1972 F-250 2wd to 4wd build

[Deleted Member]

STILL my favorite Ford to date!

 

[rockota]

i'll give ya $3.50 delivered...

Killer work.

 

[rattle_snake]

I see we all got our usernames updated for today's drinking festivities. But I'm actually an Oh apostrophe not a Mc, but still entitled to free beer today!
🍻

 

['84 Bronco II]

I see we all got our usernames updated for today's drinking festivities. But I'm actually an Oh apostrophe not a Mc, but still entitled to free beer today!
🍻

I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out!

 

[rattle_snake]

Finally got going on the bumper project. Had material and rough plan for awhile but had to wait for a time that I could actually think clearly enough to do anything.
Step one was cardboard templates and general plan. I started with 2 variations; a flat top and another with an extra bevel. The bevel makes it look more modern, the flat top more simple, blocky and better fit for a '72.
Then tried a few variations of the center panel width, 24, 26, 28. Made another attempt with the bottom plate angled up to maximize approach, but gain was minimal and with center panel shorter the wings didn't have as much slope and looked boring, out of place.
Plan C was to copy the Protofab design, which is a wedge and mounts winch up high out of the top of the bumper. It has steep sexy angles and maximizes approach but I want the winch hidden and focus on the truck, not the bump/winch.

So I settled on an in-between design, stole some aspects from Proto and went to work with the steel. I waste a lot of time making things fit overly tight and maximize every unnecessary aspect, then trying to get it to actually fit. I decided to make it fit looser and mounting adjustable. An old Ford front end isn't square so adjustability is needed, and left frame rail is all tweaked from version 2 of the steering box mod. Instead of bolts in 3 planes (bottom, front, side) that allow no freedom of movement, all bolts will go on sides with slotted holes like you would find on a commercial bumper that has to fit any given truck across manufacturing tolerances.

I spaced the belly plate down (so it can be adjusted up if needed) and built everything off it. Front panel had enough angle to not be boring but not too much angle to pinch rope in fairlead.

Used a piece of tube to establish top plane, made a template and fit the pieces. Goal is a symmetrical not just to fit the front clip how it sits today.

Hole for the winch seems big but still a tight fit. Winch can be installed with bumper on truck. Winch will be spaced off floor and with angled spacer so winch will sit flat like the top surface.

Cut and tacked the outer front plates to get an idea of how it will look. Will have to come off to fab the mounting brackets.

Dropped winch in to see how it looks. Pretty happy with result so far. I think the bumper itself will weight only about 60-70 lbs.

Although it looks like a bumper have a long way to go. Ordered some 1" thick clevis mounts. Working on mount brackets now, and need to come up with plan for the ends. Using Plasma to cut 3/16 plate. Like welding it is all about hand and speed control, finally getting decent with it.

 

['84 Bronco II]

The bumper is coming out nice and is similar to what I did on my Bronco II

I dig the low winch mounting, and that is how I would do it as well. Helps keep your center of gravity a little lower, but more importantly it doesn't block air flow through the radiator, which is important when you live somewhere that gets over 100ºF regularly.

What's next, sliders?

 

[rattle_snake]

I mainly wanted the winch mostly hidden, in contrast to all the disco jeeps where the winch in the prominent feature of the front end. A never-used winch with perfectly spooled cable, to go with the pristine high lift jack.

Next is the rest of the front bumper job, haha. Probably have a few more weeks of work on it including the wiring for remote contactor mount.

After that is finish A/C system which has a lot of road blocks and will take a lot of time to do it right.

At some point I want to build a different rear bumper, more like the front. I un-fucked what I had but it degrades departure angle pretty good and the truck is already a long bed. Can move it up 4" and in 4", cut bed sides up, make a spot for a license plate, and so on.

Full length sliders or some type of rocker protection is also in the plans. light and minimal.

