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1984 Bronco Family Rig

3K views 22 replies 10 participants last post by  rocknbronco 
#1 · (Edited)
I'll post this here because this is no hard core rig. This is for Green trail rides, camping and getting the boat to the lake. This truck belongs to my in-laws and I am helping them put it together. We should have bought a 2wd, casuse its easy to get carried away. The specs are 351W 30 over with a mild cam out of my retired '86 dumptruck, shortie headers and duals. Davis HEI distributor, C6, 208? (I'll have to look agian), 9" rear and 44TTB Front, 6" suspension and 2" body lift with 38" SSR tires.

To motivate a tire that tall and still pull the boat, we are in the process of installing some new gears and traction aids. We are installing a Detroit rear and trutrac front with 5.13's. The UPS man showed up on Friday with a load of goodies and so far we only have it apart:



I'll be working on it tonight and will post some more pics as we get the gears done!
 

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#3 · (Edited)
Do yourself a favor, get the "extreme" drop pitman arm Skyjacker sells for that thing (pt# FA600). Your steering (and your tires) will thank you.

(an arm like that should be included standard with ANY TTB lift over 4", but it's not for some reason :rolleyes: )
 
#6 · (Edited)
We do have a few solid HP dana 44 radius arms axles around (in friends back yards). We were hoping for a better ride out of the TTB, but if its a problem we will go with the cage extended arms and install a Solid axle. We are going to save the rest of the install kit for the front end in case of a swap. The part numbers for the the trutrac and gears are all the same. I did find out something intersting about the front trutrac. There is no accomodation in the trutrac for the TTB c-clip, so I called the tech department and they recommended puting a spring into the axle shaft slip joint. Hope a joint never give out on us, or will be leaking all the way home.
 
#7 ·
Take it from me TTB sucks got one have had a total of three and now I am working on removing the spindel from a customers 92 in 92 thru 96 the handeling got better but in the 80's and 90's it really was quite terrible they only use thay have is for desert racing this customer also has a 91 with 6 inch lift and 35's 302's stock gears no traction aids casue he blew trac loc in Tellico after nearly rolling it I'm waiting for the AOD to blow next.I'm gonna go solid axle myself in the future not to near as I had to close my shop and lost the lift and all:mad3: due to partner walking out on me.:flipoff2:
 
#8 · (Edited)
I dunno...
TTB has always worked fine for me...



Seems like most of those having so many problems with it have been brainwashed by all the horseshit that's out there, they don't ever bother to take any time to figure out WHY it is they're having such problems (hint: its probably all fawked up by that liftkit you put on it that screwed the steering all to shit) :flipoff2:


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Yes, the spring-in-the-slipyoke is a common mod for using such lockers.
Sometimes the spring tends to bust through the cap in the yoke though (on many setups, there just isn't enough room inside there to accommodate it).
I prefer to use a spring around the OUTSIDE of the spline. This lets the axle slide all the way in if needed (such as when both tires are at full droop together).



I do have to add however, 38" is a lot of tire for that axle. Not because its TTB, but rather because its a D44. Drive gently and it should hold up OK though.
Stick some Spicer 5-760X u-joints in the shafts and use full-circle clips on it (or tack-weld the caps in, whichever you prefer). Those 2 things together can make a huge difference in keeping the shafts together.
 
#10 ·
Like I said before, this is for green trails and camping. Things always get carried away, this was going to be a lift kit with some 35's and a paint job. Then the motor blew and then I put 38's on the Ramcharger and my father in law couldn't stand the idea of having smaller tires. Originally we weren't going to put a locker in the front either, but we would have still needed a different carrier and besides it just doesn't feel right changing gears without adding some traction:shaking: Our install got postponed due to the disease ridden vermen children of mine (11 months and 3years) They are getting better now and we will be back at it on Saturday. Thanks for the help.:)
 
#11 ·
Made some preogress this weekend on the gears. I am not intending this to be an instructional thread, but here are some pics...

Our tools:


Marking the main caps with a prick punch:


Empty Chunk:


Pull side Bearings and hone out for setup:



Pull pinion bearing to get the slinger:


Press in the new pinion races and shims:


Check pinion depth and adjust if needed (we reset it a few times to get it right):


Check backlash with setup bearings (we used the original shim thicknesses the first time, and made 1 adjustment):


Once backlash is right, install new bearings and run pattern:


Now its ready to put back into the truck!!! Next weekend we will do the 9 and put everything back together.
 
#14 ·
I predict lots of carnage in that front end!
A locker + 38s is a bit much for the TTB. If he really is gonna go light on it it may be ok. One thing i recommend you do right now, is go to the junkyard and find a F250 with the D50 TTB, and steal the middle ujoint & both connecting stubshafts, and replace the teeny stock one in the bronco with that. It will fit in there with no mods, and its a bigger ujoint (1350 as opposed to i believe a 1310). That should keep him from splattering the center ujoint the first time he steps on the throttle in 4wd. For long term offroad use, or a lot of highway mileage, you may want to swap in a solid D44, itll handle the abuse from those tires alot better, and it will definitely hold an alignment better. You havent said what brand liftkit your using....some kit have better designed axle pivot brackets...i know Superlifts' are pretty lame and they moved around on me wreaking havoc on my front-end alignment, and i had to tack weld them both to the xmember to keep em in one place. Just something to consider when youre putting it together.
 
#15 ·
Well we got the rear 9" set up and put back together this weekend. Also, we have pulled a solid dana 44 for the front and will work on getting it in over the next few weeekends.






New shop toy:
 
#16 ·
We have decided to take everyone's advice and go with the solid front end. We will be adding some additional plating to the crossmember to keep it from wanting to roll back and will plate the bottom to close off the channel and will plate the side of the radius arms to keep them from bending.

Here are some progress pics.







 
#20 ·
Made some more progress on the swap this weekend.

Here are the fully boxed and braced radius arms. After putting all the time into these things that we have into them, we would have been better off just paying the $700 for some cage arms and getting some better flex, but here they are in place under the Bronco:



We made the spring buckets too. These were made to use the '84 coils on the '79 housing. Again had we known then what we know now it would have been much quicker to buy some new '79 coils. We have decided that we will fully weld the buckets the the c of the arm side with some gussets for strength. From what we could tell the '79 bucket centers were about 2" different from the '84 and when we drove it around with the TTB in it we had some trouble with the tires rubbing on the rear of the fenders shen turning so we moved if forward 1" also.







The TTB spring perches are a different heights, so I made a spacer for one:









This is about as far as we got so far, the next step will be to re-pic the truck on the lift so we can get it all bolted up and sitting at ride height. Once it is sitting back on the springs again we will bevel the TTB perches so they sit level with with bottom of the springs and get the steering in and the trac bar made.

 
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