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This is where we left off  I went to put the passenger side spring in, but i have some clearance issues:   No time to delay, so i cut the tailpipe off and kept moving  Lots of room now  Driver side spring in  With both springs in, i moved the jackstands from the frame to the axle. The springs flatten out nicely, looks like im still going to need my 4" block to keep the rider height similar  This pic reminds me i forgot to check the pinion angle, but from here it looks good! Today or tomorrow im going to adjust the brakes and them get some fresh paint on the hubs, that way monday i can put my rear sway bar on (bushings slated to arrive today). I also ordered some stainless 45º elbows so i can hopefully get the tailpipe rerouted to clear the springs. We'll see how that goes Monday/Tuesday. Getting close! Cant help myself. Love the new stance!  Still running my drop tracbar bracket from my 20 something year old 6" lift kit. The bar angle looks good...  ...but theres a problem. The truck is now so low that the tracbar bracket is hitting the sway bar!  Not much i can do, but to remove the sway bar for now  Im going to have to source a stock tracbar bracket, but i doubt theres time to find one before we leave for the East Coast Bronco Roundup in two weeks, so for now the sway bar will have to stay off. ...And since i had to turn the truck around, i went for a quick spin around the block. All i can say is wow! What a difference in how it rides compared to before. Cant wait to see how it handles once the rear springs and swaybars are back on. So, nothing left to do now, but start tearing into the rear!  Rear swaybar has joined the front  Dont worry, the rear bar will be going right back on, with all new bushings. Axle unbolted, 4" blocks removed:  ...and the springs are coming out! Thankfully i had replaced all 4 hangars a few years back, so none of the bolts were seized yet  Thought this was interesting. The arch between both packs is similar, but its pretty obvious the new ones are a wee bit heavier!  ...and where we're at for the day.  Calling it here for the day. The next move is to drill out the front hangars (the SD springs use an 18mm bolt as opposed to the older trucks' 5/8" bolt). From there it should be as simple as just bolting it all together. We'll see soon enough! My shackles came, and that means one thing....the front suspension can finally go back together! V codes getting installed:  One new set of Bilstein 5100s:  ...and done!  Going from X-code to V-code, the front end has gone down 1.25". Subtle, but i do like the look! Everything in the front end is still loose; tomorrow ill go back through and torque everything down, and then we can turn it around and start on the rear suspension! Got my shackles for the diesel. Already painted and hanging up to dry. Had some free time while hanging out with the little dude, so we decided to test something:  The headlights on the diesel are in really bad shape, figured it couldnt hurt to try  My helper  Finished product, actually came out pretty good!  With the fender repaired, its time to fix the bronco's tire carrier. Took a couple days, but parts have been sourced! First thing we need to deal with is these very shot hinges  They may not look or feel loose, but once the carrier is off the truck, both hinges were quite sloppy. Pulling the pins out revealed some very loose plastic bushings  Fortunately, Bronco Graveyard sells a hinge repair kit, which includes new Gr8 bolts, and oil impregnated brass bushings  New bushings getting installed
They fit the swing arm perfectly, and were easy to install. The next problem is with the latch striker on the tailgate:  Nobody sells a replacement striker bushing. Bronco Graveyard seels an entire replacement striker plate, but its not cheap, and i cant see buying it when we only need a bushing. So i did some digging around online, and found some garolite tubing which, as it turns out, is already the perfect size, and cheap  One small piece cut off the end  ...and done!
With that installed, all that was left to do was simply reinstall the tire carrier
Job complete! The new bushings have tightened it up quite nicely. It moves nice and smooth now, and the garolite seems to be holding up ok as a striker bushing, altho its only been a few days. As it turns out, the phantom squeak ive had coming from the rear corner seems to be gone now too! Last time...  Got a chance to mess with them, on a night where it wasnt raining  They hotspot a bit (i guess theyre more of spotlights than flood lights), but they still do a good job of lighting up behind the truck. The driveway isnt flat, so theyll probably nee4d some minor adjusting once i get it back on the road. But, thats good enough for now, lets move to the interior, shall we? After almost 30 years, i guess its time to replace the OEM paper core speakers. Oh and maybe switch to a double din headunit while im in there?  Out with the old...  ...and in with the new!
Had to buy a set of 1/4" spacers, because the bigger magnets didnt fit inside the C-pillar  Much better.  Moving on to the doors...
While i was in there, and since i had some extra laying around, i decided to add some sound deadener to the doors:  ...and done!  For reference, the one-touch window module i spliced into the down circuit for the driver window. The module is from, IIRC, a Taurus. Theyre in lots of mid 90s Ford cars.  Since the door panel was off, i took the time to install a repair bracket in the door from Complete Performance:
While i was in there, i managed to break not one but two pins in the socket for the door switches, rendering my door locks unusable. Guess we're gonna fix that too!  Theres a locking tab you can push in on, here, that will release whats left of the pin
I suppose you could cut the socket out of a junkyard truck, remove the pin w/ pigtail and splice it into your harness, but then the color wouldnt match! I very carefully removed a good pin from a junkyard socket, and then carefully recrimped it onto my original wire, because i like doing things the hard way:  With both wires now fixed i could finally finish up with the doors...
