BlueBronco budget build

[GREEDY GENIUS]

Nice bronco man.

[66sprint6]

I appreciate it! Shes comin along and after gettin it out to play the other weekend Im itchin to get it finished up enough to start using it again regularly!!!

Matt

[LoneRanger]

Matt, this is for motivation~

its easier to work on the 1:10 version than the 1:1!



L.R.

[66sprint6]

LOL I sometimes will agree man, my 66 Mustang can be a handful at times and ALWAYS has an attitude when it comes time to work on it. One day Ill add a Bronco to the mix, just gotta get some priorities taken care of fist (lame).

I finally took some time this weekend to play with some metal on the Bronco!



Ive tossed around numerous ideas on a roll cage and sliders for this thing and after seein it perform the way it did last time I took it out, I didnt want to hurt the balance it has by adding alot of weight up top. I grabbed some brake line which I never do and mimicked a common 4 point roll bar used on alot of Early Broncos. I ended up moving it forward a bit more than it is on the 1:1s in order to help protect the door window frames a bit but otherwise its pretty close! I brazed some studs into the "feet" of the bars and drilled holes in the floor for mounts. I will reinforce it a tad underneath but I can say its a stout little setup. It fell off my work table, hit the chair cage first did a roll and landed cage first on the ground and only one door window frame was broken slightly lol



I then jumped on another head scratcher...the rocker panels. I still have the lexan rockers but they were beat up from the abuse before i made sliders for it. I know alot of 1:1 Broncos delete the rocker panels entirely for clearance and I thought this was a good idea but then decided it wouldnt fit the look Im goin for. Instead, I got some 1/4" key stock from Jmel and got to work making a steel rocker/slider combo. I notched the ends to allow the lexan to stay in place and then painted it Blue to see if I liked it.



Heres a shot of underneath to show more of what I did. They are just laying in place and will be painted black before Im done. Dont laugh at the bent mounting tabs, they decided NOT to cooperate with me so we had a little talk using a vice and a hammer and now they line up juuuuust fine lol





The blue doesnt match up very well lol so I will either re-spray it black or just let it go...not sure just yet. She's ready to take some abuse now tho thats for sure!

Matt

[66sprint6]

The slider supports are rough at best but its the best Im gonna do for now. Some black paint helped hide em a bit better and noone will see them until its on its lid anyways. The sliders themselves look a little better now with some trimming of the lexan around them.





I painted the roll bar and baked it for 10 minutes which always seems to make the paint last a little longer when abused. Getting closer, just need to get a battery sorted out so I can finish up the wiring and detailing underneath. I also have to hinge the hood then itll be ready for another shake down run!

Matt

[DougJ]

Pretty cool! It looks really great with the doors off ;)

[LoneRanger]

I'm digging the sliders!

L.R.

[66sprint6]

Thanks guys! Yeah the sliders came to me one day while staring at it and I randomly ran into my buddy (Jmel on here) at Lowes the other day and he happened to have the exact width steel key stock I needed to make em happen. Should be stout enough to get the job done. Only problem is in my (lack of) preperation, I forgot to leave space underneath for the battery to fit in the driver floorboard so Ill either have to move one support or make it easy to move out of the way to gain access. One way or another Ill get it figured out lol

Matt

[LoneRanger]

more motovation: my trail rig fresh out of paint this past weekend-



L.R.

[66sprint6]

Dang you and your awesome 1:1 broncos. All I want is 1 ugly trail beater Bronco, but for now Ill make a 1:10 version lol

Matt

[LoneRanger]

keep after it, your 1:10 version looks great!

L.R.

[66sprint6]

Thanks man, its starting to come together. Worked on mounting the front seats a bit last night and will try to have them soon. Then really all Ill need is the hood mounted and a battery mount and I can start thrashing it again!!! I like being able to run them while Im working on em, keeps me interested along the way.

Matt

[LoneRanger]

i see your in murpheesboro. if there is ANYWAY possible that you could get to Townsend in 3 weeks it would be worth your while. #1 my wife and I will be there. #2 there will be 200 EB there to drool over.

think about it.

L.R.

[66sprint6]

Townsend huh...might have to see about that. And prolly leave the wallet at home. And constantly remind myself that good things come to those who wait. And more than likely buy the first EB I can find for a decent price. LOL

Matt

[66sprint6]

Got the seats mounted up finally. Was tossing around the idea of tryin to make some stock looking buckets for the front and a bench for the rear but had these Wraith seats layin around and figured why not, if I was doin a trail rig and had the cash Ide toss some better front seats in for sure! I mounted them up getting them close to the cage on each side like I saw in a couple 1:1 pictures buuuuuuuut that ended up not lookin right with the BlueBronco, too much space between the seats. I was annoyed enough by it that I couldnt say "good enough" and took it all apart (huge pain in the butt by the way). I redrilled some holes, replaced a section of floorpan on the passenger side and cut some aluminum tubing up for supports for the front of the pass seat. I didnt move them more than a couple MM but Im MUUUUCH happier now for some weird reason.





Shot of the bare supports. These will be painted black along with the nuts I used to space the seats from the floor down the road.



Floor panel replaced. Old one was super weak when I drilled the new holes and I could tell one good roll and it would collapse. This time I bolted the seats in THEN glued it down lol. Im either gonna leave it black and make some weld marks/primed weld lines to look like a floor patch or paint it blue to match, not sure.



Matt

[LoneRanger]

Sweet. Look at my stupid scale thread to see what I did to wraith seats to make them look better. (IMO)

There will be broncos for sale at supercel! Not all high end show trucks either- I almost bought an original 66' for 6,200 last year and it was in damn good shape!

L.R

[66sprint6]

Wait wait wait...your tellin me the seats in your Blue superscaler were once wraith seats?!?!?!? Please...tell me how you did that so I can rip off...I mean steal...I mean pay homage in my build!!!

Matt

[LoneRanger]

its all in the thread~ have at it. it was EASY!



L.R.

[66sprint6]

Ok...I swear Ive been through every page of your build and the only thing about seats I saw was the black ones you got from AK? I must be goin nuts...can you tell me what page its on?

Thanks!

Matt

[LoneRanger]

Page 17. They r not wraith seats though(I thought they were) the same thing that I did you can do as well. Trim em down and make the bolsters on the side less pronounced.

Easy project for you!

L.R.