Ownership Verified: 1989 Ford Bronco

While I was getting some supplies to finish the last stage of the basic engine reassembly (always something crops up) after some delays due to flu and work, I came across a sudden surprise. Broncos have recently become very scarce in the local junkyards - and one suddenly came onto my radar. Turned out to be a one year newer Bronco with a 4" body lift and a 4" suspension lift. More importantly, other than the lift it was a dead ringer for my truck's original trim, paint and all.

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This presented a bit of a quandry for me. My truck had been damaged at one point and both doors, one fender and the radiator cross support were replaced by a previous owner with the doors and front clip parts off a couple of lower-spec F-150 trucks. The panels are mechanically identical, except the trim details aren't the same (missing the tan paint stripe at the bottom, different body lines in some parts) and the driver's door was from a truck that had a later 'aero' or 'paddle' style mirror. This mounted using a series of pre punched holes and internal brackets.

"Aero" mirror example:

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"Swing-out" mirror example:
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Unfortunately, my previous owner was unwilling or unable to get two matching doors so instead he drilled some new holes in the door to mount the original 'swing-out' style mirror and left the original 'paddle' mirror mount holes open. So, yeah, the truck sometimes whistled at highway speeds and of course water got in the door when it rained (at least it drained out fast as well).

I've never been terribly happy about that, but I hadn't had an opportunity to correct it, not having been lucky enough to find an appropriate door and not being enthused about trying to patch my existing door back together. So, along comes this donor Bronco - and I'm thinking that I really should be concentrating on getting the thing running buuuuuuuut when am I going to find another good donor? Broncos in general are getting hard to find in junkyards and parts prices are going up.

To make a long story short, after going down to check out the Bronco in this yard I'd never seen I found it had a couple parts that would make my future engine swap easier or would add optional features my original owner had decided not to get. After making a deal with the owner, I ended up making this:
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Look like this:
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I removed the door, of course.
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My truck didn't come with a rear window defroster. This one did - so I took the complete tailgate and the special defrost control/relay that was packaged as a dash switch.
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The tailgate, by the way, is custom to the Bronco. It doesn't actually share any stampings with the F-150 even though it looks the same. Which means that this is a hard part to replace used - especially as due to a poor design, it tends to rust out.
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I pulled this rather rare trim and switch for the E4OD electric overdrive transmission. This is rare because only 90 and 91 Broncos came with this transmission and this trim piece and switch is basically unobtainium. This means I'll have a switch I can repurpose to work with my planned 4R70W instead - I don't have to rig some non-factory switch to do the job.

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I may go back for the other door and a fender if I can get them cheap enough so I can finish evicting all the different F-150 parts from the truck.
 
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Half way through your post I was expecting you to buy the entire vehicle.
 
Me too. Might be cheaper to get all the parts you wanted too.
 
Not happening. This yard is one of the majority that will not sell out anything that is put out for dismantlement. Intact vehicles prior to being placed on the yard are another story, but this isn't one of those. The engine and trans were gone before I ever got there and other parts had already been taken. This place has fairly low prices, so I'm not convinced that even if it were possible to buy the engineless hulk from the yard it would be to my advantage, seeing as how it would have to be towed a significant distance and then there would be the expense of title transfer needed for final disposal when I was done. All the parts I picked up so far cost me just $120.
 
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So, I was working on the truck and due to some idiot engineering I found myself stretched out looking at one of the exhaust manifolds. Now, the 302 truck manifolds are particularly badly designed - they're about as free flowing as a pipe full of silly putty and were designed with insufficient reinforcement or allowance for heat expansion. As such, pretty much every single 1977-1997 F-truck with cast manifolds will eventually have them crack and crack badly. Here's one on my "Edelbrock head donor" engine to demonstrate.

