'84 Bronco II
El Chingón
I have been putting off starting this thread since progress is pretty slow right now, but I figured I have been starting enough threads pertaining to this build I might as well get going on a build thread.
After attending Trail Hero 2020 and riding with a buddy who has a BFR CK1, I knew I needed a buggy in my life. I started a thread about which chassis I should consider, and the BFR CH2, Goatbilt JHF 2 seater, and JHF Trail chassis were at the top of my list since they were all around $4,000 and checked my boxes (room for a V8 and a tall driver, yet compact). I ended up going with the CH2 since Tim had a killer Black Friday sale going on last year and I had been continually impressed by my buddy's CK1.
Here's the tentative build plan:
5.0L Ford
C4
Atlas or Midnight Metalworks Dana 300
'07 Superduty Axles
ORIs or 2.5" air shocks
42" Treps or 43" SX stickies
I ordered the full fixture kit and chassis-side suspension mounts from Tim and they showed up at the shipping dock the day before I was leaving to King of the Hammers. This is CH2 chassis #32:
The first thing I did was unpack everything and make sure all the tubes were there. While I was at it, I organized them and labeled them with silver Sharpie to help make the assembly go a bit easier. The laser markings are heard to see, and and the numbers make it difficult to tell where a tube needs to go without constantly referencing the BOM and assembly drawings.
Tim has a few videos on Youtube showing how to assemble the chassis, as well as photo albums with comments on his Bent Fab Chassis Support! Facebook group page, and while these are good resources, it would be nice if he provided some kind of printed assembly procedures with the information on his Facebook page so that it would be easier to reference in the shop when you are putting things together. He also provides a Solidworks eDrawings model of the chassis you can use to pull dimensions from, but again, it would be more useful in the shop to have some printed drawings with the critical dimensions to reference.
Now you might be thinking my comments about assembly procedures and drawings are dumb, but this chassis is a huge pain in the ass to put together. The CNC notches and bends are spot on perfect, but you might not think so at first because the way this chassis is designed, if things are slightly off in one spot, things will be WAY off in another. It is like a game of Whack-A-Mole trying to get everything to fit up perfectly, and you basically have to assemble the ENTIRE chassis before you can get to a point where you can even put down your first tack
There are many locating holes/marks that indicate where tubes are supposed to land on each other, but they are not there for every joint. Some places are no big deal, but just a few more marks/holes would literally save hours on the assembly time. The most frustrating part where location marks would have been a massive help were where the seat tubes meet the rub rails. There is no indication on the rub rails where the seat tubes should go other than eyeballing the front seat tube being in the middle of a bend on the rub rail. The way the chassis is designed, being slightly off here has a huge impact on how everything else fits together since small changes in seat bar placement rolls the rub rails in or out drastically, and there isn't anything to hold the rub rails even with each other longitudinally. You can use one of the A-pillar support tubes that has locating marks and a very slight cope for the forward seat bar to help locate it on the rub rail, but it is not very precise. Even with the full fixture kit, you are definitely going to want someone else helping you. I cant imagine trying to put the chassis together on my own.
The critical first step:
Speaking of the fixture, it is poor design that isn't really that helpful. In fact, I found it to be more of a hinderance since I was fighting it when putting the dash, seat belt, and roof bars in place. Part of the problem is that it doesn't do much to locate the tubes, it just kind of floats a few of the lateral bars in roughly the correct place. The way the upper part of the fixture is designed, it is very prone to assembly shift making relying on it for accurate location of the tubes impossible. Also, the cutting parameters on Tim's plasma table could also use some fine tuning because almost all of the notches for the tubes were undersized and required some work with a 1.5" sanding drum to get the tubes to nest in the notches like they are supposed to. I had read another build thread about bolt hole sizing being an issue with Tims parts, and while Tim assured me the issue had been fixed, it appears to still be an issue (although to an admittedly lesser degree). I only had to re-drill one or two holes on the fixture, but all of the holes are stupid tight for the intended fastener size; like you have to thread the bolts through the holes. On the suspension brackets, you can get threads through the holes, but the unthreaded shank on the bolts don't fit through the holes The bed rail part of the fixture wasn't even close to the correct size and I didn't use it at all. If I were going to do it again, I would just buy the base that spaces the seat bars and the spreader for the front of the rub rails.
