My Classic Bronco Build: F8 LUBR

Im starting to make actual progress on my 1974 LUBR build so I figured its time to start a build thread. As of today, 7/3/18, we are 2 weeks away from primer so this should go fast.

Little bit of a back story, my car addiction began about 28 years ago when my Uncle took me for a ride in his North American Fiberglass Cobra that he had built. When I got out of the car my leg hit the side pipes and I was hooked! Crying, but hooked!



After getting my license I had gone thru all sorts of Fords including 5 Mustangs but always wanted an SUV. I originally wanted a Land Rover Defender 90 after seeing it in a music video. But then I saw the pricing and the diesel motor and decided a Classic Bronco was the route to go. We finally got serious about it and began scouring Craigslist, ClassicBroncos.com, and eBay for what seemed like a year. I bid on a few but missed out on some projects under $4K, really kicking myself now of course. We had found a pretty rough one in Texas and were making plans to fly out and see it when I hopped on CB.com and find a for sale thread with the AZ location tag!! 1974 Ford Bronco For Sale

We message back and forth and I realize he is only 30 minutes away so I head over on a Saturday and there it is idling in the driveway. A running fairly complete Bronco with a hardtop! We chat for a few minutes and he tosses me the keys and tells me to take it for a spin. This was my first time sitting in a Bronco and Im grinning ear to ear while the exhaust roars! There's nothing quite like looking out the windshield at those front fenders.



I head back and tell him I want my Dad to come check it out as well since this is going to be our project. We head back the following weekend and luckily he still hadn't sold it. He drives it and we're both on the same page: This is ours! We load up a bunch of parts, hop on the frontage road and take it up to 65mph only to realize we need gas. Stop at the gas station and 2 people comment, "nice Bronco!" And so it begins...

It was originally a limestone poly green wagon from Houston but when he bought it in 2008 it was a red half cab. He converted it back to a wagon which was a ton of work getting the bulkhead back out, painted it in his garage, rebuilt the motor, C4 trans, D20 transfer case, steering box, discs up front, tires/wheels, built a front bumper, moved the glovebox over, suspension work, etc. He did a ton of work! Heres what it looked like



Which eventually became this with new Beard racing seats



A new roll cage



New soft top



Here it is tucked away at its new home



I did not plan on having 2 yellow cars, I just couldn't pass up the Bronco! Plus the Cobra was a beast. If you have not experienced a pullied 03/04 Cobra you need to!



Checking out the undercarriage and what needs attention. A few typical leaks but nothing that prevented me from driving it to work that Friday!



Picked up some bigger tires/wheels on Craiglist which didn't last long



Over the next 2-3 years we drive it on the weekends and have fun with little projects here and there. Swapped out the 2.5" lift for a 3.5" Deaver coil lift, added an adjustable track bar, drop pitman arm and welded a track bar riser onto the axle. I sold the cage, hard top, soft top, bumpers and a ton of parts to buy even more parts.



Some light trail running 10 minutes from the house to flex out the new suspension. Wound up gashing a tire on the inner rear fender









Starter motor went out on me in 2014 so a high torque mini starter went in



Bought a custom 8 point family cage built by a Bronco Driver magazine editor Mike aka Greaseball.



We must have looked at hundreds of wheel options and this was the only one we both loved. 16" Black Rock Yumas



If you want to skip ahead and see it painted, here you go you cheaters: The Bronco is Home!

If not continue on...

 

Notice the new plate. LUBR is a Bronco term that means Lifted Uncut Bronco or Left Uncut Bronco. This is how they came from the factory but the majority of owners cut the rear fenders wider for larger tires



Bought some Protofab Rock Solid bumpers, sold the seats, pulled the tanks and this is where we stopped driving it



Picked up a set of Bronco script valve covers and installed with new gaskets on the original but rebuilt 302





Ive made it a mission to track down every Bronco owner near me so I had some Bronco brothers over to help with some suspension, driveshaft items. Hopefully this was only the first of many project days to come as these guys were much more knowledgeable than me!





We dropped the entire rear end and moved the rear axle back 1", added 1 leaf back into the pack(2 removed), made sure the rear driveshaft was long enough, replace all 4 shocks with Bilstein 5100s, and cleaned up all of the wheel studs rather than replacing. They weren't as bad as I thought after some grinding.





