Bodywork Page 
Chevy Disc Swap
I also employed their assistance when it came time to straighten the bent
core support-I gave them my 3 lb dead-blow hammer-pointed at the spot where I
wanted them to hit, and then let them wear themselves out.
(Bodywork as "quality time"? Works for me.)
After about 30 minutes, they had done a pretty good job-I just gave it a few more
lusty whacks and pronounced it good enough. (I’m sure my neighbors agreed with me
by this point).
The passenger fender had a pretty good crease in it running from the lead top edge to about 1/3 of the way into the wheelwell flare. I spent a few hours with a set of body hammers and a dolly and managed to get it almost straight-plenty good enough for my purposes. The lower front edge of the fender was rusted into lace-when I tried to straighten it out, it just crumbled. I ended up cutting it out completely and forming a replacement panel from flat sheetmetal (compound curves are HARD!), then tack-welded it into place (I learned my lesson from the previous welding snafu).
I found a slightly bent driver's side fender for a great price on eBay (the FedEx guy that delivered it was REAL curious as to what was in the weird-shaped box), and except for a wrinkle in the very top where the grill had been pushed back into it on the donor truck, was in PERFECT shape-even the paint was gorgeous-and the same color! Too bad..it got primered anyway. The wrinkle was too hard to hammer out-I needed to somehow P-U-L-L the wrinkle out-basically reverse the force that had caused the damage in the first place. After thinking about for a little bit, I ended up using my Hi-Lift jack and some short lengths of chain fastened to the fender's mounting bolt holes to apply tension to the sheetmetal while heating the damaged area with a propane torch and tapping it with a body hammer to straighten out the wrinkle gradually. It worked like a charm-with just a few minute's worth of final shaping with a hammer and dolly, the fender was good as new. (Well, close, anyway.)
The hood was in pretty decent shape overall-aside from numerous rust-through holes in the lead edge and small tears on each side. I simply welded a 4'x 1/2" piece of angle iron in the recess just in front of the latch, cut a 3" strip of sheetmetal as wide as the hood, formed it to match the curve of the front edge of the hood, and tack-welded it into place. The tears on each side I fixed by plug welding a 6"x1/2" piece of angle iron into the C-channel shape of the edge of the hood on each side and tacked a small piece of flat sheet to the underside to brace the back of the tears.
The rear bumper was bent, torn, and twisted all to hell-plus it had some kind of funky homemade tow hitch bolted through it (and also welded to the bottom of the frame rails just under the gas tank.) My air impact and a lot of Liquid Wrench made short work of the hitch bolts, but I had to use the grinder again on the welds and the bumper-to-frame bolts-the nuts were so hard to get to and so rusty it was easier just to cut them off. After grinding as much as I could get to, an old railroad spike (used as a punch), my deadblow hammer, and a 4 ft long crowbar were still needed to separate everything. An added bonus to removing all this was that once I did, the gas tank fell out, too. The straps had long since departed-and that homemade hitch was the only thing holding it in the chassis.(Good thing it was empty, huh?) I hadn't planned on removing it at this point of the rebuild, but.......
The front bumper didn't give me any trouble at all--in fact, it wasn't even there. Less work for me.
The interior of the frame rails were full (and I mean FULL) of dirt, grass, bird nests, and quite a few really rusty nuts and washers. I used an old long screwdriver to clean out what I could reach, but I couldn't do much with stuff further back in the frame-I needed something long, skinny, and kinda flexible to work that junk loose and bring it out. I tried some electrical conduit I had lying around, but all that did was pack the stuff in tighter. Putting the conduit away, I saw my plumber's snake hanging in the corner of the garage-just what I needed. It worked like a charm-chewed into the compacted junk, loosened it, and brought most of it out when I withdrew it. The rest blew out easily with a blowgun forcing air into some of the small bolt holes in the frame, blowing towards the end. The main reason I wanted the frame rails clear was so that when (not if)I take the truck through some deep water, I want the water to be able to drain out quickly-not get trapped in there and rust the rails from the inside out. Hell, this truck's rusty enough already.
Did I say rusty? This truck was so rusty you need a tetnus shot just to look at it. Look up "rusty" in the dictionary and there's a picture of it. Doing a little probing with a long screwdriver showed the rockers (inner AND outer) were both toast-along with the transverse bed support that runs between the wheelwells. The rockers aren't a big deal-I've already decided to replace them with 1/4" Rocksliders, so out came the cut-off wheel, and 20 minutes later, they were both history. Both the rockers and the bed support were packed full of dirt-I mean by the time I finished cleaning them out, I had at LEAST a wheelbarrow's worth of sandy loam on the driveway. What happened to this thing before I got it? Was it buried somewhere? Sheesh. I ended up spreading the dirt over the wife's garden (hey, it's off a farm-couldn't hurt).
