New Member: Most Expensive Brake Job Ever
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:17 amI am new to the forum but not new to Broncos. I purchased my first Bronco in the early 90's when I was in high school. It was a 1976 that I paid $1,600 for. I owned this vehicle for about 4 years and really didn't do anything to it other than upgrade the tires and put a rebuilt 302 in it with the help of my fathers check book. When I graduated high school and got a job I found the need for more reliable transportation after an axel failure on my way to work. I kicked myself for over 10 years for selling the truck.
In 2007 I decided it was time to buy another one. I found a decent 69 and purchased it.
The upgrades I did to this truck which were not on it when purchased were the 35" Pitbull tires, Roll cage, seats, bumpers, and winch. I took it rock crawling several times and it performed very well; however I always wanted to go through the entire truck and resto-mod it.
Now on to the brake job. I found that I had leaky rear drums and the truck was not braking very well. I was out playing golf with my best friend one Saturday morning in August of 2013. When we were done we decided to get some breakfast at Village Inn. During breakfast I asked him if he was up to helping me replace the drums on the rear axle. He said sure. By the time we made it to the house I had decided we would instead do a complete frame off restoration. By the end of the afternoon the truck looked like this.
The following week the body and frame went out to sandblasting.
When I received everything back I decided it was best to do the body work with it mounted to the frame to assure everything lined up in the end. As usual it had a ton of rust in the floor boards, rockers, and kick panels. So we set the frame on some saw horses and put the body back on and started cutting out the floor boards.
I guess I should have mentioned that neither myself or my friend had any mechanical or body experience outside of replacing a water pump or starter. We had no idea what we were getting into. Due to the extensive rust and the availability of new body panels I decided to just cut the front end of the truck off and start over. This was probably a mistake but I did not know what I did not know.
After several weekends we ended up getting all the new panels screwed into place and square so that everything would line up. New floor, new firewall, new fenders, new grill, etc. At this point I was not confident enough in my you tube learned welding skills to actually join the panels permanently so I contracted a body shop to complete the welds and paint the truck.
At this point I really need to talk about my theme. My wife and I are huge Denver Bronco fans. To the point that our dogs are named Miles & Thunder. I always wanted to build a Bronco in old school Denver Bronco colors so that is what I did. This is also the only way she would not throw me out when she found out how much money I was spending. We have separate accounts so she will never truly know that this build when complete will probably be in the 6 figure range.
After sending the body out I started taking apart axles, tranny, and the transfer case so that I could send them off to powder coating and than rebuild them with all new internals. When I got into the 9" rear I noticed it was small bearing so I ordered a new big bearing 9" case and disk brake conversion from Wild Horses. The front Dana 44 Detroit locker was replaced with an ARB and disk brakes as well.
Here is a picture of stuff coming back from powder coating.
Now to start putting things back together. So far I have completed putting the drivetrain and suspension in. I forgot to mention I tore the 351w down to the block. I than took it in to have machined and decided to just let the fine folks at Colorado Custom Cylinder Heads build the engine like new. The only used parts are the block and crank. I now have an approx. 440HP 351w bored 40 over with aluminum heads and fuel injection. I also changed my tire size from 35x14.5x17 to 35x12.5x17 for several reasons.
1. It is dam hard to find a nice looking rim that is over 10 inches wide and the 14.5 tire was bubbled in the middle creating a 6 inch running surface.
2. The tires would rub on the shocks and hit my fenders at full turn.
3. I am building this truck more as a show truck and wanted it to drive very well.
In 2007 I decided it was time to buy another one. I found a decent 69 and purchased it.
The upgrades I did to this truck which were not on it when purchased were the 35" Pitbull tires, Roll cage, seats, bumpers, and winch. I took it rock crawling several times and it performed very well; however I always wanted to go through the entire truck and resto-mod it.
Now on to the brake job. I found that I had leaky rear drums and the truck was not braking very well. I was out playing golf with my best friend one Saturday morning in August of 2013. When we were done we decided to get some breakfast at Village Inn. During breakfast I asked him if he was up to helping me replace the drums on the rear axle. He said sure. By the time we made it to the house I had decided we would instead do a complete frame off restoration. By the end of the afternoon the truck looked like this.
The following week the body and frame went out to sandblasting.
When I received everything back I decided it was best to do the body work with it mounted to the frame to assure everything lined up in the end. As usual it had a ton of rust in the floor boards, rockers, and kick panels. So we set the frame on some saw horses and put the body back on and started cutting out the floor boards.
I guess I should have mentioned that neither myself or my friend had any mechanical or body experience outside of replacing a water pump or starter. We had no idea what we were getting into. Due to the extensive rust and the availability of new body panels I decided to just cut the front end of the truck off and start over. This was probably a mistake but I did not know what I did not know.
After several weekends we ended up getting all the new panels screwed into place and square so that everything would line up. New floor, new firewall, new fenders, new grill, etc. At this point I was not confident enough in my you tube learned welding skills to actually join the panels permanently so I contracted a body shop to complete the welds and paint the truck.
At this point I really need to talk about my theme. My wife and I are huge Denver Bronco fans. To the point that our dogs are named Miles & Thunder. I always wanted to build a Bronco in old school Denver Bronco colors so that is what I did. This is also the only way she would not throw me out when she found out how much money I was spending. We have separate accounts so she will never truly know that this build when complete will probably be in the 6 figure range.
After sending the body out I started taking apart axles, tranny, and the transfer case so that I could send them off to powder coating and than rebuild them with all new internals. When I got into the 9" rear I noticed it was small bearing so I ordered a new big bearing 9" case and disk brake conversion from Wild Horses. The front Dana 44 Detroit locker was replaced with an ARB and disk brakes as well.
Here is a picture of stuff coming back from powder coating.
Now to start putting things back together. So far I have completed putting the drivetrain and suspension in. I forgot to mention I tore the 351w down to the block. I than took it in to have machined and decided to just let the fine folks at Colorado Custom Cylinder Heads build the engine like new. The only used parts are the block and crank. I now have an approx. 440HP 351w bored 40 over with aluminum heads and fuel injection. I also changed my tire size from 35x14.5x17 to 35x12.5x17 for several reasons.
1. It is dam hard to find a nice looking rim that is over 10 inches wide and the 14.5 tire was bubbled in the middle creating a 6 inch running surface.
2. The tires would rub on the shocks and hit my fenders at full turn.
3. I am building this truck more as a show truck and wanted it to drive very well.
