black and silver 1979 Ford Bronco parked outside

She' s 811 fine... My 79 BY SCOTT BYRNE. ILLINOIS y infatuation with 7879 Ford trucks started back in I979. l was working at the local gas station and the Manager there had a beautiful 78 Jade Green metallic Pl 150 Ranger XLT 4wd with a lift and a set of 35" tall tires. I was just about 18 then and after work I had gone home and asked my Dad ifl could buy a new truck. I had told him what I had wanted and we made a trip to the local Ford dealer. It was there that I had found a solid black '79 Fl50 Ranger XLT 4x4. It was only a matter of time till I had put a lift and a set of 36" Dick Cepek Fun Country tires on it. About a year had gone by and I ended up in a bad accident that had totaled the truck. Since that truck I have had numerous 78779 Fseries and Broncos then I found my cur rent 79 F250 in 19%. l preceded to do a frame off 011 it and swap in a 429 motor. I convinced myself that my next proj ect was going to be a Bronco... a 7). l was surfing the net and had found this one locat- 7C ed in California for at $1.000. I talked with the owner on the phone for a while and had decided to buy it. When it had arrived here I was pleasantly surprised to see the condi tion that it was in. There was no rust to be found anywhere on it. I had started search ing FullsizeBronco.com to see ifl could locate some parts to put this one back together and get some more knowledge on the Broncos. For the last 3 years I had gathered quite a bit of NOS Ford parts to use. One of the first things I had wanted to do was get the body repainted in the original color combi nation. I sanded down the body myself and had it ready for paint. The interior was com pletely stripped of everything and I had repainted the silver. I took the seats to a local uphol stery shop and had them redone. I ordered the facto ry correct cloth material from SMS Auto Fabrics and it matched perfectly. Having the factory high back buckets really sets off the interior of the Bronco nicely. I also replaced the front and back carpet. I found a set of brand new NOS door panels. and I ordered the new wood grain instrument cluster and glovebox sur round. Also I added the factory correct woodgrain on the glovebox door with the Ranger XLT emblem. It was my attempt to try and retain the Bronco to as close to fac tory correct as I could with this build. I even located an NOS CB system using the correct AM/FM/CB antenna. 1 did add a nice CD player in the dash with some cus tom speakers and amps. The steering wheel is the factory correct soft grip leather wheel that I found thru eBay and had paid a measly $40 for. I also located thru eBay an NOS correct horn pad with the cruise fea ture on it. For the gauges I went with the Dakota Digital gauge pack. After some cutting these gauges were very easy to fit into the factory gauge bezel. One of the biggest rea- sons 1 went with the Dakota Digital was the accuracy over the OE style gauge 1 am also able to calibiate the speedomete1 to work with the 35" tires. My initial plan with the motor was to just freshen it up with a tune up. I had pulled the plug on the oil pan and a milky oil had came out. Instead of rebuilding that motor I had decided to use the old 400 from my black F250. I went with a Crane cam. a set of roller rockers and a double roller tim- ing chain setup. For the intake 1 used an Edelbrock Performer and it has a Carter 650CFM carb. I also used a complete MSD ignition system. Hedman headers with Flowmaster mufflers lead the custom dual exhaust out the back. While I was pulling the motor I had noticed that whoever had worked on it last had busted 4 of the 6 mounting boss off of the transmission tuna nel. I ended 11p locating a transmission ease Bronco Unvm Magazuie - "tat enthusiasts, Jv onthusasts loe: had no had pet the sto me; be