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Every single one of them will do this, so used ones are basically scrap. I knew prior to the engine failure that it had the beginnings of some hairline cracks but the manifolds seemed to still be sealing when the intake manifold cracked and failed. So imagine my surprise when I look down and can just see the edge of a clearly visible fracture, far too big to seal up by itself when the manifold heats up. (Unfortunately, not in a location where my camera could get a usable picture.) Well, f**k. Gotta replace them - and if I'm going to replace them, I might as well get something better - not least for the reason that new stock manifolds actually cost more than new aftermarket performance headers.

For the past few days, I've been looking around to find the best deal on headers I can - and I've found a set of used Flowtech (one of Holley's exhaust brands) 91627FLT headers for cheeeeeeeap. Pics are of a new pair, pics of actual units will wait until they arrive.

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For the price of a new set that needs to be painted or coated, I can get these headers, have them derusted and ceramic coated inside and out and still have a third of the price of a new set left over. They should be here next week. They aren't JBA or Bassani equal length headers, but they're generally acceptable, they're cheap and they're available now. :D
 
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Been there with an '88 4WD F150. Equal length or not, you'll increase the exhaust flow exponentially!
I was searching for headers for mine when my brother-in-law decided that he wanted to buy my old truck. He drove it for several years with the exhaust whistling...
Your Flowtechs sound like a great deal!

SL
 
Yeah, these stock manifolds are remarkable (even for Ford) levels of craptacular. I sometimes wonder if they let the summer intern design them or something - especially because the really stupid part of the whole affair was that at the same time they were shipping this garbage they were also shipping the Mustang 5.0HO cars with some reasonably decent tubular headers from the factory.

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Definitely another "Ford, you BONEHEADS" moment.
 
Yeah, same with the elusive “Lincoln Log” headers. If they had those, why not use them on all vehicles that used the 5.0L? Seems dumb to have so many different types.
 
Well, those headers never made it. A couple days later, the seller refunded my money and claimed that the headers had somehow disappeared between the time he’d posted them for sale and the time he went to ship them. Cute. At least I got my money back.

Unfortunately, that left me without a good exhaust solution. I’d just about given up on finding some reasonable used truck headers when I came across a guy in Texas selling the factory headers and most of the exhaust from a 1994 Ford Lightning – an F-150 with a 5.8 built by Ford’s SVT operation.

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That would fill the bill quite nicely – turns out the guy only wanted $50 for all of that so I quickly made arrangements and headed over after work. Guy had a rather nice shop (that I may post pictures of elsewhere) and said he was selling the stock Lightning parts as he was going to long tube headers on his truck.

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The exhaust parts were as advertised, money changed hands and the exhaust was quickly sealed in plastic, wrapped in a tarp and stowed.

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This appears to be one of the only ways to get a dual exhaust on a Bronco short of custom fabrication – this exhaust is really unusual for the F-trucks in that it is dual all the way back and has two balance tubes yet all fits in the tight space a 4x4 requires. The parts made the trip back to my place just fine so I finally have good replacement headers.

The Lightning headers themselves aren’t really anything to write home about – most current aftermarket headers will flow far more exhaust gas and support more power. However, these are exceptionally well made, are reputed to fit absolutely perfectly and will flow well enough for 350-400hp, which is about where my build will end up anyway. There’s the last big part I needed for this reassembly.


Since the last big updates, there has been some progress with the engine reassembly. The stud kit was installed and everything in the valley was cleaned and the flash rusting wiped off; the lower intake has been fully cleaned and installed.

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That truck servicing step I bought came in very handy – I had to drill, tap and helicoil several of the valve cover bolt holes due to my idiot friend’s ‘helping’ to put them on while I was flat on my arse in bed recovering from my latest motorcycle accident. He didn’t make sure the bolts were threaded in properly and then used an electric impact driver to tighten them down. (I no longer wonder why his stock 5.0 leaks from the valve covers even though he’s replaced the gaskets several times.) I installed a stud kit here too, as that makes the covers and gaskets very easy to install. No idea why Ford didn’t think this was a good idea at the factory.

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I’ve since been repairing the damaged wiring and vacuum plumbing. A sudden surge of cold winter weather has suspended work for the past few days but there would seem to be several opportunities over the next week or so to get this done.