 

[rattle_snake]

removed front pieces to fit frame mounts

Added bottom plates and tried 4 or 5 flavors of end caps in cardboard before picking a design

With bumper ends done last item to fit while on the truck was the winch itself. I wanted it sitting level and not have bolts heads protruding through the belly, so devised some mounting rails out of 2x2 0.25" wall square tube. Once I was confident with placement I removed the bumper from the truck to complete on the table. The belly plate has corresponding holes drilled for bolt head access.

Cut some holes for Ruff Stuff shackle mounts with the plasma.

Then a hole for fairlead. The winch is mounted with M10 socket head cap screws so the holes didn't have to be huge for a hex socket. Need to find some 3/8 square nuts to replace the communist fasteners, as they are the only ones on the truck.

Final gusset plates cut to tie belly to wing bottoms. Ready for final weld/warp and grind.

To avoid excessive grinding, I tried to not overfill the corner joints. Ended up a bit short and had to touch up a few places. Then a long session with grinders until hands were numb.

I refrained from welding all the inside seams, didn't seem like it would add any value. I considered adding gussets from frame plates to shackle mounts, but I didn't think it was necessary. All butt joints were beveled and welded on both sided.
I did over-weld anyhow and warp the whole thing like I always do.

Drilled 3 more 1/2" holes in each side of the frame. Tried not to mangle the frame itself and waste time modifying just to modify.

Then one last test fit on the truck before paint. Using the spacers to leave gaps all around worked out well and bumper goes on easy. Pop in the eight 1/2-20 bolts and hit 'em with the impact.
Did I succeed in not making it overly tight? No of course not, can't hardly get a finger in between the bumper and body anywhere, but lines line up nicely.

 

[rattle_snake]

Tried to keep final finish and paint prep simple, as it is just a bumper on an old truck. Going to get rock chips and, scratches and modified at some point. So just rattle can black on the inside and silver on the outside. Half hour later on the truck for pics.

Probably paint the fairlead to match so it blends in a bit more. I used right about 2'x4' of 3/16 plate so bumper weight is about 65 lbs. With winch total is around 130.

I feel like I achieved my goal of compact, with the sheet metal mods to tuck it in. Went back and re-adjusted bumper angle up a bit and corrected angle of the left marker light, well because.

Should have made the opening a bit narrower in both sheet metal and bumper, but it came out OK.

Next step is wiring, build longer cables for remote solenoid location.

 

[FleshEater]

Amazing work!

 

[aczlan]

That turned out great, looks like it was always there.

Aaron Z

 

[Loki89t]

That turned out great. I need one for my truck.

 

[USMC Gunny]

Holy shit that looks awesome.

 

[Deleted Member]

out of 5...

Pretty dam impressive man~

 

[evernoob]

No I think the larger cutout is appropriate given rocks, sticks, tangles and all kinds of things happen there. It's good off-road design. This gap doesn't need to match anything it needs to give access to the winch. It looks great, thumbnail appeal is Max. You can't see this b/c of all that seam-matching and meticulousness.

 

[rattle_snake]

Thanks guys. I'm pretty happy with how it turn out. Striving for good enough instead of wasting lots of time on perfection. At some point I will probably make a new rear bumper also. But next is A/C.

 

[rattle_snake]

Last step was winch wiring. I remote mounted the solenoid so cables to winch motor needed to be extended. Wire is 2 ga and lugs are 4 ga 5/16 wide style. Why the mis-match? Because they fit nicely and 2 ga lugs are way loose in this particular brand of lug and wire. Used hex crimp for robust connections. This wiring is larger gauge and shorter overall circuit length than what was supplied with the winch.

Mounted solenoid box below battery which allows short runs of wiring. The connection for the wired hand controller is on the top.

Winch is connected directly to battery with minimum length leads. Why battery? Because even with big alternator (230A) current is still coming out of battery to support load drop. When winch is heavily loaded, the alternator is out of voltage regulation.

Just enough room to connect motor wiring, not sure why it was made so snug..

 

[Deleted Member]

STOP IT man!!! You're making me feel all old and slow.

As usual, super clean and amazing work!

Edit: After market A/C, or did ya source the parts for factory air?

