1996 Bronco Top Cap Help

[CrazyElvis]

Howdy.....brand new here and loads of great info to be found.

We live in East Texas and last year I bought a 96 Bronco.....from what I was told it was the 3rd from the last one ever made.....not sure that is true but thats what the orig. owner told me.

Anyway.....I bought it for my daughter who is turning 16 this May. One of my first vehicles was an 83 Bronco and I've been a fan every since.

The Bronco is in excellent shape.....as of right now it has 99,945 orig. miles on it.....351ci 4x4 ......Paint is really nice (maroon) and has some rust marks along the rear fender flare area.....and the top cap needs painted......it was orig. plum colored I think.....

my neighbor owns a body shop so I took the Bronco to him and he reccomended putting rust inhibitor where the rust is and putting flares on the truck. He wanted to paint the top cap and the flares the plum color.

wondering if the flare idea is good?? he said trying to fix the rust could turn into a mess as you never know how bad and deep the rust is.

Also wanted opinions on painting the top cap......anything I should stay away from ?? or any advice would help me greatly.

Overall this is a great running and looking Bronco. I only paid $3000 for it and already had someone here local offer me $6000 when me and my daughter were at the mall. She loves this Bronco and said she would never sell it.

Thanks for any help and advice you all could give.

 

[Krafty]

when it comes to the cap there isn't really much special about it, I painted my cap when I did the rest of my bronco so it would match and the paint took fine. and if your daughter wants to keep the bronco "forever" then get rid of the rust now before you have massive holes in the side of the fenders. covering up rust is never a good idea. best to deal with it when it is small.

do it right the first time and you won't have to deal with rust for another 10 years

 

[oktogo]

on the rust thing it will be expensive it cost me 500$ to get both side done right gl

 

[American Thunder]

If you remove the outer quarters to replace them, you can sandblast any rust on the inners, then apply epoxy primer everywhere you can, especially in the panel crevices. I use a brush in areas like that. If you completely remove all traces of rust, and epoxy primer everything, inside and out, it will last a long, long time.

 

[CrazyElvis]

thats what I was thinking on the rust......I think sometimes people / businesses just want to do things the easy way......the guy was talking about putting a rust inhibitor on then putting the fender flares on.....I sorta don't mind the low profile flares......painting the top cap plum along with the flares would make it look cool......but I don't want the rust to run rampant either. I'll swing by another body shop in town today and check them out.

Thanks guys......

I'll have to post some pics.

 

[madmax]

yea here's a picture of what my truck looked like after peeling off the quater panel

note the wheel house has actually rotted through, it didn't appear that way atfirst till i poked it with my finger, the metal had gone completly away and only the undercoating was left.

In areas you have trouble getting to, like long pillars, a chimney sweep brush can do nicly, there used to be a product called rusty jones, wich I've only heard good things about, the closest thing to it I've found is eastwood heavy duty anti rust, http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/product...iProductID=1117

The quater panels are available from bronco graveyard http://broncograveyard.com/bronco/i-34171_...l__aft_left.htm about 250 each, and youll also likly need new a wheel house, wich can be had for 70 bucks, you're looking at 320 per side, plus labor, fortunatly you can do alot of it yourself, like removing the old panel, http://search.eastwoodco.com/search?p=Q&am...&method=and

They have several spot weld cutters, the real simple one, works great if you've got a good 1/2" drill, the tiny hole saw one, works nice with most any drill, just keep the speed down and use cutting oil to keep from dulling the cutter. Then you can grind down the remnants once the panel is off, a cheap grinder will do just fine with flap disks, and youll find uses for it later. the one hard part to get at is the horizontal joint behind the door, cut below that with a grinder and a .045 disk, or half a million dremil cutof disks.

Since you've got a freind thats a body guy, I'd leave the rest to him, the truck is still actually driveable at that point, but you wont have the tail lights unless you bungee cord them inplace, and if a cop sees you, he'd probaby stop you just because it's so unusual. Doing the demo work yourself can save the body shop lots of time, and it's kinda fun to peel into stuff and see how it's put together, my father did it with me, I'd suggest you do it with your kid, it was a good time. The quater panel takes about 4 hours to remove if you take your time and make sure to cause only minimal collaterial damage. The second one will take much less time because you wont have to hunt for spot welds that were hard to see.

EDIT: If you decide to do the sandblast and epoxy primer yourself, get a real cheap thowaway paint spreyer, finish quality don't much matter and the spreyer can really force it into tight spots, the stuff is hard to clean out of spreyers, and get one of these http://www.centerfiresystems.com/GASMASK-FIN.aspx it's leaps and bounds better than any hardware store respirator, and cheaper, and it protects your eyes, plus it can be cool on haloween.

 

[American Thunder]

I only use the spray gun with the epoxy primer(DP-50/90) if it's visible. Inside the quarters and all, I just use the cheapy throw-away china brushes. Put it on fairly heavy, and brush it into the cracks and crevices so it's all covered. I think it works better than trying to spray it in there, plus there's no cleanup.

 

[Ray_Bronco]

when it comes to the cap there isn't really much special about it, I painted my cap when I did the rest of my bronco so it would match and the paint took fine. and if your daughter wants to keep the bronco "forever" then get rid of the rust now before you have massive holes in the side of the fenders. covering up rust is never a good idea. best to deal with it when it is small.

do it right the first time and you won't have to deal with rust for another 10 years

agree - take care of the rust the first time... it spreads worse than cancer.. pay a little now or a lot later