Here’s a picture of why I needed to get a new driver’s door when the opportunity presented itself. Behold the previous owner’s attempt to put the mirror that came with the truck on a salvaged door intended to mount a different mirror.

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Finally getting to the end of this resurrection. I’m already looking out for a donor Exploder to start pulling the parts I need for the next stage – I really want to have the next stage engine ready to drop in by this fall, a couple friends with Exploders are looking for some parts and with the economy picking up some people are finally dumping their Exploder 4x4s cheaaaaaaap. As in $150 cheap - I just missed that one a few days ago.
 
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CraigB said:
Are the 351W headers going to fit a 302?
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These are some of the only ones that do. The only adaptation that has to be made is that the downpipe on one side has to have about 2 inches removed.
 
It being too cold for the adhesives and such chemicals I need to finish putting the Bronco engine back together and there being a half price sale at Pick N Pull, I went to the local PNP and snagged some additional connectors and small bits just in case. I also snagged this Exploder overhead console unit to put in the truck sometime in the future.



Here's the consoIe from when I got it home and cleaned up for testing. I do have the exterior temp sensor from the Exploder, I just didn't have it connected while I was testing to see if the compass and temp display worked. They do, even though with the sensor disconnected it thinks it's a nice -40C and therefore a bit icy. :p



 
Since my last post, I've been making slow progress in reassembling the engine, with some setbacks as I find parts that are screwed.

Unfortunately, I've been doing some re-evaluation of many things lately and I sat down to run the numbers on all the things I needed to do to modernize the Bronco to where I'd want it as a minimum to be a daily driver. I found out that my plan to get the thing to 350lb/ft torque, a modern overdrive trans, brake and suspension upgrades was going to cost about $4000-6000 and take months. And then I'll still have a nigh 30 year old Bronco that needs cosmetic and other work. Not to mention something that has to wait weeks for parts.

Unfortunately, with how my life is going, I can't afford the wait and the money itself is questionable. It also firmly puts this truck in the project category; I already have a project and further examination indicates that working on the Bronco has taken up time and resources I should have been using on my old XJ6. It means that this vehicle isn't filling the parts shuttle/hauler/foul weather commuter role in my fleet and I really need that. The plan now is to sell the Bronco and all the parts collected for it and buy something else.

Looking around for a replacement, I debated getting a Frontier Crew Cab and then considered a Titan. However, I found that the first generation (04-14) Nissan Armada comes stock with all the things I want in an SUV of this class and they're cheap enough that I can sell the Bronco for market value and get an Armada, possibly with cash left over. Common Armada parts are actually cheaper than Bronco parts and are readily available locally, not to mention the drivetrain and suspension is still in production as the NV1500. I like the Armada, so I think that's going to be the replacement for this thing.

I've got an awful lot of parts and upgrades to unload, though. :p
 
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CraigB said:
What about them fancy Edlebrock heads? :)
Click to expand...

Only holding on to them until the existing engine starts and runs for a while. Once it does then I’d be happy to talk to you about making a deal.
 
Welp, after *much* problems caused by poor Ford documentation, idiots "helping" in person or the internet and crap Ford design, I finally had this happen:


So, yeah, it finally runs. This design is particularly bad in that the timing marks are on an outer ring of the harmonic balancer. Which, when it gets old, can rotate independently of the crank pulley. Thanks, Ford, thanks a lot for your boneheaded design.

I'll have the rest of the stuff put back on by the end of this week and then it goes up on CL. My spare engine will officially be for sale at that time.
 
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It's taking a bit longer than anticipated to get the truck ready for sale, but the parts I'd accumulated for it have been selling fairly briskly. The truck itself fell afoul of the city code inspectors so it has had to be hauled to a friend's place to finish up the last details of assembly and cleaning prior to sale.


IMG_6081
 
I finally found someone who wanted to buy the thing, so it's now...

Now to dispose of what's left.
 
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