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SAS

From 1990 Ford Bronco, documented by Dave Blaney.

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1990 Ford Bronco - Out with the old 1990 Ford Bronco - Ford Bronco suspension components are visible while the vehicle is supported by jack stands. 1990 Ford Bronco - Off with the TTB coil buckets. Very minimal rust behind them. 1990 Ford Bronco - Driver's side coil bucket 1990 Ford Bronco - Driver's side coil bucket, note that I couldn't use the lower front hole in the bucket, so I drilled another one. 1990 Ford Bronco - Passenger side coil bucket mounted 1990 Ford Bronco - Cage arms with old style mounts, Bilstein 5150 14" travel shocks. 1990 Ford Bronco - Weld on radius arm mounts for Cage arms instead of C's. 1990 Ford Bronco - Alloy USA 35 spline outer shafts, stock inners, Spicer greasable u-joints. 1990 Ford Bronco - Stock Ford '97 F-350 shock towers 1990 Ford Bronco - '79 Dana 60, with ARB and 4.88 gears. 1990 Ford Bronco - My first attempt at a new tranny cross member, formerly Josh's trailer hitch. It's a great design and very strong, but unfortunately it pro… 1990 Ford Bronco - New cross member. Same basic design as the trailer hitch, but made with 3/8" angle instead of 1/4", and it's an inch and a half shorter. 1990 Ford Bronco - Other view of the new cross member. 1990 Ford Bronco - My first attempt at a foot to mount the tranny to the new cross member. Very similar to what some other guys are using. Ultimately I didn't… 1990 Ford Bronco - So I ended up fabbing this much beefier foot instead. 1990 Ford Bronco - The new foot is made out of 2 1/2" box tubing with a 1/4" wall. I didn't want it to fill up with water and mud, so I welded in a couple DOM… 1990 Ford Bronco - Fabricated metal bracket with dual openings, likely for automotive modification. 1990 Ford Bronco - A fabricated metal component with dual apertures is secured on a wooden support within a cluttered garage setting. 1990 Ford Bronco - Assembled tranny cross member. Note the two little tabs for the transmission wiring harness to bolt to so it doesn't get wrapped around the… 1990 Ford Bronco - Cross member primered. 1990 Ford Bronco - A metal frame part is displayed in a workshop setting, surrounded by various tools and equipment. 1990 Ford Bronco - Painted 1990 Ford Bronco - New cross member mounted under the truck, and the radius arm mounts are mocked up for mounting. 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up view of an aftermarket bracket attached to the undercarriage of a vehicle. A sign with 'CPI' is visible. 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up of a vehicle's drivetrain component, possibly a transmission or transfer case, with a bracket attached. 1990 Ford Bronco - Tabs on cross member for bolting tranny wiring harness too. 1990 Ford Bronco - Coil cups mounted on lower radius arm mounts. I drilled the mounting holes out from their stock 7/16" size to 9/16", which is the largest p… 1990 Ford Bronco - 1/4" spacer between coil cup and radius arm mount, which lets coil cup sit flat. Without the spacer there would be a gap between the coil c… 1990 Ford Bronco - Note that with the 9/16" nuts the sides of the radius arm mounts will hold them captive, so there is no need to hold the nut with a wrench… 1990 Ford Bronco - Removed anemic stock power steering cooler. 1990 Ford Bronco - Cut the end of the tube with the fitting off. 1990 Ford Bronco - Bent tube 90 degrees, then added a 3/8" compression fitting to 1/4" NPT adapter, which allowed me to hook on a 3/8" barb fitting. 1990 Ford Bronco - Installed back on power steering gear box. 1990 Ford Bronco - With the stock power steering cooler out of the way I now have room to cut out the front side of the cross member. 1990 Ford Bronco - Chunk removed from TTB cross member. 1990 Ford Bronco - Plasma cut the front of the cross member off. No going back to the TTB now! 1990 Ford Bronco - New cross member reinforcement plates, 1/4" thick. 1990 Ford Bronco - Upper cross member brace welded in. It clears the front of the oil pan by a good inch and a half, so no clearance problems. 1990 Ford Bronco - Lower brace welded in. Boy I suck at out of position welding. 1990 Ford Bronco - Instead of routing the air line over the bearing cap I routed it around the bearing cap to avoid hitting the diff cover. 1990 Ford Bronco - I did end up needing to do a little clearancing in the diff cover. I wasn't too surprised to need to grind down the welds a bit on the non-… 1990 Ford Bronco - Differential gears are visible inside the housing, with a Supermotors.net watermark. 1990 Ford Bronco - I went ahead and wire wheeled off some paint on the axle tubes for welding on the radius arm brackets. 1990 Ford Bronco - Ground down the mounting area for welding. 