My Tacoma Replacement... 1996 Bronco

08.04.2019

Just plugging along with little stuff. Ran antenna cables up under the trim and secured them down the passenger side b-pillar. Steve gave me the thumbs up to run the coax next to each other, shouldn't be any interference. I don't necessarily plan on having two radios, but it would be nice to have redundancy, and if i want to run two radios i won't have to dig back into it.

Going to run the cables under the carpet, and the radio bodies will me mounted inside the center console. I should have enough room in there for a small 4 channel amp too. I'll run all the cables under the carpet to keep it clean.

 

08.20.2019

Desolate Stage 1.5 picked up today, went with dual 5100's. Super excited to get my truck put back together and get this all installed. I think i can grab the redhead steering pump and throw in the Desolate Saginaw conversion while i'm there, as i'll be replacing all of the steering components with their HD moog kit.

 

08.27.2019

Ordered full replacement carpet for the interior and tailgate.

Ordered all 4 speakers and an amp. gonna wire it all up while i have the carpet out.

Been fighting the damn transmission solenoid plug for a few days. Without dropping the exhaust or the trans, the plug is almost impossible to reach. Realized that the trans cover from the interior was right above it. My carpet is already out, so i just popped the panel off, and presto, plug was right there, came off in moments. Pulled the solenoid out. The connector and o-ring, even down into the trans were covered in grit and nasty stuff. No wonder it's leaking... New o-ring is in the mail, should be here soon, and i can button the trans back up and get the interior sorted.

 

11.25.2019

Picked up a couple interior goodies; man there have been a lot of cool products released in the 10 years or so since i had my last Bronco... a decade, yikes!

CP Addict billet OE style door handles and wing window latches. Should prevent either from breaking, or getting that weird nasty chalky look.


Solo Motorsports OE tire swingout lock. This should be extra nice while opening the tire swinger on off camber trails, tight parking spots etc.

 

11.27.2019

Mostly wrapped up my new speaker wiring and mini 4 channel amp harness. I should be able to run RCA's from the aftermarket head unit directly to the amp, bypassing all of the factory speaker wiring. Hoping for a stronger cleaner sound.

Every connection from the harness pigtail provided by Pioneer to the speaker wire got a solder sleeve, with an extra layer of heat shrink for protection. There should be little to no load on these connections, as the20awg of the main harness will be under the carpet, and the 16awg going from the harness to the speakers with thick insulation will be run to the speaker itself.



The + and - connections on the speakers are all sized, crimped, and shrink wrapped to match



The finished harness came out fairly clean (in my wholly uneducated opinion), and should make install effortless.

 

12.04.2019

Installed both the Solo Motorsports door panel reinforcements, and my billet door handles today.

Looks like the driver's door had already failed, and received a little shade-tree fix.


Driver's side done;


Passenger door disassembled;


Early signs of fatigue;


Marking drill holes;


Riveted in;


Billet vs OE handle;


All done;

 

12.04.2019

In my bumbling uneducated quest for better music sound quality, i had my fab guy add tweeter mounts to the factory rear speaker brackets. He also opened them up to accept 6x9's. He was not proud of his cuts opening them up, but it's just to make clearance, and the tweeter brackets are perfect. Gonna drill holes for the speaker mounting screws and paint them before throwing them back in.



Tweeter bracket;


Now everything sits in there nicely;

 

12.10.2019

Finally worked up the motivation to fish the speaker wire through the factory body to door boots. The driver's side was a PITA with that massive aluminum bracket over there.

Fed it up behind the hood latch release



Used a coat hanger to pull the wire through the body, boot and into the door.




I'll clean up the leftover factory wire leads. I probably won't cut them off, but i may cut them back so there isn't so much dead wire floating around in there.

 

Looking nice.

 

12.13.2019

Ran the power cable from the battery into the cab for the amp. I need to remember to go back and seal with silicone. Then spliced in the ground, and cleaned up some of the wiring. I think once i have everything more or less where I'm going to be happy with it, i'll wrap it up and cut out a majority of the zip ties. They're just to keep everything organized as i piece it together.



The lonely blue/white wire is the signal output from the HU to the Amp. According to the paperwork for the amp, if I run RCA's from the HU to the amp, i don't need it. I gotta do more reading before i snip it off and tape it up. (I found this to not be true, remote wire is needed. Signal sensing only works with OE speaker level input. RCA voltage is too low.)



Nice fat bolt holding up the dash going into a welded nut, good enough ground for audio???


Power coming into the cabin, ground, and front door speaker wire. Maybe someone that knows audio/electrical (Jim?) can confirm that i won't get any, or too much signal interference running everything together?

 

12.24.2019 (Yes i'm at work on Christmas Eve, but i'm working on the Bronco, so it doesn't really count)

Hopefully i don't mess this up too bad...


Well, i must have done something wrong, because 38mm was supposed to fit snug, but they're not even close. Gobs of hot glue should remedy, and be completely hidden + vibration resistant. Close enough, i need to start getting this project put back together.


Routed the tweeter crossover harness from the door up to the a-pillar. EQUALLY as PITA as it was to do the original speaker wires...

