June 2017
Greetings subscriber,
Some small updates from the past month.
Chiefly, a new space has been procured for working in. I’ve spent the past few days cleaning it up and getting it to be workable. The previous tenant owned a custom shower glass business, and somehow sandblasting was involved. Untold amounts of sand and dust have been swept and power washed from the place. It’s now ready for move in.
Began some work on the braking systems of the Bronco. Instead of paying 300 dollars for pre-bent hard lines, I bought a roll of 3/16 tubing and some brake fittings for 20 bucks total. I have a flaring tool and made some lines in my past with varying amounts of success, so that will be the plan.
Starting with the rear, we purchased new drums, shoes, and hardware.
The previous owner somehow did without the parking brake, so none of the mechanically important components are there. Which means having to source them for ebay or, my hope, a spare 8” rear end I have lying around.
The rear is a small bearing ford 9” with 10” drums and 2.5 inch wide shoes. There were many variants to come out of the factory. Differentiators are the axle flange pattern and dimension and the brake drum dimension.
The front will get a disc brake conversion, but again, instead of buying one from the internet for 800 dollars I’m going to try and find a donor vehicle in a junk yard. The kits sold online are the same parts found in junkyards just prettied up and overpriced.
Also took off the transfer case and began to look at rebuilding it. Rebuild kits for the Dana 20 are cheap. The internals look good, but it was considerably hard to shift. I am thinking a twin stick will fix that. That output shaft feels a little sluggish in hand, which makes me think new bearings aren't a bad idea. Need to get a thin walled 1 1/4" socket to get the yokes off.
This is what a bad end link looks like
Lastly, did some work on the honda. The front end was making a clunking noise from the left front wheel area. I was paranoid that I’d never trace it down, but after a quick google search of “clunking front end honda” many results came back indicating it was the sway bar end links, and that almost all models of honda develop the problem. The links are not expensive, $14 and are a 10 minute replacement.
While I did that, I also replaced the outer tie rod ends as the boots were cracked. I was careful not to move the adjusting nut as to not alter the alignment.
Finishing work on the TW200 will begin soon, and then on to the BW350.
For your viewing enjoyment, I’ve attached the 30 minute video story of the tw200 motor rebuild.
Til next month….