If you work in a magazine like we do nearly every day of our life, it's always great to hear from readers. The good, the bad
and the ugly, as long as there's
noise, there's interest.
Much of the noise as of late has come from the direction of our ongoing Retro Bronco project, which is surprising considering
that we've gotten calls and emails from
all around the country. Apparently, the idea of freshening up a tired workhorse of a prerunner, especially a 4x4 version like
this one, holds interest to many of you in the Dirt Nation. Plus, there's always the
curiosity factor of what the final unveiling is going to look like. It's kind of like the final moments of a makeover reality
show like The Swan. Are the liposuctions, face lifts, dental veneers and
breast reconfigurations (both women and men) going to magically transform a less than average 4 into a heart-stopping 10?
In this case, we think so. But at times, progress has been slower than ticket sales to a New Kids on the Block reunion concert.
Originally, we thought that things could be
wrapped up by this June's Tecate SCORE Baja 500. Wishful thinking, especially considering how much trimming, cutting and reconstructive
work our old girl was getting. You know, a little trim here, a little
off-the top there...Happily, things are now moving along and we can start to remove some of the bandages to show you more
of the process.
We still have a long way to go until the official reveal, but we've now finished much of the work on updating the suspension
by hanging the trick new Currie C-Mac
rear end assembly, adding mounts for new King coilover shocks, and gaining additional track width and travel, thanks to custom
front I-beams that come courtesy of Camburg Engineering.
Next month, watch as we build an ultra-cool Ford 392 stroker motor with trick heads and a state-of-the-art injection system
with our good friends at Edelbrock. Now,
we'll have power to match the beauty. Stay tuned.
1
We began our quest for better suspension for our Bronco where much of the upgrades to technology have occurred–in the area
of shock absorbers. When it came to
replacing the hodge-podge assortment of different colored shocks that came with the car, we contacted King Shocks head honcho
Brett King for some much needed advice. King Shocks specializes in
manufacturing custom, high-end dampers. After consultation, Brett agreed with our assessment that we could replace the dual
shocks in each of the four corners with a larger diameter coilover unit. He suggested
running a 16-inch stroke remote reservoir unit that's 3-inch in diameter in the rear, with 14-inch versions up front. A more
aggressive (and costly) approach would have been to install another bypass shock per
corner, but the additional performance and weight would have been wasted on an all-around utility set-up like this Bronco
that's used for reliable, lower speed prerunning and as the ultimate heavy-duty chase
truck.
2
Unlike most other shock companies, King does not have "mock-up" shocks merely for fabrication purposes. Brett acknowledges
that many of his clients are
experienced fabricators who already know what they're looking for and what is needed to fit their shock mounts. In other instances,
like this one, the company will send out a customer's shocks
without the oil, nitrogen, reservoir or hoses to help with the fabrication. This also provides an opportunity to see what
type of fitting and the length hose needed to route the reservoir line from the shock (see arrow) to
the reservoir itself.
3
With the King shocks in hand, we could fabricate the upper rear shock mounts. This location, mounted high in the rear fender
wells, was an ideal spot due to the
triangulation of the two down bars (in white) that already existed in the roll cage. Our fabricator, Tim Carroll then used
a section of 1 3/4-inch chromoly tubing and 3/16-inch flat plate to build these simple, but strong
and highly effective shock mounts. Note that the new bars tie in at the triangulation point of the older bars, the strongest
scenario possible. We made sure there was enough room for the springs by grinding out the
extra sheet metal, then re-welding all the body seems.
4
The bottom shock mount on the Currie C-Mac rear end is a case study in making things simple but strong. Even on a heavy-duty
application like this one, two flat plate
chromoly mounting plates, properly welded on both sides of the mount, plus two small gussets, are all that's needed to properly
secure shocks to a strong mounting surface like this one. Of course, having a
talented welder helps too!
