Greetings, subscriber.

I was gone for a good portion of May, so a lot of work did not get done. However, over the course of 3-5 days I was able to make some headway on the Bronco.

TW200- Drove it around. Have the LED flasher and blinkers to make it street legal. It is insured. I think that’s all I need to get it registered, but not certain.

The clutch rod is leaking oil from the top seal. Will order a new one in due course. Otherwise it runs and drives well. Still needs to be broken in. The top end makes a bit of noise but the cylinder, piston, and rings are all brand new.

Pinto- Looking at machine shops to get the 351c looked at. Planning on doing a low cost build and then getting the engine/transaxle bolted together for test fitting in to the car.

DT360- Have not touched, but the plan is to get the motor running, looking good, and sell it.

BW350- Have not touched it, but it’s not far from being back in one piece. Just waiting on a good work area.

KLX400- Have taken photos. Will post for sale and see how that goes.

Bronco- The frame was stripped of all parts, cleaned up, and was originally going to be painted with Rust Bullet (a POR-15 like product) however, when I went to open to can to spray the frame, I found that it was solidified. The frame was cleaned but not bare metal, so the logic was to use a rust converting paint.

Since the can was trash and I was ready to spray that instant, I grabbed the 2 part epoxy primer that I’d bought for the body and mixed that up. It went on the frame well and then I left the state for a month.

Expoy primer can be re-coated with a top coat or more primer within 1-2 weeks, I’ve read. After that it needs to be roughed up with 120 grit. I wanted to frame to be black, so another coat of paint was in order when I returned home.

The black rust encapsulator can be seen as overspray on the gray frame.

Frame was cleaned up (again) and sanded and wiped down. Rust encapsulator was sprayed in the channels all throughout the frame and Eastwood Chassis Black was applied on top of the grey epoxy primer. 1 pint almost did the whole frame, but I still have a couple of spots to touch up.

The frame was left to dry and I went to work on the axles. Amazon was good about shipping a free replacement can of Rust Bullet. I planned to use it on the axles and other small parts.

Anything that could fit in the bench top sand blaster got cleaned up- spring cups, shackles, radius arm brackets and washers, etc. Once those parts were mostly bare metal, they were hung up to be painted.

Axles were power washed. A lot. Scrubbed, washed, and scrubbed some more. Once happy with their level of cleanliness I rolled them out to dry.

Everything was painted with Rust Bullet sprayed from a modified harbor freight paint gun. The tip was drilled out to 3mm since the spec sheets for rust bullet call for such a tip. It sprayed on fine, but I don’t love the texture and feel of it. It’s a thick, rubbery, messy coating. I walked around barefoot and picked it up overspray on my feet. The soles of my feet were solid black for a week.

But with all the old parts cleaned up, assembly could take place.

New rear leaf springs, front coil springs, and suspension bushings were ordered from Wild Horses. The suspension is a 2.5" lift over stock. They left out a few small parts but were quick to ship them to me. Black polyurethane bushings all around with new mounting bolts for the springs and new heavy duty u-bolts for the rear axle.