bucks our super winch was 900 and our reman c6 was 650 but from there on out everything was 500 bucks or less all the way down to our 460 long block that was the best deal we got on anything it was free so all things considered we've got about 6 600 invested in das bronco give or take a few bucks and that leaves us with just enough gas money to run this thing up and down a few trails so let's go see what this big boat will do hang on cause das broncos about to get unleashed don't go anywhere hey welcome back to trucks we're here at wooly's off-road park putting das bronco through its paces [Music] now we've got the very best crew always willing to pay the price to get you guys the best camera angles we're ready for anything and das bronco is 2 a 5 500 pound vehicle that can devour woolly's mud [Music] bog this is the flow-through design that we've customized into this into this bronco it comes through here pulls up over here it cools the transmission housing and then goes out the back it's ingenious now we knew this bronco was not a perfect off-road truck yet especially on non-bead lock wheels oh we popped a tire off the damn rim yeah we did good thing we brought a spare i'll get the tire you get you get it jacked up we wanted to test out the articulation and traction of das bronco and woolies has great trails and obstacles for any level vehicle she flexes out pretty good doesn't it yeah especially the rear axle it twists up pretty well now even though the suspension flexed out enough to give us traction most of the time some locking diffs sure would have been nice what are we up to now hello this is the climbing and there's a great big hill and just over the crest of the hill there's a beer joint that's where we're going well before we get to the beer we need to see what this thing will do up in incline and we found some pretty gnarly hills up hills and on tight trails we were reminded just how big and heavy this full-size bronco really is where'd that come from but it held its own and clawed its way to the top of everything we tried that carb hasn't stuttered once not once so we've been up some pretty hardcore angles now you have to remember that what we're driving is a slightly beefier version of a stock bronco what we're able to throw at it is a true testament to the ruggedness and versatility of these vehicles not that i'm surprised but i'm pretty happy these uh the nine inch and the 44s standing up to these 37s in the big block all day long you forget that this is such a heavy truck yeah das bronco had power to burn with the big four six and never let us down well except for the power steering that power steering pump is still complaining it's got we've done buried it already having conquered all the major land obstacles we decided to take our boat to the ocean or at least the closest place we could find in middle tennessee oh no and just when i started to look for a good winching treat ryan finally found enough traction to get us out of there yes sir thank you very much so did das bronco get the job done you bet your asset did but it also showed us where we could make improvements but that's another show

Channel: Gunpowder & Gasoline

Views: 105,305

Keywords: powernation, powerblock, powernation tv, powerblock tv, how to, cars, trucks, do it yourself, ford, bronco, ford bronco, big block bronco, full build, truck, bronco rebuild, budget build, budget bronco, low buck bronco

Id: LrbEw0LEmm8

Length: 56min 54sec (3414 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2023