1990 Ford Bronco - At long last, the D60 gets wheeled out of the shop! Pushing it around on a creeper is much easier than trying to lug this heavy bastard by… 1990 Ford Bronco - I had originally intended to leave it all on the creeper during the set up, but it turns out that was way too easy to bump out of position,… 1990 Ford Bronco - Either one of these angle finders would be fine to use, but the digital one is easier to read and more accurate. I did zero it against the… 1990 Ford Bronco - Not having the knuckle hung on the C makes it a little easier to measure the caster. 1990 Ford Bronco - On this '79 axle the spring perch is only .2 degrees forward of the C, so that makes it a pretty good place to measure caster from as well,… 1990 Ford Bronco - I went ahead and assembled the Cage arms and mounts. 1990 Ford Bronco - A coupe of plumb bobs hung through the center bolt hole of the coil bucket help get the axle centered up under the truck. 1990 Ford Bronco - Arms in place, and I jacked the pinion up with my tranny jack to set the caster to the right spot. 1990 Ford Bronco - This seems to be the best way to measure the position of the coil cups to make sure they're dead even. 1990 Ford Bronco - Radius arm brackets are just held in place for mock up with a C clamp. 1990 Ford Bronco - I ran out of daylight, and all of these measurements to make sure it's all perfectly square are a PITA to do by flashlight, so I'm calling… 1990 Ford Bronco - Made a story board to work as a go/no go gauge for the proper compressed coil height. It greatly speeds set up. 1990 Ford Bronco - Had to shim the jack stands to get the axle set to the proper ride height. 1990 Ford Bronco - Using a spring clamp to hold the plumb bob string makes it much easier to adjust the plumb bob height quickly. 1990 Ford Bronco - Also, when setting up the plumb bobs make sure that they are both in the same spot on the coil bucket hole. The hole is 3/8" wide, so if th… 1990 Ford Bronco - Before you can set up the radius arms first you need to center the axle under the truck. The king pin to the plumb bob is an ideal referenc… 1990 Ford Bronco - After the axle is centered you need to make sure that the radius arm mounts are sitting square on the axle. My passenger side one was prett… 1990 Ford Bronco - You can use what ever too you want for checking to see that the mounts are sitting square, but I found that this little square the easiest. 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up view of vehicle undercarriage components, including a differential and suspension parts, with a Supermotors.net logo visible. 1990 Ford Bronco - Now center the coil cups on the plumb bob. Take measurements both side to side and front to back. 1990 Ford Bronco - Now raise the rear of the axle at the pinion to set the caster angle to where you want it. Go back and double and triple check all of your… 1990 Ford Bronco - Make sure your tack welds are strong, because the next step is to wheel it out from under the truck to do the finish welds. 1990 Ford Bronco - In the process of moving the D60 around my long suffering HF tranny jack got owned. RIP cheap tranny jack. 1990 Ford Bronco - I needed some additional clamping to make sure that the radius arm mount sat flat on the frame while I was drilling some holes to bolt it i… 1990 Ford Bronco - I just put in a couple bolts through one side of the bracket to hold it temporarily while I'm working on the rest of the set up. I'll fab u… 1990 Ford Bronco - 1.5 inch per foot tapered reamer, ready to ream the knuckles for knuckle under. Remember to use a lot of oil when cutting with one of these… 1990 Ford Bronco - Reamer in the knuckle. 1990 Ford Bronco - Knuckle reamed for knuckle under using Chevy TRE's. Note the space between the TRE and the knuckle, it's about .3". That space is so the du… 1990 Ford Bronco - A shot of how much was reamed out. 1990 Ford Bronco - Cleaned up the slingers in the sand blasting cabinet. Damn I love that sand blaster, it made these old rusty guys look like brand new. 1990 Ford Bronco - I welded some little DOM guards onto the lower king pins to protect the zerk fittings from getting snapped off. 1990 Ford Bronco - Mounted the knuckles. It takes a clamp to compress the spring enough to get the cap bolts started. 1990 Ford Bronco - Vehicle's rear axle assembly is raised and supported by jack stands for maintenance. 1990 Ford Bronco - Got just a touch of interference between the knuckle at near full lock and the lower coil cup. Mounting the cup 1/8" or so inboard would ha… 1990 Ford Bronco - Passenger side TRE, with tube adapter & jam nut. 1990 Ford Bronco - Driver's side TRE, with tube adapter & jam nut. 1990 Ford Bronco - Once the TRE's are in place, adjusted to where you want them, and knuckles placed parallel, you can go ahead and measure for the tube cut l… 1990 Ford Bronco - I'm using 1.5" O.D., 1" I.D., 1/4" wall tube. Here it is getting cut to length. 1990 Ford Bronco - Cut tube end with tube adapter seated. 1990 Ford Bronco - After the tube is cut I chamfered the cut edges on my belt sander to open it up for a fatter weld area. 1990 Ford Bronco - Get everything fitted up and drop it in place or a test fit before welding it. 1990 Ford Bronco - Crap, another interference problem. The tie rod hits the diff cover when turning. 