First up we have the '66 Roadster. I purchased this truck in 1999 for a cool 1500.00. Boy, did I ever think I was getting a sweet deal. I'd just come out of a '97 F150 XLT Lariat and I wanted something old and cool. I'd seen, or rather noticed, my first EB just a year prior while stationed in Alaska. I didn't know a damn thing about them except that I wanted one. So, with cash in hand I took this baby out of some poor sucker's garage (actually, driveway) and putted my way home with a bungee cord holding the door shut, rain soaking my pants legs, and a smile on my face. Because I lived in the barracks, and on the third floor, moving tools and parts to and from the parking lot (read: my single soldier garage) was quite the chore. I wound up storing most of my parts in the truck and packed a backpack with what I thought I would need for the day as far as tools went. I learned fast and hard that these things need a garage.
At the time I had a slow leak in one of the rear tires. I would air it up often to keep it from going flat. Because our barracks and parking lot were located right next to the base museum, the military police patrolled the lot frequently to ensure there were no derelict vehicles presenting a ghetto appearance to the 5 people a day who frequented the museum. I knew this, so I was diligent about keeping that tire aired up less I be towed. Just prior to a lengthy field exercise (pre-9/11 the longest I was ever gone was about a month), I placed a small, well concealed (or so I thought) jack stand under the axle near the offending tire. I had hoped this would help to conceal my tire going flat while I was gone. WRONG. The MPs noticed the jack stand and had it towed just days after I had left for the field. On returning, I found my beloved treasure gone and without a shred of paperwork to know where it was. After making a few phone calls, I was able to ascertain the location of my truck and the required steps to get it back. I only had one problem: no proof of ownership. Just after buying the truck, I realized exactly how much work would be required to get it to pass even the most basic of safety inspections. So, I obtained temporary tags for it so I could drive it to and from the various shops I planned to have work done at. I had driven a friend's truck to the DMV and stupid me I left the title in his truck. A few days later he cleaned out his truck and mistakenly chucked my title with the rest of the paper trash he found.
So here I am. No truck. No paperwork to back up my claim to ownership. I'm heartbroken. I pretty much wrote the truck off at this point. I mean, I had no way to prove that it was mine, so how could I get it back? Fast forward about two years. I've just changed jobs in the military and just gotten married. While moving my stuff in to our new apartment, I find a box of stuff I haven't seen in forever. As I sift through the box, I find my application for temporary tags I'd submitted years before. Also, I find my old proof of insurance cards. I think "what the hell. Couldn't hurt to try" and set out. I stop by the Provost Marshal's office and explain in excruciating detail to the young soldier sitting behind the desk my situation. He patiently hears me out. (Didn't really have much of a choice when I outranked him.) He talks to his sergeant, who happens to be an old Ford guy himself. The guy walks up to the window, looks at me and says "that's your Bronco? I've been eyeballing that thing for a year. Too bad you showed up. I was gonna try and get it!" The sergeant gives the desk guy the
and I'm told where I can go to collect my truck.I showed up at the towing yard and found my Bronco pretty much the way I'd left it...minus my Uniden CB and antenna (small price to pay, I suppose). I'd arranged to have a rollback meet me at the yard and we picked up my Bronco and took it to the apartment. Needless to say my new wife was aghast at what I had just drug home. All she could say was "THAT'S what you've been talking about for so long?"
I managed to piddle with it a bit over the next few months and get it back on the road, getting pretty much back to the point where it was when I bought it. We rented a house later and I got to step up from a parking lot to a back yard (garages, not so big in NC). In the backyard I made quite a few repairs and get it to the point where not only was I confident in driving it, but I would let my wife ride with me. It came time to title and register the truck, so I had the NC State Patrol come out and do my VIN inspection. The trooper looked skeptical as I pointed to the cheap looking warranty tag on the driver's side kick panel and confidently announced "there's my VIN plate". When he raised his eyebrow and looked as if he was going to balk, I then stated "I can show you the matching VIN on the frame rail if you like, but I don't think you'd really want to crawl under the truck with me." Poof. Paperwork signed.
Repairs continued for a few more months until I convinced my wife to let me purchase a mig welder. With welder and an over inflated sense of confidence in hand, I began to tear my Bronco down to the frame. "How long could this possibly take?" I thought. If only I'd known then what I know now. Month went by with little to no progress. Work was picking up and I found myself working 30 days at a time, sometimes for 12 hours, and commuting 35 miles one way to boot. I'd purchased a beater truck at this point (1984 F150 4x4 with 5.0HO) and most of my disposable income was going towards repairs and fuel for that money pit.
Soon, it was time for us to move to Colorado and a tough decision had to be made. Leave the Bronco (scrap it) or take it with us. Common sense was nowhere near NC the day that decision was made and the Bronco was packed up inside a 26' Uhaul truck, in pieces, for the drive to Colorado. Along the way, we stopped in Missouri where my parents live. We'd planned to take 30 days of vacation on the move so I thought I might have some time to work on it. During that time I managed to strip the frame almost completely down, rebuild the leafs with an add-a-leaf lift, install 3.5" coils I'd picked up used, and conduct some shoddy patch work to the floor boards. Because I was spending so much time working on the Bronco, my marriage was starting to be strained, so I cut the Bronco time short. Because of this, when it came time to pack up again to go to Colorado, I was pretty much moving a rolling frame and tub. I could have kept my motor and tranny at my dad's place and gone back to pick it up later, but I didn't want to clutter up his place with my crap so I let it go to scrap. Three speeds are a dime a dozen and the motor was from a 70 Maverick 2 POs before me had installed. No real loss there.
Once we arrived in Colorado, worked picked up something fierce. In the first three years I lived here, I was only home for maybe 6 months, 9 max. The Bronco sat in my garage the entire time, moving to our newly purchased home and doing the same thing. A few years ago I approached my wife with the
of selling it in favor of buying a Bronco in better shape. She was, of course, agreeable to this plan. Then I changed course. Now I wanted to rent a small shop, move all my tools, parts, and Bronco there and spend a few months working like a maniac to get it back on the road. God love her, she told me I could do that if I wanted, so long as there was a concrete deadline for completion. Eventually, I conceded that I would NEVER have the time to put in to the '66 what would be needed to get it to the level of where I wanted it, resto-mod, rock crawler, or straight up roadster restoration. Also, almost two years of storage fees at the local public storage were crushing my motivation. I finally told my wife earlier this year the '66 was going away. She took it with a grain of salt. She's heard that from me before. It's still sitting in storage today but I plan to put it up from sale by the end of the month. I'm going to miss it and I really do hope it goes to someone who has good intentions, rather than just chopping it up for parts/VIN.
Here are a few pics:
In North Carolina. Same picture I submitted to and was featured in Bronco Driver's "Ugly Bronco" section.
What I was up against. The east coast is not nice to vehicles. This is what I found under FOUR layers of floorboard patchwork.
What it looks like today. It's in storage now, but the condition hasn't changed since this pic was taken.
Next is the '69 wagon. A few months ago, when I told my wife the '66 was going away, I started looking for a new Bronco. I did quite a bit of browsing and watched a lot of trucks go by while I bit my tongue. I know well enough now that there will ALWAYS be a better Bronco that comes up for sale eventually. Back in July I spotted an ad for a '69 for sale in Englewood. It seemed in reasonably good shape, had a rebuilt V8 (something which I did not have in the '66) and was within what I considered my budget. I made the drive up and looked at the truck. Things were in disrepair, but not far gone. And it was in better shape than the '66 when I bought it. The owner told me he had owned the truck for 15 years. His friend in high school owned it before him and they drove around in it all the time in school. After they graduated, he purchased the truck from his friend and drove it often. A few years ago, with the front pinion bearing going out and the clutch shot, he parked it. A few weeks later while on a ski trip, he lost the keys. While none of these really seemed like too large of problems, the economic crash made the Bronco a second priority for the PO. Time went by and things just were not improving for the guy. Eventually, he came to the realization that the Bronco had to go. I had a good look at the truck and felt it was a solid upgrade from what I was currently dealing with. Realizing the situation the guy was in, and the potential value of the truck once the repairs were made, I paid him asking value and picked it up the next day.
Knowing a bit more about Broncos at this time, and heeding some very good advise from the folks over on ClassicBroncos.com, I took my time and didn't rush getting this one on the road. All the fluids came out and were inspected while I swapped them. It took me a full three days of tinkering before I even attempted turning the motor over for the first time (lucky for me I have several nice lock pick sets and an extra ignition switch laying around). The clutch was a different matter altogether. PO told me the motor was rebuilt, but didn't mention a new block was used. My instinct was to pick up a clutch for a '69 Ford 302. As it turns out, the block was an '88 casting. Two different weights on the balancers. Bolt holes don't line up. Different size bolts for the clutches. Now I need a '69 throwout bearing for the '88 block and clutch. ARGGH!!!! What should have been a simple one night clutch swap turned in to three nights. I had once again violated my rule of never starting a project I can't finish in one day/night.
But I overcame the frustration and got the job done (I now HATE the
of trying to line up a 3 speed and Dana 20 during reinstall). I put it back on the road and have been piddling with it since. Work trips have cut in to my wrenching time, but I still get an afternoon/evening every now and again.And now some pics of the '69:
On the way home from PO's house. The Tacoma pulled it surprisingly well. And with good gas mileage! Of course, I was only doing a max of 50 MPH.
In the garage getting some TLC. I'm down to a one car at the moment. My tools and parts take up the other half, much to my wife's chagrin.
Sure does look pretty...at night. Had to run out for my favorite after Bronco food, Chipotle.
And now, finally, the '72 Sport. A few weeks ago, I was
g the crack pipe again (reading craigslist Bronco ads) when I stumbled upon a very nice looking '72. "What the hell. Doesn't hurt to look, right?" Yeaaaaah. I emailed the seller. Got some basic info on the truck. Bad rust spots were described as "inner fender, brushguard, and kick panel". Truck hasn't run in 4 years since the seller took it in to have a fuel leak repaired. Has some of the thing I was thinking of doing to the '69: Dana 44, power steering, 351W. I called the seller and set up a time to look at the truck. As I pull up in front of the house, I looked at him, he at me, and we both smiled. We work together. Four years he and I have worked in shops near each other and I never knew he was in to Broncos. I get out, we shoot the breeze a bit, and we get down to the truck. Everything he described was exactly as I found it. Minimal rust (his definition of bad rust obviously not being based on a previous history of owning east coast trucks), clean looking engine, sharp paint job, and some peculiar accessories I didn't expect. We talked things over and I told him I would need to confer with my wife, but I was very interested. I could tell by talking to him that his selling it was hesitant. He's moving overseas and can only ship one vehicle through the military. Anything else and he would have to pay for it. A new born baby at home and graduate degree work leave little time for a Bronco. He told me he'd looked in to shipping it off to a shop for a frame off while he was gone, but found that to be far too expensive an endeavor. He'd even entertained several offers on the truck already, but like me with my '66, was hesitant to take them for fear the new owners would chop/gut/bastardize what he loved so much. I spoke with my wife the next night and we came to a, tenuous, agreement that the Bronco could be purchased. However, I did propose (MY
, LOL) that the other two Broncos go away. With that settled, I called the seller up and let him know that we had a deal. I've been back over to the seller's house since, talking Broncos and snapping pics of my new-to-be Bronco. We talked over the accessories and a bit of history on the truck while I was there. Apparently he'd bought it from a guy out of Arizona some 10 years ago. All of the accessories were on the truck when the seller purchased it from the Arizona guy. I took a few pics of the accessories and set about investigating them. The PS gear box looked a bit odd, so I posted it on ClassicBroncos. A few of the responders told me it was a GM Saginaw box. "Dammit!", I thought. "Some hack did a GM install!"
On a whim, I sent Andrew Norton, of BajaBronco.com, an email and asked him about the box. He replied almost within the hour and confirmed for me what a very tiny part of my mind was thinking: the power steering install was most likely done at Bill Stroppe's shop. After looking at pics of Andrew's Stroppe restoration, I can tell you that the power steering gear box install looks almost EXACTLY like that which is on one of Andrew's Stroppe Bajas. In addition, the truck has dual shocks all the way around, bumper braces, and the Stroppe deluxe rollbar. We're still not sure, and don't know if we ever will be, if the 351W was also done by Stroppe. The casting numbers on the block are from 1971, just a year before my new Bronco was built/sold, so it is slightly possible.
All in all, I'd say I've got a truckload of investigating to do with this new Bronco. It should prove interesting, and exciting to say the least.
A few pics of the '72:
From the seller's craigslist ad. Or as I like to think of it "the bait that hooked me."
Another shot from the ad. Still looking pretty clean, albeit, in a garage.
The apparent handywork of Stroppe & Company. The original orange it was painted back in '72 when installed? I dunno.
Night shot in seller's garage. I'm still stoked about this one.
D1OE-6015-AA. 1971 Ford Fairlane/Torino family. Who knows if I'll ever find out whether Bill's guys slammed this puppy in there...
And that's it! My Bronco novel. Hope you enjoyed. I can't wait to get out there and roll with the guys from this club.
Awesome writeup and welcome to the club!
