Seabronc
New member
Well, I'm nearly done with a year and 1/2, when time permitted restoration of my 1983 Bronco. Since we have recently been talking about what it takes to do the body mounts and what a PITA it is, I thought I would start sharing some of the pictures, starting with the last major thing I did. In fact I just finished these up tonight.
Much to my pleasant surprise, this didn't take long, but then maybe I learned something about doing it when I did the other 8. Total time from decision to do it to finish was about 4 hours. That included re-aligning the fenders. I already had the grill and front fender off in order to prep and paint the lower cowl piece, and it is probably why I decided to do this. The mounts were so crushed from 27 years of use that the radiator support was actually resting on the frame. I had to loosen the fenders to allow me to jack the support up high enough to get my new Polly mounts in place. I removed the rear bolt that is accessed by opening the door, the bolt at the bottom rear of the fender and the two bolts at the top just behind the hood attachment. This allowed me to swing the fender out a bit and also allowed me to jack the front of it up without crushing against the front edge of the door. Having done all that meant that I had to realign the fender after replacing the mount, not difficult and in fact it seemed easier to make the adjustment than before the mounts were replaced.
If you are thinking of doing this, I suggest that you remove the front fender and grill. That makes access to the mounts extremely easy. Also, they were so rusted, no amount of PB Blaster or any other like product could have loosened them so you could get it apart with a socket or air wrench. First I removed the rear fender bolts and jacked up enough on the radiator support to take the pressure off the mount. Then I made two cuts, one at the bottom of the crushed mount (this dropped off the bottom section) and one at the top after cutting the rubber part off (that freed the top section). After that I raised it a little more to get the poly mount and it's sleeve in, (checking to make sure that I was not crushing the back edge of the fender against the door edge). I used a large fender washer between the bottom poly section and the bolt head and a lower retainer, ( http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fd/full.aspx?Page=36 , P/N 40-2032) that I had left over from doing the other mounts. I shaved just a little off one side of the retainer to allow it to fit next to one of the radiator supports and act as a lock to keep it from turning and coming loose from vibration. After doing the mount, I re-aligned the fender.
The final picture is of the old mounts.
Pictures attached
Good luck,
>-
Much to my pleasant surprise, this didn't take long, but then maybe I learned something about doing it when I did the other 8. Total time from decision to do it to finish was about 4 hours. That included re-aligning the fenders. I already had the grill and front fender off in order to prep and paint the lower cowl piece, and it is probably why I decided to do this. The mounts were so crushed from 27 years of use that the radiator support was actually resting on the frame. I had to loosen the fenders to allow me to jack the support up high enough to get my new Polly mounts in place. I removed the rear bolt that is accessed by opening the door, the bolt at the bottom rear of the fender and the two bolts at the top just behind the hood attachment. This allowed me to swing the fender out a bit and also allowed me to jack the front of it up without crushing against the front edge of the door. Having done all that meant that I had to realign the fender after replacing the mount, not difficult and in fact it seemed easier to make the adjustment than before the mounts were replaced.
If you are thinking of doing this, I suggest that you remove the front fender and grill. That makes access to the mounts extremely easy. Also, they were so rusted, no amount of PB Blaster or any other like product could have loosened them so you could get it apart with a socket or air wrench. First I removed the rear fender bolts and jacked up enough on the radiator support to take the pressure off the mount. Then I made two cuts, one at the bottom of the crushed mount (this dropped off the bottom section) and one at the top after cutting the rubber part off (that freed the top section). After that I raised it a little more to get the poly mount and it's sleeve in, (checking to make sure that I was not crushing the back edge of the fender against the door edge). I used a large fender washer between the bottom poly section and the bolt head and a lower retainer, ( http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fd/full.aspx?Page=36 , P/N 40-2032) that I had left over from doing the other mounts. I shaved just a little off one side of the retainer to allow it to fit next to one of the radiator supports and act as a lock to keep it from turning and coming loose from vibration. After doing the mount, I re-aligned the fender.
The final picture is of the old mounts.
Pictures attached
Good luck,
>-
