Restoration

[Seabronc]

Well, I've had Rosie off the road for a little over a year removing rusted sections of the body and replacing them with recycled Toyota metal re-stamped into Bronco parts from China or metal from Donor trucks. This could be getting done a lot sooner but I only work on it as I have time, my wife says I spend too much time with Rosie, but when you are in love what is time anyway?

I originally only intended to replace the floor board and rocker panel on the driver side. Once I opened that up, realized it might be a little more involved than that. Having taken a good look I decided to do both rockers. That progressed into a requirement to replace the bottom of the B posts and a small section of the bottom of the right A post. From there I decided that since I had to move the quarter panels to do the B posts I might as well replace them since I had previously replaced the bottom section of the quarters. Might as well get new quarters any way. Removing the quarter panels revealed just what lousy shape the rear tub support was in and also the lower section of the tail gate support post. The rear inner fenders were in bad shape so they went with the quarter panels. I then spotted a couple of small places that needed patching under the rear seat.

Now had I spotted that all at once, I might have decided a divorce was in order, but I love the old girl and only found these things out as I progressed. There is an old song from the 50's about building a Cadillac one piece at a time from different year parts, can't remember the name of it or the artist but it was pretty descriptive of this job :wacko: .

Well, the floorboard was easy to come by new, though it took a little trimming to fit. The rockers came from a F150 as did the lower post sections. Some small patches were made from the skin of a hood, (if you replace a hood keep the skin, it can provide a wealth of sheet metal for doing small patches), like the ones I made for the areas under the rear seat. The quarter panels were new recycled in China parts. I cut the back 20 inches off a 95 Bronco in desperation, since I could not find anyone currently making that part, (this included the tub support, tailgate support posts and a short section of the tub floor. The only part I don't have at the moment is the inner rear fender section. Wouldn't you know it, they are available for 78-79 and 87-96 but not currently available for 80-86 :angry: . I have a set for the 87-96 thinking I could modify them, but it is too much work and probably wouldn't come out well. I am considering buying the ones for 78-79 which has a tire cutout profile closer to the 80-86 than the 87-96.

Right now I have just gotten around to installing the new quarter panels, still a bunch of work to be done, but I'm close to re-hooking up the electrodes to her and giving her a jolt. Will have to put my gas tank back on which was removed to make some of the other things easier to do, like frame rust clean up, attaching the donor tub support, replacing body mounts (that is another long story), cleaning up the underneath of the tub, undercoating and such. speaking of undercoat, I have undercoated almost anything that is not inside the truck and then sealed it with flat black paint to give it a tougher surface.

Just a few pictures to bore you with for now, I'm getting ready to put most of them up on my supermotors site. Then I'll break this LOOOONG story up into it's component parts.

In case you are wondering, I did not weld except where absolutely necessary. Welds are problematic in that they are where a large portion of the rust on your truck starts. Also on light metal like skins, it is very easy for an amateur to ***** up and either blow holes or warp the metal, but mainly the rust issue. I used construction grade structural panel adhesive, (Fusor 108 and 112b), and blind rivets.

That's a summery of the past 14 months in the life of Rosie the Bronco.

 

[Justshootme84]

So now you have a 78,79,80,81,82,83....96 Ford/Toyota/GM F-150 Cadillac Bronco Coupe Deville? LOL, I remeber that song, too, about a plant worker that took home a part every day for 30 years and built a Caddy something. I had a ? about the under-floor supports and other areas that you replaced. Could you see before cutting into them that there was going to be some rot, or did you only find that after removing an outer panel or part of the floor? The other ? is did the Bronco ever have any undercoating applied by the dealer? JSM84

"One Piece At A Time" by Johnny Cash:

http://s0.ilike.com/play#Johnny+Cash:One+Piece+At+A+Time:24954:s311595.28058.2233175.0.2.239%2Cstd_0bc9e0fd45854e18b436754a15a7bd80

 

[Seabronc]

So now you have a 78,79,80,81,82,83....96 Ford/Toyota/GM F-150 Cadillac Bronco Coupe Deville? LOL, I remeber that song, too, about a plant worker that took home a part every day for 30 years and built a Caddy something. I had a ? about the under-floor supports and other areas that you replaced. Could you see before cutting into them that there was going to be some rot, or did you only find that after removing an outer panel or part of the floor? The other ? is did the Bronco ever have any undercoating applied by the dealer? JSM84