5
The integration of our C-Mac rear end assembly into our Bronco is nearing completion. Tim has not only made the shock mounts,
but added the lower four-link mounts (1),
limit strap mounts (2), lower bump stops (3), and brake line mounts (4). One of the coolest pieces he fabricated (inset) is
the dual mount for the upper four-link bars. Once again, use of strong materials and solid
fabrication technique is evident. All that's left to do is return the rear end to Currie for final welding of floater snouts,
adding caliper brackets, a rear truss and then straightening the entire assembly in a jig to
compensate for all that welding.
MOVING FORWARD
Next, we turned our attention to the front end of the Bronco. Now, it's safe to say that we considered doing a conversion
to two-wheel drive by removing the transfer
case, axles, etc. While that would have saved on weight and complexity, we realized that the old girl originally came with
4-wheel drive and that the whole point of this exercise was to update what we purchased
before last year's Baja 1000. We then turned to Jerry Zaiden, owner of Camburg Engineering for help. The company had a complete
retrofitting of the stock Ford I-beams that worked in conjunction with
custom Camburg radius arms to create one stout package.
The best part of the conversion is we can add front track width to make the Bronco more stable, add additional wheel travel
and match the slightly wider track width of the
new C-Mac rear end. Although we could have gone wilder with a four-inch wider set-up, we settled on two-inches wider per side.
This closely matches the 3-inch wider track of the rear, and will still allow our 17-inch
tire/wheel combination to stay under the fiberglass fenders.
7
We began the process of building our new front end by finding, stripping and delivering a good used set of Ford I-beams to
Zaiden and his crew. Camburg then sends them out for magnafluxing and
crack checking. If they pass muster, they're shot-peened for stress relieving and cleaning. Upon return, Camburg techs begin
by cutting the end of the I-beams off with a grinder.
8
The Camburg guys then use specially fabricated, C-shaped channels that interlock and are shaped to match the OEM contours
to extend the I-beam width. These are welded, beveled and ground to a
clean finish. The photo shows one weld completed (see arrow) while the other side of the channel awaits final welding and
finishing.
9
One of the really important touches that adds strength to the Camburg set-up is the fact that they grind down all of the
OEM welds completely and then take the time to
reweld all of the seems in their entirety. This close-up shows Camburg's grinding talents before they add a clean new bead
to this joint.
10
Naturally, this new front set-up requires strong new radius arms and Camburg made a matching set to fit our Bronco perfectly.
We began by cycling the travel and marking
the location for the pivot bracket. We then ground the old paint off our frame and welded the new brackets, made of 3/16-inch
plate, in place. While we could have bolted the mounts to the frame, but the welder was
out at this point and our fabricator on a roll, so why not weld it in place? The nicely made radius arms were fabbed out of
1 3/4-inch DOM .120 wall tubing and featured 1 1/4-inch FK rod ends. The kit also includes
the strength of F911 hardware.
11
Here is our bitchen' new Camburg front set-up attached to the Bronco. At this stage, it's easy to see how each of these kits
take up to five days to fabricate,
with four days alone swallowed up by the I-Beams. Just look at all the handmade craftsmanship in the welding. Also take note
of the newly installed truss and the reformed center housing that's much wider
and stronger along the bottom. These are truly works of off-road art.
12
All that's left is making top and bottom mounts for our trick 14-inch King coilovers, and move on to the drivetrain and powerplant.
Yep, there's still
considerable work to do, but the guys in the shop are anxious to get to the part where we see more beauty than beast.
A lifelong enthusiast of off-road motorsports, Marty Fiolka raced his first SCORE Baja 1000 in 1992. A graduate of the California University at Long Beach, he formed the Rennsport Marketing Group in 1995 and executed public relations programs for Nissan, Infiniti, Exxon, Mitsubishi, and SCORE International. Now an eight-time Baja 1000 competitor and desert racing veteran, Fiolka is the associate producer of Dana Brown's Baja documentary, Dust to Glory, the author of the recently released coffee-table Baja 1000 history book 1000 Miles to Glory and the editorial director for Advanstar Communications.
Articles by Marty Fiolka
Untitled Document
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