Minor success yesterday, I’ve been searching for a solution to re-mount my awning on BSD since I put the camper on. The problem was I couldn’t just reuse the mounting brackets from the hardtop roof rack since I have buckles that hold the pop-up portion of the camper down. I almost made my own complicated parallel hinge style that would’ve worked, but then I spotted a much simpler solution, a liftoff mounting bracket from Ironman 4x4.





Happy to have the awning out of storage, I also picked up a spare set of truck side pieces so I can move the awning to the trailer and leave it stationary when camping as I have a room that zips into it for poor weather or additional sleeping space.

Nice! Like lift-off door hinges! What holds them on when you want them to stay on? I couldn't find the product on their site.

Ahh, so there is a matching hole in both parts. Easy enough!

Started getting the King Ranch bucket seats mounted today, the width is close to the original seats, it’s a little tight but they’ll fit. I removed the F-150 powered mounting and modified some manual mustang mountings to get them close to the floor. I’m able to keep the seat heaters, that’ll be nice! I kept the leather top off of the F-150 center console and I’ll recover the padded section of the Bronco console.

Heated seats are nice in a drafty bronco. I enjoy mine.

You should wrap your steering wheel as well :)

It does look great and heated seats would be nice...

Very nice looking seats and heated is a plus on cold days.

Those look great!

Looks super comfy!!

Kirk - I recall you being a fairly tall guy. I am surprised these aren't too tall to be able to see out the windshield.

I always wanted to do that mod

They look great !

Started on the camper seating today, I’ll need to sort out a skirt of some kind to conceal the mounting. The swivel mounts are from a Ford van RV conversion (driver & passenger front seats) that I sourced from a JY. It was a PITA to mod the original folding F150 mount to work on the pedestal mounts. The seats will replace a fold over bench/bed setup that was never really used since it was too small for my boys.

1st pic is the old setup, sans cushions, 2nd pic is the rear King Ranch bucket on the repurposed swivel mount. I’ll get the 2nd rear bucket mounted up before I decide on a place to bolt it to the floor.

Nice. This gives me some ideas I still have the two rear seats out of my king ranch and the console

Did you think about cutting the corners and fabbing some mounting plates below the top of the swivel base? i know you already fought the battle to get them mounted but those pedestal mounts are on the high side and then adding another 6" for your seat bases might be a little uncomfortable, even for you tall folk :)

Or you could add a foot post like a barber's chair!

A little winch control upgrade installed today, it’s a Lodar wireless controller. I picked it up 2nd hand from a member over on Expedition Portal that was putting it (and a new winch) on a customer’s rig, but the customer decided on a different direction.

I really haven’t used the winch to self recover much, but I do use it a bunch on the park as a tool. It’ll be nice to be more than 10ft from the front of the Bronco when I have to guide a load with 100ft of cable strung out. The controller is suppose to have range of 200ft and it’s coded so no interference, and therefore hopefully safer. It’s wired in parallel with the wired controller so I can use either at any time.

I also ordered some other substantial upgrades, a faster & stronger motor and a new contactor to replace the 4 solenoids that the old winches used. The 8274 has always punched above it’s weight, it’ll just be little faster and modernized now.

That'll be really nice. The wireless feature is one thing I love about my winch as well. Just that mine is not as cool as an 8274!?!?

You'll love those 8274 upgrades. I didn't notice no load line speed and faster but can tell that 6.5hp under load. The contactor wouldn't fit in the relay box without hacking it up and I didn't wanna do that. My next upgrade is either in cab controls or wireless.

Did you check the gear? The new motor is splined and the old is keyway. You may need the new pinion gear.(I did. mine is a 1978 build)

Finally knocking out some long needed upgrades. Ever since I started running the camper I just used a fold up step stool to access the camper, or maybe even a log while hunting. The specific camper stuff is quite expensive and I wasn’t willing to pay $200+ for fold up steps.

I happened to do a generic search on CL for “camper” and these popped up in an unrelated listing. Perfect for my use, pre-scratched & bent, just like BSD!

The mounting bracket fits nicely at the bottom of my bumper, I’ll add one more step at the top of the bumper that’ll match the 8” height between steps. When folded up they snug up to the spare nice and tight & don’t interfere with my hitch. If I need to drop off a steep ledge I’ll have to remember to remove them. No more tumbling out of the camper in the middle of the night to get rid of my beer, ha!

Score!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Those are cool!!

Ever wonder what a 4BT does to a ZF-5? Oh, it had a few miles on it as well, over 350,000! The trans guy said it actually was not that bad, but the 2 pulses from the 4BT tend to eat parts. All new bearings & seals, syncros, shift forks & a couple of gears.

That's interesting! I read an article several years ago about fewer cylinders are harder on tranny's. Especially with the power behind the diesels.

So the ZF5 in my uncle's truck might be unhappy? The 522 stroker put down 420 HP and 540 lb. ft. of torque to the wheels BEFORE the supercharger..... Maybe the v8 part will save it.