Tweeter end at the a-pillar


Speaker end at the door;


One hurdle i'll have to figure out, the a-pillar is just not quite deep enough. The tweeter sits on this bump just as it sits flush. I am gonna have to see if i can get an o-ring or something to use as a spacer and get enough clearance.

 

12.30.2019

Managed to install all of the new speakers minus the front tweeters. I do have everything i need for them now though, so the next chance i get, they'll be going in as well.

Door speakers got a baffle, since i have the room. Hopefully these do what they're advertised for. If not, i'm only out $10.


Slipped the main power and tweeter wires through the baffle and connected. Thank goodness for color coding and matched size connectors.


Speaker installed. I despise self tappers, but 90% of speakers are installed with them, and i just don't have the time to do rivnuts like i did for the rear.



On to the rear!

Naked panel. Put CLD tiles behind them to kill any panel resonance.


Since I'm using a spacer to clear the large driver on these 6x9's away from the body, i couldn't use a small self tapper. Instead i drilled a hole and used a 6-32 rivnut and 1.25" machine screws. Much more clean imo.


Love me some color coding and size matching connections...



Rivnut and machine screw:


Speaker and tweeter mounted;


Excess wiring tucked up and secured.

 

12.30.2019

Since i ran all new speaker wire, i clipped back the factory pigtails, insulated the ends using shrink tube and tucked them back into body cavities. Should keep any potential shorts safe and tidy.

 

01.08.2020

Gaining some steam on wrapping up the interior...

nearly 100% coverage on the floor with the CCF. Sorry for the grainy photos, working in a dark warehouse with a single worklight in my spare time "after hours".



Mass loaded vinyl down, and seams "sealed" with vinyl tape. This stuff is surprisingly easy to work with, scores easily with a razor blade, then just peels along the seam. HEAVY af though...


Opened up and unrolled the new ACC carpet. The color difference is wild, but the new carpet is actually the color the factory carpet started out as...


LOTS of creases and wrinkles to work out


Using a handheld steamer to relax the carpet backing and smooth out the carpet.


Going in pretty well i think! I laid the old carpet on top and trimmed it. Originally i laid the new carpet in the Bronco and was going to trim that way, but there was so much excess that i couldn't really get it laid in properly, and was worried about cutting it wrong. I got the front edge trimmed perfectly (IMHO) but maybe took a smidge too much off the sides. They'll be covered by the sill plates though, so all good. Cutting the slits for wires, and holes for the seatbelt bolts wasn't too bad, but the jute backing is persistent shit lol.


More smoothing, more massaging, more holes. BUT I GOT THE DOOR PANELS BACK IN!! Kicker panels too. Sad how brittle this plastic is. So many broken tabs and push pins.

 

01.21.2020

With the sound deadening and all the carpet back in, i finished up the interior panels and put my GooseGear plate system back in.

 

01.21.2020

Humble brag, but the new carpet looks friggin amazing. A little bunchy near the gas pedal, so i may have to do some massaging with the steamer.

Also made some small progress on the hacked up stereo wiring... Ran the RCA cables from the amp up into the dash. Cleaned 20 years of dust and spilled coffee out of the HVAC controls and reassembled them.

Now i have to find my head unit i misplaced (how does that happen?) and start clipping unnecessary wires then shrink wrap and tuck them away. I should only need power, ground, and light dim signal from the original wiring, since i bypassed the factory amp and all speaker wires.

 

01.27.2020

Well, i'm glad i decided to go ahead and replace the old head unit. Not all of the functions worked reliably. I discovered the hack job install some previous owner did... I will never understand why people cheap out on a $25 harness from somewhere like Crutchfield. Makes things plug and play, and nothing is irreversible.

unclipped zip ties and electrical tape... oh joy.



"Bypassed" the factory head unit plug. Again, why???


"Bypassed" the factory amp.


Under the electrical tape... Better than just a knot tied i guess?

 

01.27.2020

Cut off all the junk wiring. Kept as much length as i possibly could. Did i mention i hate hack job installs? It would have been 10x easier to just get the plug and play harness. RAGE.

Started splicing in the factory wires for power and ground. Printed a cross reference checklist for myself so i could easily double check to make sure i was splicing into the right wires. Ran my RCA cables for the pre-amp signals and the remote turn-on wire. Wish i had pre-run this one under the carpet to keep things clean. I could probably omit it, as the amp is supposed to be signal sensing, but redundancy in an off road rig wont hurt. (JK, i definitely needed it lol)


Since I'm running all speaker power/signal through the amp, I only needed the switched hot, constant hot, ground, and remote trigger. Clipped back and insulated all of the speaker signal wires from the Kenwood harness.


Also capped off what was left of the factory amp harness and 3 wires i can't use. One was the factory illumination/dimmer input. The other two i couldn't identify, so i guess they're not important


All put back together! The amp is mounted to the center console bracket, so this will all be hidden once i get around to installing that.

 

02.06.2020

Boring updates, bit the bullet and drilled the holes i had marked out on the roof. Ignore the masking tape glue mess and my blasted clear coat.


Fancy fancy weather caps for when the antennae are off.


Cables run up the b-pillar behind the trim, under the carpet, and behind the cab to shell trim. Routed up through the dome light hole.


Now you see em, now you don't...

 

02.06.2020

140 amp alternator installed.