I have also picked up a 2015 Hellcat as a daily driver. 707HP, what a car! My Grandpa supervising the Bronco work



Found some 2005 Mustang seats at a junkyard, bought a fold and tumble from Toms and a Rampage center console off Amazon







The front seats sit very low, recline and tilt so I can get in the back from both sides. Bought the Wildhorses seat box for an easy passenger seat mount and I will probably mount a marine amp under it for the speakers



Bought some fiberglass interior quarter panels and already had aluminum door panels. Tried my hardest to find matching material to the fold n tumble and its impossible.



So I took them all down to an upholstery shop who wrapped them in two tone waterproof vinyl.



I have some extremely strong neodymium magnets that will go on the back of the inner panels and Im planning on putting 6.5" speakers in those up front. I wanted to be able to pull the panels back so I can hide tools/parts in the rear sections



Had them cut the Mustang seat head rests down to match the fold n tumble height a little better





Sent the speedometer out to Kevin at Classy Gauges who did a fantastic job. Speedo got a full rebuild which is not cheap! New speedometer head unit, all gauges done in brushed aluminum, chromed bezel, new odometer drum.clip, turn signal/high beam lenses, and added a Bronco script emblem.

 

Ordered a Bronco Design fiberglass mid rise hood. This is a 2 piece hood with steel reinforcements. The underside is finished like the original hood and you can opt to use hood pins or struts. We will be installing hood struts and getting rid of the prop rod. We will also be filling in those vents for a smooth look on the cowl





On the original dashboard the prior owner had moved the glove box over to clear the old roll cage plus he added holes for gauges and switches we were not going to use. After pulling the ashboard off and seeing the welds we decided the old dash was beyond repair and we ordered a Bronco Hut Dash.



You can order them blank or with the cluster and glove box holes already cut out.



Plus they come with defroster vents already welded in







Found my first bit of rust behind the speedo. We will be cutting out and replacing this later in the build. You can also see the original Limestone Poly Green



Ordered a Kenwood double din stereo(DDX795) and some brushed stainless tire control knobs. Not sure how it will all fit together but something like this







Leaning towards this setup below if I can get my heater working again. Its been capped off for 7 years. No plans for rock lights or any other accessories, just a nice clean dash with upgraded knobs and stereo



We removed the windshield frame, tailgate, grill and fenders and sent them to a blaster. The front clip comes off in one piece





Happy to report there was no rust and very minimal damage to those parts. Put some primer on



Also took the roll cage in and had the silver powdercoating removed. We also had some door clearance issues so we had him smooth that corner



Brought the ProtoFab plate bumper to him as I wanted to add some prerunner style hoops





Back home and we're leaning toward raptor liner on these

 

Did the "Alice" turn signal mod which utilizes pre '69 turn signals that sit flush in the grill



Old signals:



We started getting paint/labor estimates and figured we would sand the rest of the body to save on labor costs until we picked a painter. That was a tough, messy job with 2 small orbital sanders. Never again...



After sanding for a few weekends we discovered the Bronco still has the original primer and limestone poly green on the back half. On top of that was primer, red, more primer and then 2 different yellows.



Had a builder/fabricator come by and roll the rear fender lips for some more tire clearance. He wound up doing it by hand which was amazing to watch him work. In case anyone wants to use him he is Rob Cochran from Bonzer Customs (Login • Instagram) and his builds are incredible. I was really hoping we could have had him do the restoration



Here you can see the unfinished edge that it had before. That is now completely tucked up so it won't slash the tires like it has in the past



Finding filler in the back end that still needs to come off



Sent a bunch of pieces to rydog1130 (www.lubr4x4.com) to blast and powdercoat satin silver to match the door handles, mirrors and wipers. He did an awesome job and the price could not be touched in town





More sanding and not finding any rust







One last little section to clean off and then its naked! Still shocked how good of shape the body is in but its been in Arizona for a long time



So we're digging all the filler out of the rear body seam. The prior owner filled them in and they obviously cracked but we wondered why he did that. The pick Im using to clean the seam out gets caught in a piece of metal in that lower section. Im real confused so I get the sander back out and find this



Hello first major issue! What a horrible fix haha. The body side is completely rotted out but the taillight panel is pretty solid with just some surface rust



So Rob Cochran calls me back up while we're working on this patch and has a body/paint guy he wants to bring by. 30 minutes later he shows up and takes a good look over it and gives us a price that was hard to believe. Basically told us to stop right where we were, drop the Bronco off and we will get a finished product back. He even agreed to knock the price down if we came out and helped get it prepped which is exactly what I was wanting to do.

