www.ColoradoClassicBroncos.com

Sweet dude, I had a friend that used to plow with his EB, and my dad's been plowing with his 70's fords for as long as I can remember, looks like an old Meyer plow


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Are you plowing as we speak ?

Soon! Almost got it mounted up before the storm hit, but got a call to plow for ValleyCrest using their equipment.

That looks like the one I had on my bronco before I sold it about 7 years ago.

The moment I was dreading has happened, my clutch slave cylinder is kaput. So now I have to drop around 300 lbs of drivetrain to fix it. I did go check out Chris's big block setup so I know there is a possibility to move the setup outside the bell housing. It'll take some serious fab and machine work but I'm not scared, I'm just not sure it's worth it. Once I get it out I'll make my decision and report back.

Son of a...

Sorry to hear about that, but I am excited to see if you can convert to an external slave!!!

My other vehicle is a Volvo s60 R. My slave cylinder went out. I started looking into fixing it. I figured out very quickly that it was beyond my ability. $2500 and 3 months later it just started leaking again. I hate that it is inside the bell housing.

cpldavis37 wrote:$2500 and 3 months later it just started leaking again. I hate that it is inside the bell housing.

Two posts in a row I am apologizing! So sorry for that. $2500 is outrageous and it is not that hard to change out. It does take a lot of work, but can be done in a home garage with minimal tools. A tranny jack makes life easier. Don't take it back to that shop! Oh wait, are you talking about the Volvo, because that would make sense.

Yes the Volvo

I retract my statement! LOL!

I should be more specific when I say "drop" the drivetrain. I'll actually be singling it out if the way like we did to Bubba Smurf. I left the large opening in the top of the trans tunnel and also had plans to open it up bigger going towards the tailgate. Right now the opening is covered by a '78 Bronco tunnel cover and I picked up a couple of other truck tunnel covers to use in conjunction. The plan is to create a removable panel that goes from the firewall to the end of the 205 output so I have top access to this part of the drivetrain.

That could be really nice! And you could even rig up a way to hang your drivetrain from the top! You have a cherry picker, but I have used a come-along to my roll cage.

Why are you reading my mind..."ratchet strap to the roll cage for a trail side fix."

Great minds my friend, great minds!

You never really know how well you've done putting something together until you take it apart. Since I put the drivetrain in before I put the tub on I tried to account for future repair events, i.e. swapping out the slave cylinder. Luckily my accounting has added up so far; both cross members were easily removed, there was ample space between the firewall and the bell housing to remove the bolts, the exhaust was extremely simple to remove and the starter bolts were accessable. One item that I didn't foresee was the body cross brace that the rear mounts of the front seats bolt to, it had to be cut out to allow the sling to move towards the back of the truck so the trans/xfer cases could slide back. I'll recreate a bolt in piece to replace it once I get the parts back in. The floor board cut may look a bit extreme, but I always intended to make this a removable panel.

As for the SB bell housing being modded to accept the BB clutch slave setup I have good and bad news. There is a factory blank space in the casting for the clutch fork to go through, just need to cut the opening, that's the good news. The bad new is that there is no internal casting or material to mount the pivot "button" to. That part of the bell housing goes all the way back to where the transmission gears are. So for now I won't be swapping to the BB slave setup. There is a transmission rebuild in my future since I have the dreaded 3rd gear syncro failure starting, so when I tackle that I'll look at building the internal support required.

Final bit of good news, once the cutting was done on the sheet metal it only took me 2 hours to get the transmission on the floor. 8 bolts for cross members, 9 bell housing bolts (I have a couple more than the typical SB setup with the 4 bt adapter plate), 2 starter bolts (looks like those could have stayed in since it bolts to the adapter plate), 3 exhaust bolts, 2 bolts for the shifter, 8 bolts to sling the driveshafts out of the way, 1 plug for backup lights and 1 hydraulic line.

Well planned! You can't foresee it all unless you go thru these exercises!

Bad news both about the BB slave and the tranny rebuild. Mine was losing third (actually it might have been 4th) and then shortly thereafter, nearly lost reverse.

I wonder if Chris took detailed pics of his BB slave setup. I can do a little brainstorming. I am hoping mine doesn't have to come out for a long time, but if it does, I would really like to convert to external slave.

Are you rebuilding the tranny yourself? If not, I have a good contact in the 'springs who did a great job on mine.

Big thanks to Brian for swinging by the night before last to help guide the 300+ lb trans/xfer setup back in. It went really smooth with the sling setup after I adjusted the center of gravity. Thanks also go out to Jon who stopped by today and helped me fab up a new cover plate and body support. He also dropped off some goodies for the camper in the form of containers that will be stacked to make a new drawer system, Thanks! The donkey is out of the barn and back in the pasture.

Whoa those containers are sweet!

D&D72 wrote:Whoa those containers are sweet!

Yes they are! What was their original purpose?

Galley containers from the 787 Dreamliner. They come with the plane from Boeing but, they aren't the type we use so.....

Installed the Throttle and Choke cables in my dash today, I think I got the Throttle cable in the stock location and put the Choke cable with it since it'll be repurposed as a manual override if my fuel cutoff solenoid fails.

Next up is to install the second Heater control cable for my aux heater mounted in the camper.

Thanks again crawlercreations for the stock throttle cable & pedal bracket.



Here is a short video of the cable at work.

http://youtu.be/T9hzHYZQDdg

Looks factory , nice!


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Thanks Corey, it's placement is based off the info you gave me.

Looks good! That's where my factory throttle cable is.

I love the sound of your rig!! I think I have a throttle cable somewhere where you twist it to pull he cable and a red button in the middle to release it. After the Atlas I haven't found a need for it yet, but it's far from factory.

Finally mounted up the plow, I put it off since it meant rebuilding the tubes I used to reinforce my frame for the winch mount. I pulled the tubes, swapped them left for right so the winch will sit higher & added side plates to fill the gaps. Added internal nuts for the lower plow brackets to bolt to and bent up some flat stock that follows the internal contour by the PS bolt holes, that was fun.

All in all really happy the way it went together, I'll guess I lost an inch of lift at the front. I went for a test drive and the steering is a bit heavy, but no other side affects. Next up is to mod the frame extenders & buy some quick release pins so I can pull the plow lift pump, leave the plow brackets in place and remount the winch when needed.

Double identity! BSD or work horse??

Jesus_man wrote:Double identity! BSD or work horse??

Yes! And just one more step to building a vehicle that'll do everything I want it to.

Hey Kinder,
Great build! I wish I had 1/64 the talent, and gumption you have!
Do you have 2 '73 plates that you can actually run? or is the front just for show?
Thanks for the motivation!