The doors weren't in too bad shape -not too rusty or bent- but the passenger's was missing the outer handle and latch, and both were missing the window cranks (and the glass regulators were both so rusty they wouldn't budge). All the glass was intact, but of course most of the weatherstripping was shot -and some previous owner used what must have been 3 or 4 tubes of blue silicone sealer to plug huge, gaping holes in the outer sheetmetal where the original mirrors had been, and around the hinges. It took me HOURS to scrape all that crap off-then I got busy removing the glass, regulators, and latches (lower the glass, remove all the screws in the outer window frame holding the vent frame in, pry the weatherstripping out its channel, unbolt the vertical divider from the door, remove the vent window and frame together, then unbolt the regulator and remove it and the glass) so I could clean out all the crap inside. The mechanical parts I cleaned up in my parts washer, then lubed all the moving parts with grease, which made a HUGE difference in how they worked. Go figure. The key lock cylinders I'll have to replace, since the truck didn't come with any keys. The glass weatherstripping and door rubber I ordered from JC Whitney (hey, it was on sale). I still haven't decided whether to re-use the original glass or replace it with 1/8" thick Lexan sheet plastic-glass is heavy and scratched,(but it's free); Lexan is light and strong, but one of my main goals in building this truck is to see how cheaply I can do it-so we'll see. The upper window frames I cut off flush with the top of the door and with the vertical bar that the vent window seals against, then welded short (6" long, 5/16" diameter) pins inside the upper window frame cross-section; then, on the bottom, I used sliding bolt gate latches (5/16" dia) inside the frame, set up to slide into the door opening. This will enable me remove the the upper frames when the truck is topless (which is gonna be most of the time), and slip them back in when (or if) I have to use a top-hard, half, or soft. The U-shaped glass tracks down inside the doors I had to make from scratch, since my doors were missing 3 of the 4 needed. (I could have bought used ones, but I'm cheap.) I used the 1 that I had as a guide to measure and cut new ones out of 3/8" aluminum channel, and used weatherstripping adhesive to ..adhere the weatehrstripping. Bolting them into the doors took a little engineering, because the rear guides are VERY close to the door latch mechanisms. To connect the latch mechanisms to the inner and outer handles, I cut and bent lengths of 1/8" rod (same size that I used for the glovebox door hinge modification).
Since the dash was out of the Bronco and completely apart (not to mention missing lots of stuff), I decided to design my own dash layout. First, I had to remove all the rusty hardware and spend a little time with a hammer getting it back into shape.
The ignition switch baffled me at first-since I never had a key for the truck, I couldn't do the usual "stick a paper clip in the little hole and turn the key all the way to the left past the ACC position" trick to pull the tumbler out. So, I drilled it out. Yep, I ruined a perfectly good original key switch just to remove it from the dash...but what good was it going to do me? I didn't have a key for it, and plan on using a toggle ignition and pushbutton momentary start switch, anyway.
I’ve seen a few Broncos with the stock guage package moved to the center of the dash (like a CJ5), and I liked the way it looked-so that's what I did. To move the guages over, I simply cut out matching 8" wide sections-one surrounding the round guage cutout, and the other in the center of the dash, between the ashtray and the switch holes. Then it was a simple matter to swap 'em and weld them back in.
I also removed most of the knobs and switches and replaced them with just a few heavy-duty ones. I'm using a stock-car type switch setup with a covered, sealed toggle switch and indicator lamp for ignition power, and a sealed momentary pushbutton starter switch. Just for the hell of it, I turned down the outer diameter of the old stock knobs by taking a 3/16" drill bit, turning it around backwards and chucking it into my drill, then set-screwing the knobs to the smooth shank of the drill bit. Then I just spun the drill while holding the knobs against a coarse file on the workbench. I turned them down just enough so that beer bottle caps would fit snugly over them, picked out a few favorites, then epoxied them in place. The guage package I disassembled and cleaned, then touched up the needles with bright orange model paint. The outer faceplate (just under the glass) I removed the paint from with a scotchbright pad and left it chrome. Looks cool. For security (and safety), I'll probably use a keyed main battery cut-off switch near the battery (mounted in a marine box behind the passenger seat). A 20-cal ammo can will make a cool, functional, theft-resistant center console (once I weld in a cylinder key lock).
Floorpans-both the drivers and the passenger side were pretty much shot, and I needed somewhere to put my feet. All the Bronco suppliers offer replacement pans (and some of the prices are actually reasonable)-but after fabricating dozens of patch panels for my Porsche project, I knew I could make my own a lot cheaper. A big plus is that the floor of the Bronco is just a bunch of flat panels welded together-a hell of a lot easier to form replacements than all the compound curves I had to reproduce on the Porsche. Good ol' JC Whitney supplied the sheetmetal-a 24"x 36" piece for the drivers' side, a 24"x48" piece for the passenger, a 12"x 60" piece for the lower tailgate panel, and a floorpan support channel for the bed-all for less than $35. Deal!
All I did was take a bunch of measurements, mark the sheets, then used a length of square tubing, my vise, and a plastic dead-blow mallet as a really low-buck sheetmetal brake to make nice, straight bends. With just a little trimming and fitting, they fit perfectly, and I painted them with RustOleum before I spot-welded them into place. The driver's side needed a little stiffening, so I welded 2 3/4"x3/4"x1' lengths of angle iron under the pan. The tailgate was completely rusted out along the bottom, so I cut the entire bottom off and formed a replacment panel using a 12"x60" strip of sheetmetal, and a 5' long by 2" o.d PVC pipe ($1.94 @ Lowes) to act as a mandrel-perfectly dulicating the curve of the bottom of the tailgate. After spot-welding it to the tailgate, a little Bondo and lots of sanding made it good as new. Once I had the rear subframe crossmember bolted in place under the rear edge of the bed (2" x 3" rectangular tubing fits PREFECTLY into the channel there), I sprayed a quick coat of flat black on the tailgate jambs and lifted the tailgate into place ...but it didn't fit. With the doors and everything else removed, the body must have sagged and warped a little over the months it sat, and lifting it side by side to install the 2" body lift probably contributed, as well. The tailgate opening measured 58 1/8" wide at the bottom, and 57 13/16" at the top, while the tailgate itself is right at 58" wide-no wonder it didn't fit. To spread the body sides apart a little, I ended up using my Hi-Lift jack braced against one side and pushing against the other-worked like a charm. Getting the latches adjusted so the tailgate would slam shut, be centered in the opening, and open easily took a little while, but it was worth it. A little white grease on the latches helped a lot, too.
The driver's side door post was toast-I mean, there was more of it missing than there was there. Since fabricating one was pretty much out of the question, I shopped around and found the best price at Jeff's Bronco Graveyard . It's a quality piece-fits and looks great. Getting the old one out didn't take too much work- I used an old jack and 2x4 to support the cowl, drilled what few spot welds were left holding the door post in, and out it came. I spent a little time with a grinder cleaning up the areas on the cowl, lower door jamb, and inner kick panel (I ended up replacing the kick panel with a flat sheet of metal cut to fit because the old one was so thin from rust I couldn't weld to it), then carefully measured (I used the still-intact passenger side as a guide) and test fit the new post until it lined up where it needed to be, and burned in a few spot welds. After measuring again to make sure it was correct, I ran small beads (1" at a time, alternating sides) so it wouldn't warp or twist.
The bed floor in the cargo area was rusted through in some places, and the section between the wheelwells was really bad. The support underneath that are was packed full of dirt and grass, and had allowed water to remain trapped inside and rot the floor out from underneath. I used my angle grinder to slice out a section of the floor and the support, thinking it would be easy to find a repair panel and fix it. Well, it's not. After plenty of searching, I found that Jeff's Bronco Graveyard offered a section, so I ordered one. When it arrived, it didn't fit-it wasn't even close to the right pattern. After trying to return it with no luck, I gave up on them, made a cardboard pattern of the Bronco's bedfloor and headed for the junkyard to see if any pickups might have a bed pattern that matched the Bronco's (or was at least close). This isin't as easy as it sounds, because every pickup bed in a junkyard is full of engine blocks, trannies, seats, and everything else. I finally came across an '83 F250 way back in a corner that the Bronco's floor pattern matched perfectly (A little more research has shown that nearly any Ford pickup from the mid '80's to about '96 or so will work -even an '00 F350 Superduty bed matched!). For $75, the yard guys removed the bed from the truck chassis and torched out a section that measured 40" wide by 52" long. I broke out the Sawzall and cut out the entire old, rusty bed sheetmeatal in the Bronco from seam to seam, wheelwell to wheelwell, then trimmed the donor bed floor to fit and welded it in. It's white, so it doesn't match the red/orange/primer body, but as soon as I finish welding in the rollcage, I'll spray Herculiner all over everything anyway.
Photos