So we got all the parts out, laid out a build plan and had the Bronco over to him the following weekend. Shannon Schierer of Schierer's Customs (Facebook). He has done all sorts of classic vehicles and also works with investors to make paint shops profitable.



My new garage mate is a '71 429 Torino



There'a also a Scout in there from time to time which is going to be an amazing rig



So we head out the first weekend and we get right to work sanding the door jams, the cowl and tight spots we didn't have the right tools for. This guy has every possible body tool you could ever need. He welded up every hole in the bedrails as we wanted a smooth look

 

We welded sleeves into the frame horns to beef them up for the rock solid bumpers.





Original green and a teaser...



POR15 on the fenders, cage and bumpers







Raptor Liner done





The rust patch we discovered was beyond fixing so Shannon cut out the quarter section and instead of fabbing a piece I just ordered a new quarter from CJ Pony Parts





I have 90% of a new quarter in case anyone needs a piece!



Also cut out the rust that was behind the speedo in the cowl and formed in two new pieces











Spent an entire day getting the bed liner and paint off the cowl which was much messier than sanding the body. We were filthy from head to toe



At this point we were thinking about painting the cowl to match the body but still had time to decide.



Then we started pulling a small dent out of the rear taillight cap with this amazing tool. It arcs itself to the body and then you use the fulcrum handle to pop dents out.

 

Dad and I got to weld for the first time, sealed up the antenna holes. It wasn't pretty...



Shannon welding up some grill holes



Filled in the hood openings for a smooth look



Cut out the fresh air vents, still needs some sanding



Attached the fenders to the grill and put it back on to check fitment/gaps. That was tough to put back together! We might do it in separate pieces after paint goes on



Doors on



Fabbed the hood strut brackets to the fenders





Shannon started smoothing out the bedrails and cut the seam line back in up top. Old school methods and does everything by hand



I picked up a Bronco cutout from member sk1nw4lk3r a while back. We knew we wanted the Bronco green but, like the wheels, we spent several months looking at options before both agreeing on one. Late 2017 I noticed a new color option on the Demons/Hellcats called F8 Green(pfq paint code) and I knew right away this was our color. I stopped by a local shop who mixed me up a sample and figured we might as well spray the Bronco! Before:



During:



And after. There is a lot of flake in it so depending on the light source it can get very light or very dark





Shannon found his classic paint book and they had the original F8 paint sample from the late 60s early 70s Plymouths/Dodges. It is a very close match but has more metallic in it





Here you can see how light affects it



Picked up a Spectre air cleaner and a new passenger air vent from Toms



and a 14" Forever Sharp Steering Wheel



We had always noticed the body or bumpers leaning slightly to one side and Shannon noticed the passenger side frame rail was slightly tweaked. I was on vacation and he said I need to take it to a frame shop to get straightened. Great...



30 minutes later he said, "nevermind, I fixed it." He put a bar through the bumper holes and was able to get it back into spec. Now have an even line between the body and bumper and the bumper fits better

 

New quarter piece welded in last weekend



Cleaned up the tailight panel as well







He has spent a lot of hours getting the doors to close smoothly and the gaps/lines right







He also took apart the hinges and got those working smoothly



I was up in Oregon 2 weeks ago and just so happened to be within 30 minutes of Toms so we stopped by to pick up a couple things. Wound up picking up 13 small items and getting a mini tour of the property. Wish I could have bought more but still had 2 flights to get them home









Claussen ZChrome ready to go on which is a non-shrinking rust preventer/primer/filler

 

That is where we're at today ^ He is going to block it this Saturday and then we take the Bronco over to his buddy's shop where we will tear apart the undercarriage, degrease it, clean it and then second skin everything visible. Also going to cut the dash holes, see if the heater works and rip the old wiring harness out as we decided to rewire it with the American Autowire kit. Picked up some dual wiper motors as well. Then it goes back to Shannon for primer/seam sealer and its ready for paint

Shannon has been making progress on the Scout build as well: