Been awhile since I've given an update on this. So here's a big one:
12/11
The GT40 upper intake that I acquired was previously powder coated silver. Since then it has been dinged and scratched up. So I took it in to see how much it would cost to get re-PC’d. The guy told me it would cost a couple hundred buck mainly due to how hard it was going to be to get the old PC off (getting in and around the tubing). I thought it was a pretty BS reason for the high price so I didn’t drop it off.
Started doing a little research and came across a custom bike builder who said that you can spray
Permatex Gasket Remover on it and then wipe it right off with a rag. I was pretty skeptical, but never-the-less I went to Napa and picked up a can for $5.99. Would you believe it worked just like he said?!? PC is some pretty durable stuff, but this stuff instantly started making it bubble up off of the metal. And sure enough, I could pretty much wipe it off with a rag.
A couple sessions of spraying and pressure washing and I was able to get all of the PC off!
Before After
12/19
With the help of my wife’s cousin, I went through and disassembled and cleaned up a bunch of parts. Scrubbed the bronco heads down, pulled everything off of the Explorer and Bronco intakes, and scrubbed the lowers.
There’s still quite a bit that could be cleaned, but things have been busy.
12/22
I dropped off the GT40 Upper, the explorer lower, and thermostat housing off at the powder coaters. A little ahead of the game, but I figured it would nice to get some stuff done while I’m waiting for some more build funds to come in (I have a balance I can use at the PC place, so nothing out of pocket).
1/25/2010
Things have been going slow on this. With the holidays, going out of town on vacation, and a bout of food poisoning…. things haven’t progressed like I’ve wanted to. But nothing that is not new to the process of building something up.
I picked up my intakes from the powder coater. They turned out really nice (pictures don’t do it justice).
1/29
So here’s a couple pictures of my original dash. Since I will be replacing it entirely, these will show a good “before” state.
This last Friday I removed the steering column and pulled the dash out in its entirety.
Talk about a rat’s nest of wires.
2/12
Finished getting everything stripped out of the bronco.
I pulled up the carpet to find the spray in bedliner flaking up and rust underneath. You can see in the picture that the “patch” job done before spraying in the bedliner didn’t take care of the underside.
So the bedliner will be completely removed and I’ll have to remove and replace some sheetmetel.
Also, I picked up my heads from the machine shop. Boy do they look nice!
Before After
They were disassembled, cleaned and magnafluxed. The valves and seats were ground. Stem heights were re-adjusted, and then the faces were surfaced because the machine shop said they were “marginal”. Also, new frost plugs, spring shims, seals and keepers were installed.
I was able to sell the other set of heads I had, so it was nice to offset the machine shop cost with that money. Now if only I could get rid of some more of my extra parts...
2/26
Starting on my rotisserie today. I have all the materials, just have to do the cutting, drilling, and welding. I’m going to go with the design that was posted on classicbroncos.com (
Bronco Rotisserie).
Since I do CAD for a living, I went ahead and drew it up in SolidWorks so I could print out some nice drawings to work with.
It'll have casters on it so I can roll it around the shop.
Once I get my tub bracing in, I’m going to pull the tub and start blasting.
Ordered a media blaster from
www.eastwood.com. Tax Returns FTW!!
) I'm going to work on a detailed list of everything I want to sell (with pictures). I'll let you know when I get it done.