"One Piece At A Time" by Johnny Cash:

http://s0.ilike.com/play#Johnny+Cash:One+Piece+At+A+Time:24954:s311595.28058.2233175.0.2.239%2Cstd_0bc9e0fd45854e18b436754a15a7bd80

As far as I could tell, there was never a lick of undercoat applied to it by the original dealer or a previous owner. Yah, I knew there were some problems due to rot in the two back corners but didn't realize how bad. When I removed the quarter and saw how bad the lower tail gate support post was I then cut the welds across the rear end of the tub to expose the top of the support. It was then I found out you can't get those parts new any more so I had to find some in better shape. Even at that I had to do some metal replacement on the 95 parts. I completely disassembled them, removed any rust and reassembled them before putting it on my truck.

A couple more pictures of that area. You can see some of the metal rust swell in a couple of these.

 

[Justshootme84]

Oh yeah, that looks to be some serious rust damage that I think you could see from below or inside the floor. Looks like alot of work, but in the end you'll have another 20 years or longer before it ever rusts again with the undercoating.

I also found a youtube video for you, since that first link was only a sound bite 30 seconds long. I'm a big Johhny Cash fan:

 

[Seabronc]

Oh yeah, that looks to be some serious rust damage that I think you could see from below or inside the floor. Looks like alot of work, but in the end you'll have another 20 years or longer before it ever rusts again with the undercoating.

I also found a youtube video for you, since that first link was only a sound bite 30 seconds long. I'm a big Johhny Cash fan:

I don't know if you saw all the pictures, had to go to another computer which has the complete series on it. I definitely knew there was something to deal with there since I had patched it a little a few years ago.

Thanks for the links. I'm pretty big on Johnny Cash myself, since he was one of the popular singers when I was in high school.

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[Justshootme84]

I don't know if you saw all the pictures, had to go to another computer which has the complete series on it. I definitely knew there was something to deal with there since I had patched it a little a few years ago.

Thanks for the links. I'm pretty big on Johnny Cash myself, since he was one of the popular singers when I was in high school.

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Great, now we're both giving away our age!!! Good luck with the project, JSM84

 

[Xxxyank]

That is amazing how much rust you have dealt with, it's impressive. I remember those days growing up in NJ working in my uncles collision shop & dealing with rust at such an extreme. I only touch projects that bad now, if the money is right & it is worth salvaging, normally it is a rare vehicle.

Thank goodness my Bronco isn't that far gone but for a southern truck it has it's fair share of rust... But then again, ford was never big on undercoating anything either.

Keep up the great work!

 

[miesk5]

yo Fred!

That is a mighty big job and one that I know I won't be able to do when my 96 gets to that age (in Bronco years...lol); I need inspiration just to go out and touch-up the typical 1/4 lip rust; and knowing there is much more lurking on the inside of the skin past the spot welds....

GL!

How are the Chinese made panels fitting?

 

[Seabronc]

How are the Chinese made panels fitting?

Of the 3 types of panels that I purchased, (side note: LMC Truck and Bronco Graveyard source many of their parts from the same manufacturer, including body panels), I've had do some level of fitment.

The worst was a Floor repair panel, BG part number 34038 page 131 of their current catalog. I ended up not using it and when I cut the section out of a donor truck, I took that area with it. The problem is that the channel in which wires run is too wide, about a 1/4 inch too wide. I have pictures, but apparently not on this computer. I owe BG a show and tell of this one.

The floor pan, BG part number 34041 was fine, just too big and needed some trimming down to the size I needed. That is fine with me, I don't mind having a little extra to work with as long as it can be made to fit.

The other part is the quarter panel. Those I got from LMC Truck, not sure why, probably a price and shipping cost issue at the time, but then I bounce between the two of them when buying replacement Bronco parts. They went pretty good, minor fitment problems, the biggest was the tail lights. Had to do some minor grinding around the tail light hole to properly fit the tail lights back in. Also, I will have to do some minor body putty work on the back edge, the surface is slightly bumpy from the stamping process. Because I don't like the seam between the cab roof and the quarter panel, I pulled the curled edge out and used it to overlap the cab panel.

Overall minor fitment problems. The issue right now is the lack of an inner fender. BG has it in their catalog, but when I go to order it they say, "Sorry not available". They have them for 78-79 and 87-96, but not for 80-86. I may have to fabricate them myself. By the way I remember you did that, can you point me to your post on the subject. I was thinking of cutting down a pair of front inner fenders.

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