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Surprised the wifey this morning. Maybe 6 months ago she had picked out a set of wheels for this thing. Last week i ordered them, and successfully got her tires mounted and balanced on em without her knowing.    Set the toe real quick...  ...and slapped em on!  Its gonna need flares to pass PA inspection...  ...and the money shot  Took some measurements, and it ended up right at 4" lift. Nailed it! Ive still got some loose ends to button up under the hood, but im hoping to have it running in another week or so... From there it was just a matter of putting the motor back together!  After cleaning the throttle body and replacing the EGR & IAC, the plenum went back on  New cap, rotor, ford racing 9mm wires, and a MSD ignition coil  ...and i think thats it? This week coming up i need to replace the a/c condenser (i punctured it by accident), which means conversion to R134a. Then radiator, plumb trans cooler, fuel tank + pump & filter, and then i think i can finally try to get it running! So, i made some progress on the 90 bronco. Stripped the motor down and changed the timing chain  The smog pump is shot along with all the air pipes, so its all going away   Its not easy to see, but they bolt to the back of the head  The holes are threaded, because when flipped to the other side of the motor a threaded insert goes in it, and the accessory drive bolts to it. Which means we can plug the hole simply by putting a short bolt in it.  No smog pump means no TAD or TAB, so the vacuum system came off for repairs and the removal of about half the vacuum lines  pulled the plenum  and then pulled the fuel rail so i could clean and then rebuild the fuel injectors  i changed the rusty (but otherwise apparently in good shape) spark plugs  The IAT was super gross so that got changed, along with the ECT since i was already in there  So in the process of the rebuild, i decided to get rid of the fire hazard that is the 2g alt  Just a small amount of grinding on this web, and the 3g alt fits right in there   bracket cleaned up & installed; reman alt installed as well:  I also tossed the junk Ford steering pump in favor of a Saginaw off an Econoline  bracket all cleaned up, with reman pump installed  and i deleted the OEM cooling loop on the frame rail in favor of a proper steering cooler off of a Superduty:  This was the scene yesterday morning. Snowmageddon 2023!  It didnt last. Anyways, i hit the road and made if halfway to my destination, when i blew the cooler line for the transmission.  It was rough, we lost about 8 qts of fluid, and fast. We were sitting at a traffic light, and when the light turned green, the truck wouldnt go! Thankfully there was a Turkey Hill across the street, so i wandered over, grabbed a couple quarts of oil and dumped em down the dipstick so i could get the truck off the road. Found the leak, got lucky and was able to shorten the hose and put it back together. With that fixed we resumed our trip, which was to go pick up this:  Home Depot truck! Its a 2008 F350. 2wd 5.4l with 305,000 miles on the clock! Picked it up for cheap because realistically aside from the bed, the truck isnt really worth much.  All i really care about is the bed, and its in pretty good shape overall. Picked the truck up for less than the cost of an aluminum flatbed, so im calling it a win! This bed will look really nice on the back of the '96 F250... So the brake system is now complete. Were now rocking a master cylinder & brake booster for a 1996 F350, to match the axles  Brakes are plumbed to the front axle:  ...and thanks to a spool of tubing...  The rear half of the brakes are completely replumbed as well!     This i thought was interesting. Rough Country extended stainless brake line for a bronco with 4-6" of lift, next to the OEM F350 brake hose:  The stainless line is only 1" longer than the OEM hose, which means for most mildly lifted trucks, the OEM F350 hose is just fine. I already had the extended line though, so i used it. So with the brake lines done, theres not much left to do under the truck, so its time to move under the hood! Ok sorry, that was a terrible pun. Front shocks! Bilstein 5125, with the old shock towers off the big bronco:  From there i got tired of tripping over the front bumper so i decided to put it on the truck. Fairly easy to do, just extend the notch Ford put in the bumper to clear the leaf springs on the F250/350s to clear our longer SD springs:  Success! the bumper fits now:  I had to notch the bottom of the bumper bracket slightly, and i had to transfer the lower hole from the frame thru Sky's bracket, since they didnt include that hole in their hangar for some reason:  So while i was there, i decided i might as well add a front receiver to this thing  notch cut:  ...and the hitch in its new home:  I dont think the main tube being .120" wall is sufficiently beefy, so i added some extra braces to strengthen it up a bit:     For the hell of it, i grabbed my x8000i and decided to see how it would look:  ...but back to the bronco, the bumper is now installed!  Tucked up nice and tight:   im diggin it! ill get around to wiring the bronco up for the winch whenever i get around to replacing the battery cables. For now im calling this project done. Next up: getting the brake system replaced! |