89 B2 paint pics in Houston

[eversmile]

Here are some pics of this beast for my 16 year old daughter. I take no credit for this, it was painted at a local high school and these kids did way more than I expected. I really expected 1 patch job and prep and paint but these kids did an awesome job. My daughter wanted to keep the stock colors and looking back, I wish that i had removed the tire and put it on the roof rack to have better access to the back door. If you look closely, you can see the thing bleeding oil out of it. This has since been fixed by replacing the timing cover gasket. Details are on a seperate post. It sat for a long time in new mexico and i bought it and drove it to houston. It needs a lot of work. it's not a 4WD but is a 5 speed which was a criteria for my daughters first vehicle. She has to pony up some cash to be able to call it hers though. so far things have been going pretty well with this. Lots of fun...

 

[dirtcowboy]

Nice job! It's also good to see a high school that is actually teaching kids a marketable skill and not just baby sitting them.

 

[eversmile]

Thanks dirtcowboy. The guy that teaches the kids is a good old boy and I could tell really enjoys what he does. Meanwhile, project beast goes on. This week I had to replace a leaking freeze plug. something I've never done before. Also, I made my 16 year old daughter get her hands dirty by cleaning upholstery and carpet. The wife was worried about the height of the seats and gave the ok to replace them so the daughter and I took a trip to several junk yards in houston. Thankfully I readup on some of the forums here and found that all years of seats of tempo or topaz would work on a bronco ii. I found a 97 tempo with some descent blue seats for $75 bucks. I will work on that today.

 

[dirtcowboy]

When my kids were in HS I built them Mustangs. Being stationed in San Diego at the time I could pick up 79-85 coupes for around $300. I built turbo 2.3 engines for them, rebuilt the trannys and added 8.8 rear axles to them. I took them to the upholstery shops south of the border to do the interiors. I painted the cars in my shop. When they were done I had around 4 to 5K in them and they were basically brand new clapped out racecars. When my kids graduated I bought them new cars. My son got a 98 Escort ZX2 and my daughter chose a 2000 Focus ZX3. Those cars have long since been traded or sold,(I own the 00 Focus), but they still own and drive the Mustangs to this day. The fact they helped build their cars still resonates with them. My grandson, (3), has laid claim to his dads 'stang, I hope he gets to drive it.

 

[tidmarshsmiths5]

That is a great paint job and a nice looking Bronco II!

 

[Ranger Kip]

wow, thats impressive! good work!

 

[eversmile]

Thanks all. But, here's another update. I replaced a leaking freeze plug on one of the heads to resolve my coolant leak. And regarding the seats I got at a junk yard. They were in very good shape from a 97 tempo. Although they did bolt on directly, I realized that I couldn't fold the passenger seat far enough. Dang! It was a 4 door tempo! I ended up using the old seat base which had the bracket that allows the seat to fold forward and used the new seat back. I also realized that a spring had come off the track that allowed the seat to actually slide forward. I fixed the cable with a little zip tie and it now works really well. Now, when the passenger seat slides forward we got all kinds of room to get in and out of the passenger side. The drivers side was a direct seat swap because neither folded far enough forward. Next on my list is a tune-up. I got the stuff from RockAuto. I am hoping it helps the beast run just a little better...