1990 Ford Bronco - Worse, it's hitting the diff cover when the steering stop bolt is still 1/2" from the C. 1990 Ford Bronco - Having seen way too many bent tie rods I wanted to do something to beef mine up. My tie rod is already hitting the diff cover as is, so sle… 1990 Ford Bronco - If you do this make sure you chamfer the edges so the won't mushroom out while you're driving it in. 1990 Ford Bronco - Can't have it sliding around in there, so I welded it in place on both ends. It's about six inches deep in there, so I had to borrow a stic… 1990 Ford Bronco - Welded on the hex tube inserts. 1990 Ford Bronco - Okay, so I had to saw one of the tube adapters off of my tie rod. That sucks bad enough, but now you have to remove the slug from the tube,… 1990 Ford Bronco - Solution: Weld a 1/2" nut to the center slug. Weld it inside the nut so you don't wind up accidentally welding the slug to the tube. Then w… 1990 Ford Bronco - That second nut gives you something to thread your slide hammer adapter into, and the slide hammer will pull it right out. It took three hi… 1990 Ford Bronco - Looking down in the end of the cut out tube adapter you can see that it was only threaded in a half inch of so. We couldn't unscrew this th… 1990 Ford Bronco - This time when I welded in a tube adapter I put something threaded into the adapter to not allow the threads to warp. I also dialed back th… 1990 Ford Bronco - Since I had already messed up a couple TRE's, I went ahead and cut off part of their threaded sections and made a couple 7/8-18 bolts, one… 1990 Ford Bronco - Reaming passenger side TRE for the drag link end. 1990 Ford Bronco - Passenger side drag link end welded on. 1990 Ford Bronco - Tie rod in place, doing a quick toe in alignment. I just put a couple short boards on the spindle studs and held them in place with the spi… 1990 Ford Bronco - After the quick tie rod alignment is done, next the drag link is mounted. 1990 Ford Bronco - If you care, 8.2° drag link angle. 1990 Ford Bronco - Vehicle suspension components, including tie rod ends and steering linkage, are shown on jack stands. 1990 Ford Bronco - Note, plenty of room between tie rod and drag link. Getting the round tube adapters for the passenger side and hex ones for the driver's si… 1990 Ford Bronco - Drag link from driver's side. 1990 Ford Bronco - Lowered radius arms to finish drilling bolt holes in frame. 1990 Ford Bronco - Drilling holes in the frame is a pain in the ass, especially big 1/2" holes. This 1/2" bridge reamer is WAY easier, because you drill a 1/4… 1990 Ford Bronco - Test fit coils to verify ride height. Brand new coils put in place for the first time, 20" compressed. I imagine that they'll settle to the… 1990 Ford Bronco - Full droop, 26". Clearly they will droop more when the full weight of the axle is on them. 1990 Ford Bronco - External axle tube seals. 1990 Ford Bronco - Started working on the bolt in frame boxes. I was kind of dreading the upper mounts for these, but it turned out to be no big deal since I… 1990 Ford Bronco - You can see that I needed to but weld an extension onto the angle that I used to fab these frame boxes. 1990 Ford Bronco - Once it's in place I center punched the bolt holes for drilling. 1990 Ford Bronco - Cut some spacers from 1/2" pipe. 1990 Ford Bronco - Bolted in place. The upper bolts go all the way through and have a spacer in between the box and the frame. The lower bolts are just bolted… 1990 Ford Bronco - Here is a good shot of the inside of the frame box and how everything is bolted together. 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up underbody shot of a bolt-on steel bracket sandwiched against a rusty boxed frame rail, secured with zinc-plated bolts, washers and… 1990 Ford Bronco - You can see that there is a LOT more stuff to contend with on the drivers side. Fuel lines, brake lines, wiring harness, extended diff vent… 1990 Ford Bronco - Hole drilled in radius arm mount for through frame brake fitting. 1990 Ford Bronco - Makes a nice mount for the AN3 flex lines to the caliper. 1990 Ford Bronco - Back side of radius arm mount. This trough frame adapter has a 1/8"NPT fitting on the back side, which I adapted to a 3/8-24 Inverted Flare… 1990 Ford Bronco - Ran a 3/16" hard line to the splitter block where the single brake line drop is going to come down. I'll run the passenger side line after… 1990 Ford Bronco - Trac bar fabbed and painted. It's 36 3/8" center to center if I recall. 1990 Ford Bronco - Started working on my trac bar mount. With misalignment spacers the 7/8" heim mounting width is 2", so I used 2 1/2", 1/4" wall square tubi… 1990 Ford Bronco - When selecting a trac bar bolt make sure you use one that is long enough to let the shoulder of the bolt carry the load, not the thread of… 1990 Ford Bronco - Sawed out a 1.75" hole to allow the heim room to pivot. 