I don't mean to sound like I am bashing Tim, but he has some persistent quality issues that need to be addressed and I want others who are considering buying from him to know what to expect.
After attending Trail Hero 2020 and riding with a buddy who has a BFR CK1, I knew I needed a buggy in my life. I started a thread about which chassis I should consider, and the BFR CH2, Goatbilt JHF 2 seater, and JHF Trail chassis were at the top of my list since they were all around $4,000 and checked my boxes (room for a V8 and a tall driver, yet compact). I ended up going with the CH2 since Tim had a killer Black Friday sale going on last year and I had been continually impressed by my buddy's CK1.
Here's the tentative build plan:
5.0L Ford
C4
Atlas or Midnight Metalworks Dana 300
'07 Superduty Axles
ORIs or 2.5" air shocks
42" Treps or 43" SX stickies
I ordered the full fixture kit and chassis-side suspension mounts from Tim and they showed up at the shipping dock the day before I was leaving to King of the Hammers. This is CH2 chassis #32:
The first thing I did was unpack everything and make sure all the tubes were there. While I was at it, I organized them and labeled them with silver Sharpie to help make the assembly go a bit easier. The laser markings are heard to see, and and the numbers make it difficult to tell where a tube needs to go without constantly referencing the BOM and assembly drawings.
Tim has a few videos on Youtube showing how to assemble the chassis, as well as photo albums with comments on his Bent Fab Chassis Support! Facebook group page, and while these are good resources, it would be nice if he provided some kind of printed assembly procedures with the information on his Facebook page so that it would be easier to reference in the shop when you are putting things together. He also provides a Solidworks eDrawings model of the chassis you can use to pull dimensions from, but again, it would be more useful in the shop to have some printed drawings with the critical dimensions to reference.
Now you might be thinking my comments about assembly procedures and drawings are dumb, but this chassis is a huge pain in the ass to put together. The CNC notches and bends are spot on perfect, but you might not think so at first because the way this chassis is designed, if things are slightly off in one spot, things will be WAY off in another. It is like a game of Whack-A-Mole trying to get everything to fit up perfectly, and you basically have to assemble the ENTIRE chassis before you can get to a point where you can even put down your first tack
There are many locating holes/marks that indicate where tubes are supposed to land on each other, but they are not there for every joint. Some places are no big deal, but just a few more marks/holes would literally save hours on the assembly time. The most frustrating part where location marks would have been a massive help were where the seat tubes meet the rub rails. There is no indication on the rub rails where the seat tubes should go other than eyeballing the front seat tube being in the middle of a bend on the rub rail. The way the chassis is designed, being slightly off here has a huge impact on how everything else fits together since small changes in seat bar placement rolls the rub rails in or out drastically, and there isn't anything to hold the rub rails even with each other longitudinally. You can use one of the A-pillar support tubes that has locating marks and a very slight cope for the forward seat bar to help locate it on the rub rail, but it is not very precise. Even with the full fixture kit, you are definitely going to want someone else helping you. I cant imagine trying to put the chassis together on my own.
The critical first step:
Speaking of the fixture, it is poor design that isn't really that helpful. In fact, I found it to be more of a hinderance since I was fighting it when putting the dash, seat belt, and roof bars in place. Part of the problem is that it doesn't do much to locate the tubes, it just kind of floats a few of the lateral bars in roughly the correct place. The way the upper part of the fixture is designed, it is very prone to assembly shift making relying on it for accurate location of the tubes impossible. Also, the cutting parameters on Tim's plasma table could also use some fine tuning because almost all of the notches for the tubes were undersized and required some work with a 1.5" sanding drum to get the tubes to nest in the notches like they are supposed to. I had read another build thread about bolt hole sizing being an issue with Tims parts, and while Tim assured me the issue had been fixed, it appears to still be an issue (although to an admittedly lesser degree). I only had to re-drill one or two holes on the fixture, but all of the holes are stupid tight for the intended fastener size; like you have to thread the bolts through the holes. On the suspension brackets, you can get threads through the holes, but the unthreaded shank on the bolts don't fit through the holes The bed rail part of the fixture wasn't even close to the correct size and I didn't use it at all. If I were going to do it again, I would just buy the base that spaces the seat bars and the spreader for the front of the rub rails.
I don't mean to sound like I am bashing Tim, but he has some persistent quality issues that need to be addressed and I want others who are considering buying from him to know what to expect.
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