My Tacoma Replacement... 1996 Bronco

02.13.2020

Guys, i'm in love...

The crew at Desolate did their thing, installed all new Napa Blue ball joints, heavy duty upgraded steering, and their Stage 1.5 kit with dual 5100's up front, and 5165's in the rear.

While they had the front end apart cleaning, painting, and installing, Greg noticed my front brake pads were pretty worn, so he resurfaced my rotors and slapped on new pads at just the cost of pads. That's some serious above and beyond attention to detail and customer service i really appreciate. Can't wait to take it out and enjoy it.

 

Current as of today...

Bronco is at Johnny Lightning's in Corona CA, should be done this afternoon. They'll replace the upper and lower rad hoses, since the upper has some nicks in it from the fan, and the lower as seen better days. Steve over there already knew to zip tie the upper to the radiator. Also replacing the heater hoses while the system is more of less drained just for piece of mind, and any others that they can easily knock out.

They also said they'd just go through it and call me if anything else needed attention. I'm sure i'll hear about the oil pan lol. Hopefully the rest checks out more or less fine.

 

Damn,
Gorgeous Bronco! I regret selling my 1997 every damn day..
GL with build, looking forward to more updates

 

Thanks man!! This is my third Bronco. The first was a rust bucket. The second was full long travel, but pieced together with someone else's leftovers, and just never worked that well. Hopefully 3rd time is the charm...

Yours had some awesome 90's flair too lol, love the shit OE's came up with. Wild neon colors and radical graphics.

Are you sure it was a 97? 96 was the last model year.

 

Yeah my mistake, actually looking through some old photos. I think it might've been a 1994. It was a hand-me-down from my brother. Guess i'll have to make a call to confirm the year

 

Sweet build so far! I'm definitely a fan of a clean Bronco build - sub'd

 

Thanks man!

 

5 day trip through 4 Corners, Monument Valley, Horseshoe Bend, Pink Coral Sand Dunes, and Zion. Broke a rear shock, no idea how really, and found out my auto hubs chose a bad time to fail.






Spent over an hour with the pressure washer, ran it through a tank and a half of fuel, lol.

 

Small project yesterday, while i work up the motivation to tear the interior back apart...

The factory underhood light leaves a lot to be desired, and i had a Baja Designs dome light sitting around from my Tacoma that i sold. Thought it would be a perfect replacement. Since the factory wiring is constant hot, the dome light having a built in switch works out perfectly.

Funny that nubreed posted his version with a KC light recently as well, but he ran his wiring much more nicely than i did lol.

Factory pigtail removed.


Cut off the factory plug and spliced it into my BD Dome light pigtail.


New light and harness, w/factory connection


Mounted using the included BD hardware, and a pair of nutserts. Used one of the factory holes, drilled the second one. Easy install.

 

I recently saw a Bronco this body style that somehow had been made into a 4 door. It was awesome!

 

They are called, Centurion's
I'd love to have one retro-fitted with a diesel engine.

 

They were "factory" vehicles, kinda like Roush mustangs, Shelby's etc. They would take a crew cab F250/350 body and splice it to a Bronco back half with some interior upgrades. Fairly rare, came in C250 and C350 trims. I believe they had a 5.8 or 460 standard. I want to say you could get the 7.3 Powerstroke in them too, but i don't know a ton about them.

 

I'd never seen one until this one, thanks for the info!

 

Very cool build!!

 

Its the same thing over here in Jersey. All rusted to hell. Except for the expensive ones ones

 

This build is fucking awesome

 

Thanks man!!

I think the 80-86 trucks look the best, but they were carbureted until 85? and some years had a 9" rear end with a C6. 92-96 are obviously the newest, with the 5.0 having OBD2 and MAF starting sometime in 95, and the 5.8 trucks got a MAF in late 95, and all 96's are OBD2. The OBD2 EFI is the easiest to tune and modify.

Thanks man! Trying lol

 

I had an 87 Eddie Bauer. I think that was the first year of the Bricknose and the body style didn't change until 92.

 

You're right on the 87, but 92 was the first year of the "aero-nose", so 91 technically ended the Brick.

 

haha, there's hundreds of those out there. It has to be the only downside to owning a Bronco. People approach you at gas stations all the time. And it's always either to say its awesome and they used to own one, or had a buddy with one that they loved.... or to make an OJ joke.