...and turn my attention to the dash. So, our nes headunit. A Sony XAV-AX3200, with backup camera, and an install kit from Metro
The first cut in the dash. No going back now!  While possible, it is not easy to get this bracket out of the dash. In my case, it was in the way of the radio, and had to go.  My dash was basically crumbling around the heater controls, and was going to need some work  I picked up this clever dash repair bracket from OBS Interiors. It fits in behind the dash, to clamp the heater controls against the dash. I also epoxied most of the pieces back into the dash, just to have a bit more to clamp against (you can see ive just started that, in this pic)  Cutting the trim...  ...and done!
The Metra kit fits the dash quite well! This is the most important part though...the backup camera!  I set the camera angle so the edge of the receiver is just in view at the very bottom, i figure thatll help me keep my perspective when backing up. Also, puts the hitch in a great spot in the view! ALso, my rear lights seem to work well, looks like backing up in the dark is going to be a piece of cake now:  This is going to be a game changer! Now i just need my shackles, and i can finish the SD spring swap! So my original setup after doing the aluminum bed, i put a set of large reverse lights right in the back  While they do work, the problem is the light isnt very usable, as you cant see that area from the driver seat. Also, i discovered that if i needed to haul something with the tailgate down, that the gate blocks the lights in the bed frame. While its unlikely ill need to do so (it is a 9' bed afterall), it still seemed like a good idea to do something about it. So step one, was to replace the reverse lights with a set of combo STT/Reverse lights. This should solve my potential taillight issue, but also still cast a little bit of light back there for backing up at night.  So now i need proper reverse lights. So i picked up a set of 4" lights from Nilight:  Mounted here, still need to be aimed. Pretty sure these will cast enough light down & out that ill be able to see better in the dark.  Wires run:  ...and terminated with Deutsch connectors so i can still unplug the lights if necessary  I think this will do better  Those should cast plenty of light down & out so i can see, and the two in the middle should be just enough light shining on the trailer hitch in the dark. Also, if you noticed, theres now a backup camera mounted on the license plate. More to come on that soon... So the F250 has been sitting idle...  ...because i made a tragic error. The PMF shackle doesnt fit in Sky's shackle hangar!  It might look like its close, but its not. The upper bushing is too big, and it uses a 3/4" bolt instead of 5/8". Dont know how i missed that, but i did. So i ordered the stubby shackles from Sky since i know they will work, as thats how i did it on the 90 bronco. You can see how much different they are in size in this pic:  Not sure how i goofed on that one, but i did. Hopefully the shackles get here soon. In the meantime, ive turned my attention to the green bronco, and its cracked striker bolt:  When i removed the striker, the captured nut & plate fell from behind. Seems the cracks started at the spot welds 
I ended up cutting a pretty big hole in the sheetmetal to get all of the cracks removed  New patch panel made, with captured nut plate all cleaned up and ready to be reinstalled.  I dont have a pic of it apparently, but rather than spot weld it to the back of the patch panel in two places like ford did, i fully welded it. It also seems i was in the zone and didnt snap any pics during the process, so heres the finished product:
For now the tire carrier is off the truck. I have some other issues i have to deal with. #1, this shot striker bushing:  ...which caused some heavy wear on the latch jaws:  ...all of which was probably caused by this pin/bushing being shot:  ...so ive got a few more things to deal with. Parts on order, so we'll come back to this one at a later date. all 4 leaf springs are done being rebuilt again. This time fully coated in graphite paint, and the steel shims from the excursion leafs are in the rear pack now instead of the plastic ones i made  Brought the truck around, and snapped the very last pic before i rip the suspension apart again  It already has a PMF 2.25" Superduty Shackle Reversal kit on it. This time around im replacing the original spring hangar on the frame rail with Sky's low clearance one:  Yesterday i got the driver side bracket on the frame:  Today its raining, so maybe tomorrow i can get the passenger side bracket swapped. I thought this was interesting- shows the difference between the X code leafs im removing, and the V codes im installing   The X code has almost a full inch more arch to it, and both leafs are 1/8" thicker in the middle & 1/16" thicker at the ends. So this pretty much confirms what everyone on the internet says, that the front end should go down ~1" and the ride should be nice & soft. We'll find out soon enough. One of my front shocks is shot, so i ordered a pair of Bilsteins which should get here tomorrow. Hopefully the weatherman is wrong, and i get some dry days here so i can get the front-end done and get it turned around so i can tear into the rear. Just a couple weeks to go before the East Coast Bronco Roundup, so i gotta get this thing done! Oh yeah, this is cool too. I tossed the X codes into the rear of the DD bronco and brought em to work, because a coworker bought em off me. I had some issues closing the tailgate though. Check this out:  Gotta hurry up and get the red one done, because it looks like the green one needs some sheet metal repaired asap!
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