 

[backchat]

Off Topic: Why did you shield your wires into your Hyperspark Coil? I'm assuming you were running into some EMC issues, but what was displaying the interference?

I am finishing up the wiring (one of these days) on my own Holley EFI install. Thanks. Beautiful work all 'round.

 

[72Pstroke]

I may have a factory AC system (the under dash part). Let me know if you are interested.

 

[holdmypocket]

Just an FYI: I ordered the Vintage Air kit January 22nd and it hasn't even shipped yet (keeps getting pushed back, supposed to ship April 9th is the latest). Apparently they're short on "raw materials" (in dash louvers to be specific) due to COVID.

 

[rattle_snake]

STOP IT man!!! You're making me feel all old and slow.

As usual, super clean and amazing work!

Edit: After market A/C, or did ya source the parts for factory air?

I'm pretty sure we are both old and slow, but it's not a race, just have to finish.

Being an Explorer, it came with factory A/C. I had it working before I blew it apart, but it needed a fan motor among other things.

 

[rattle_snake]

Off Topic: Why did you shield your wires into your Hyperspark Coil? I'm assuming you were running into some EMC issues, but what was displaying the interference?

I am finishing up the wiring (one of these days) on my own Holley EFI install. Thanks. Beautiful work all 'round.

I shielded only the high voltage output drive of the MSD box (coil primary input) to reduce EM emissions specifically for the EFI and digital gauges. I did it preemptively before I started the motor. The MSD box boosts voltage to coil to 500 V and switches it off/on every cylinder fire. The switching of high voltage creates a shitload of noise. The plug wires themselves are shielded. The goal was not to contaminate all of the power distribution circuits that are right between the MSD and coil, as that would inject noise everywhere in the system. So far I have not had any EMI issues.

If the wire was short, shielding could be skipped.

 

[rattle_snake]

I may have a factory AC system (the under dash part). Let me know if you are interested.

Thanks. I have a mostly complete system, I'll let you know if I need something. Shit is old....

 

[Deleted Member]

I'm pretty sure we are both old and slow, but it's not a race, just have to finish.

Being an Explorer, it came with factory A/C. I had it working before I blew it apart, but it needed a fan motor among other things.

I'm revamping mine too... also had factory A/C. All the components are in good shape really, just need to replace the O-rings and whatnot to make it an R134a system. There will prolly be something else too, but I haven't gotten that far into it yet,

 

[rattle_snake]

Just an FYI: I ordered the Vintage Air kit January 22nd and it hasn't even shipped yet (keeps getting pushed back, supposed to ship April 9th is the latest). Apparently they're short on "raw materials" (in dash louvers to be specific) due to COVID.

well hopefully they can get it to you before it get too hot. I'm not sure I buy the covid excuse...

 

[backchat]

I shielded only the high voltage output drive of the MSD box (coil primary input) to reduce EM emissions specifically for the EFI and digital gauges. I did it preemptively before I started the motor. The MSD box boosts voltage to coil to 500 V and switches it off/on every cylinder fire. The switching of high voltage creates a shitload of noise. The plug wires themselves are shielded. The goal was not to contaminate all of the power distribution circuits that are right between the MSD and coil, as that would inject noise everywhere in the system. So far I have not had any EMI issues.

If the wire was short, shielding could be skipped.

Makes sense, thank you for the detailed explanation. Did you ground your shields anywhere?

 

[rattle_snake]

Makes sense, thank you for the detailed explanation. Did you ground your shields anywhere?

Yes, I choose to ground the braided shield on the coil end as it was physically easier. Could be either end in this case but shield must be grounded to be effective.

 

[evernoob]

I don't know if I'm making a re-post, I almost posted this a while ago. I wish it had narrower tires, and more fender room. OPs fender mods are as far as it should go. It can't be any higher. So that means smaller, narrower tires. The big meats miss the 'highboy' opportunity. I really like that big-fender, narrow, very chunky tire look. Too bad they don't make a 38.5x11" TSL.

 

[holdmypocket]

Any designs for the rock sliders sketched up?