1990 Bronco II Driveway Restoration, video series.

[Jeff_Birt]

1990 Bronco II Driveway Restoration #0: Taking Stock, making a list and planning the work.

I found a nice 1990 Ford Bronco II for sale from the original owner. It had a lot of miles on it but was very well-maintained. It has 313,000 miles on the clock but starts right up, drives fine and everything works. It does have rust in many of the classic places Bronco II’s rust and it needs a bit of TLC. I plan to restore this classic SUV in my driveway just to see how much can be done by the average joe without a big fancy garage.

In this first episode we are looking at the Bronco II to point out the good and bad points. What needs fixed now, what can be put off for a later day. The original owner was very forthcoming in pointing out all the blemishes and rough spots he was aware of. We’ll make a list of what needs to be done and prioritize it by urgency, cost, and time. The goal is to be able to drive it as much as possible during the restoration process.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I'll be following along...

 

[Jeff_Birt]

"Now for the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say.

This trench is beside the driveway where the BII was when the above video was taken. I knew this had to be dug up before I bought the truck. The cost of this trench and the expected repairs would have covered the cost of painting and body work supplies. The rest of the story is that they also have to dig up 90 feet of the road between this trench and the manhole my sewer pipe is connected to. For some reason, 42 years ago, the city thought this made perfect sense. The cost of digging up and fixing 90' of the street is enough to buy a BII that is already restored. I was NOT expecting that. Yes, in Missouri and in my city the homeowner has to pay to dig up and fix the street all the way to the sewer 'main'.

The project will go on. I'll start with stopping the water leaks first as mentioned in the video and then do some smaller jobs that might not be as important but will be more budget friendly.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

I have been working on cleaning up the door latches as it was something 'simple and easy' to do while the great sewer line excavation was going on. Finally got the latches form both sides cleaned up today and went to start reassembly and hit a wall thanks to 'never fits' Dorman'. Several of the plastic clips that secure the various rods to the latch had seen better days. I ordered two '6-piece kits' from Dorman which said it fit my vehicle. After opening one of the kits this afternoon I realized it was just a bunch of random clips that kinda-sorta might fit many different vehicles. Only one of the 6 actually fits the BII.

So, more time spent scouring the interwebs for the correct part. Jeff's Bronco Graveyard has them at a good price and if I needed to order more stuff from them, I would add them to the order. Don't want to spend as much on shipping as the clips though. Finally found them on Amazon for $9 for 10 pieces after laughing at people on eBay trying to get $6~$10 each for them.

If never fails, that Dorman stuff never quite works.