Slow and steady...

The full set of flares is now on; to say "Finally" is an understatement!  Even at a slow pace, the journey of this project is a blast.  Pics below:

Driver side updates

Part of my birthday present from Karen was to have a "Bronco afternoon," uninterrupted and without "honey-do's." It was certainly productive... enabling me to 1. cut the front panel and drill/pop-rivet on the fender flare, 2. fix the Bronco decal back in place, and 3. cut out the driver-side floorboard to prep for putting solid metal down there. Quite a fun day.

Below are the pics (the last one is the floor board cut-out). Next steps... doing the same things for the passenger side. I cranked it up, and drove it around the cul-de-sac so I could work on the other side in the garage.

Happy Memorial Day!

Today was a great and beautiful day to remember those who have served our country and paid the ultimate price for our freedom. And to all who currently serve or have served in great defense of this country... Thank you!! A special shout out goes to my step-brother Stan Kempinger, currently serving in the Navy and preparing to commission a new ship, and also to my father, Norman Bell, and father-in-law, Billy Joyner, both veterans having diligently served this country. Not that many readers stumble upon this blog, but it's certainly worth posting for those that do. Thank you!

One of the simple freedoms that I am afforded because of these men and others is the ability to put some blood and sweat into the hobby of working on this truck, the "Bronco Project." This weekend allowed for some long overdue progress. Painting was completed (at least the initial & quick 1st pass until more body work is done), including the fender flare painting, a little more cutting, and the 1st fender flare was attached with great assistance (as usual) from David Higgins. If you're keeping score at home, it was attached via pop-rivets.

I was pretty pumped, as it really is starting to have some slight resemblances to the end goal. It is also worth noting - for my own record keeping if nothing else - that David and I came up with some plans for next steps in replacing the driver floor board, and other truck-bed repairs/replacements.

Allright, enough rambling, on to the pictures...

More paint

There's no excuse for not having more updates... so I won't give any. Thanks for calling me out, Higgy. Hoping warmer weather allows me to finish the paint (just have the top of the hood and around the windshield). I'm not going to paint the inside until some body work is completed.

Here are a few pics. The last one includes the fender flares (to be painted white) that I hope to mount soon. Who knows what "soon" means these days, but I never promised a speedy project!

I'm still alive...

It's a shame and embarrassing at how long it has been in between posts! I'm sure lives all across the globe were put on hold wondering "What will happen with 'The Bronco Project?'" OK, so no one really cared, but I'm glad to have some progress to show (although not enough!) Turns out being a baby-daddy takes some time. My wife is loving enough to allow me some garage time, and for my birthday, she gave the green light to order the fender flares! Higgy (David) found a great site (http://www.broncodesign.com), where the owner makes quality classic Bronco fiberglass parts (tubs, scoops, fender flares, etc) at great prices. I haven't gotten the parts yet, but after swapping a few emails with the guy... he and his business seem very solid. More on those, hopefully with pics of them installed, to come on the blog before too long!

For now, I was hoping the next update would show a fully painted (outer body) red truck, but alas, I'm not quite there yet.... still have the hood and some other parts on front to go. However, It was way past time for an update, so here are some pics of the painted sides and grill:

(Oh and yes, the lovely redneck "lawnchair for a driver seat" is still in there. I'm hoping to cut out the floor board and replace that sooner than later to get the real seats (Duct tape and all) back in there)

Visible progress? That's crazy talk....

Ok, so I've been slack - once again, Josh gave me a good (and again, deserved) kick in the pants after I'd made no updates for a while... and the gorgeous 80 degree weather over the weekend certainly helped too. From power-washing to actually beginning to paint this thing.... it was a productive weekend.

My father-in-law, Billy, brought over his power-washer, and we unleashed it on the truck. This was preceded by the fun of actually driving the truck (even if only around the house and into the backyard). Yes, of course, my driver's seat was the lawnchair - what else?? We washed the outside, the inside (have no fear, the lawn-chair was not injured during the washing of this vehicle - it was removed beforehand), underneath (as much as could be reached without lifting it up), in the wheel-wells, and in the engine bay.

Here are some pics with a glimpse of the red painting at the end too...

































Before:

























And after ("holy rust, Batman!")... lots of work ahead back here:


























Engine bay, Before (a while back) and then after:

























More engine (after):
























Finally, some paint (Just a rough Rustoleum Red spray-on job for now...):









































And for my bride, Karen wanted me to throw a Tucker picture in there from the weekend....

details, details

Nothing too exciting here, but good progress was made. Ragan came over last week and helped with some exhaust and radiator work. No pictures, sorry.

After a couple of trips to advance auto, we thought we had the right exhaust tubing to connect the y-pipe to the muffler, but it was just too big or too small each time. But, after trial and error, the muffler did fit directly onto the y-pipe (which works better anyway). Still to come is the piping of the rest of the exhaust out the back from the muffler. Putting the muffler back on made a huge noise difference, so I am sure our neighbors are pleased.

Getting it to run quieter also enabled us to do the stop-leak for the radiator (truck has to run idle for 15 min to cycle it through). So we drained the radiator, poured in the stop-leak, and then the new radiator fluid. Then it ran idle for 15 minutes... a successful event in and of itself!

For what it's worth, there's nothing wrong with working on a truck while listening to Christmas music...