1990 Ford Bronco - Sawed out the bottom of the hole. 1990 Ford Bronco - Heim in the trac bar mount 1990 Ford Bronco - Side view 1990 Ford Bronco - I've noticed that some coil buckets have this thing at the bottom and some don't. Why is it there? I don't really know. Maybe it's supposed… 1990 Ford Bronco - Tacked the upper mount into place just for mock up. I think it's ultimately going to need to be about 3/8" lower and about an inch farther… 1990 Ford Bronco - Suspension fabrication in progress: black tubular radius arms/links with heim joints mocked up to a front axle on jack stands, with a digit… 1990 Ford Bronco - Here's my lower mount. 1990 Ford Bronco - A close-up view of a custom fabricated metal bracket with a spherical bearing and a bolt assembly, resting on a workbench. A wrench is visi… 1990 Ford Bronco - Mocked up on the axle, not even tack welded in place yet. 1990 Ford Bronco - A close-up view of a custom steering linkage assembly attached to a vehicle's axle. The assembly includes various metal brackets, bolts, an… 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up view of a modified suspension component, likely part of a steering or linkage system, on a vehicle. The part is silver and black,… 1990 Ford Bronco - I decided to make a bolt on upper trac bar mount instead of welding one on. You can see here where I replaced three rivets with bolts. 1990 Ford Bronco - This preexisting hole on the cross member also gets drilled out for mounting the trac bar mount brace. 1990 Ford Bronco - Trac bar mount tacked together, 1990 Ford Bronco - Here is a better shot of the three mounting holes. 1990 Ford Bronco - Upper trac bar mount brace. Note the 28° angle, which is to match the slope of the engine cross member. 1990 Ford Bronco - All welded up and sand blasted, ready for paint. 1990 Ford Bronco - Metal bracket assembly on a workbench, possibly for automotive use. 1990 Ford Bronco - Metal fabrication parts and protective gear are laid out on a weathered workbench. 1990 Ford Bronco - A metal trailer hitch receiver part is shown on a table, with red markings visible on a separate object in the background. 1990 Ford Bronco - Painted 1990 Ford Bronco - Mounted 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up of vehicle undercarriage components, including suspension and steering parts, with a Supermotors watermark. 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up of vehicle frame and suspension components supported by jack stands. 1990 Ford Bronco - I do think it's a little ugly from this angle though. I'm thinking of removing this area with the plasma cutter some time. Not that it real… 1990 Ford Bronco - I should have taken a pic of this before I painted it because you really can't see it here, but the lower trac bar mount is welded on here.… 1990 Ford Bronco - Coils and shocks mounted, I used Bilstein 5150's, mounted for 5" up travel and 9" down. 1990 Ford Bronco - Outer axle tube seal packed with grease and ready to install. You just pack them with grease, put some RTV on the outside of them and press… 1990 Ford Bronco - Outer axle tube seal installed. 1990 Ford Bronco - And at long last...the truck NOT SITTING ON JACK STANDS IN MY DRIVEWAY! 1990 Ford Bronco - Underbody view of a fabricated three-link/radius-arm suspension with black tubular links and heim-jointed ends running back to frame-mounte… 1990 Ford Bronco - Lifted green Ford Bronco with a white top parked at night in an empty lot under building lights, shot from the driver's side. It sits on ta… 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up view of vehicle suspension components and a diamond plate panel with an FSB badge. 1990 Ford Bronco - Trac bar and drag link 1/2 degree off! 1990 Ford Bronco - Did I mention that my rear springs are very worn out? The do flex well though. 1990 Ford Bronco - Green Ford Bronco with white top and tan lower stripe flexing with its rear passenger tire up on a large rock at the edge of a grassy field… 1990 Ford Bronco - Front three-quarter view of a lifted green Ford SUV flexing off-camber on a grassy trail bank, its front axle articulated with one mud tire… 1990 Ford Bronco - Lifted two-tone green-and-tan full-size Ford Bronco flexing its suspension with the passenger-rear tire climbing a boulder on a wooded trai… 1990 Ford Bronco - Low side view under the front of a lifted green 4x4 showing a coilover shock, coil-spring bucket, tie rod and radius arm over a solid front… 1990 Ford Bronco - Green Ford Bronco with a white fiberglass removable top and tan lower body stripe, parked on a residential driveway in a three-quarter fron… 1990 Ford Bronco - The axles umbilical cord with the vent tube, ARB air line, and center drop brake line. 1990 Ford Bronco - Close-up view of the suspension and drivetrain components of a modified off-road vehicle. 1990 Ford Bronco - Green Ford Bronco with white top and tan lower stripe flexing in a grassy field, front passenger tire lifted and the driver-side front droo…