BFR CH2 Buggy Build

['84 Bronco II]

My local welding supplier has recently dropped all their off brand welding wire for this reason. Lots of complaints of shitty welds and wire that has bad splices in the spool causing birds nests

I welded the cage with .030 Hobart ER70S-6 and there is hardly any splatter and very little soot. This .035 Amazon Special ER70S-6 I switched to after I ran out of the Hobart wire is a complete mess.

I would wait until you have the TCase before you try to install the engine.

I definitely won't burn things in until I have the transfer case, but I have a pretty good drawing of a MM Dana 300 and the Atlas for my Bronco to go off of. Playing with the tape measure, it doesn't look like I can put the engine and transmission too far back for the transfer case since the C4 is so short compared to pretty much any other transmission.



The engine in the picture is out of my old beater Bronco II and is a '95 Truck engine with speed density parts on it. I am just using it for mock up since it was sitting on an engine stand not doing anything else. I plan on running the lower profile Explorer intake and serpentine setup, along with better heads (hopefully aluminum is in the budget) and the Explorer distributorless ignition setup. Basically I want an Explorer engine with aluminum heads, so I might just go an pull another Explorer engine and sell this one off.

I measured against the Explorer engine I am building for my Bronco, and the accessory setup on the Explorer engine is exactly 2" shorter than the truck accessory setup. 28.125" vs. 26.125" from the bellhousing mounting surface to the front of the crank pulley.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Not an exciting update, but I dug my axles out of my shed after I had been storing them for about 5 years. I ended up getting side-tracked cleaning the shed out and didn't get a whole lot done on the actual buggy

I got my rod ends in from Rockwell Offroad, but they forgot to include the high-misalignment spacers and ended up shipping them out today. Tim likes to mount engines by the heads in this chassis, but for whatever reason, I am not nuts about that. I ordered some of Ruff Stuff's Windsor engine mounts, but they haven't shipped yet and Ruff Stuff hasn't given me an ETA. Fun times we're living in

Everything you've heard about cleaning up an '05+ Superduty housing sucking is absolutely true. I only managed to clean up the passenger (easy) side after hours of going at it with a plasma, cut-off wheels, a reciprocating saw, and a grinder. I could only effectively cut off the radius arm mount with the plasma because the trackbar mount and double wall sway bar/shock mount were too thick and tight to sever with my plasma. I tried gouging the welds out, but I quickly knocked that off since it was getting into the tube pretty badly and resorted to the cut-off wheels. I am not looking forward to the driver's side

 

[Sterlingfire]

You need to get a porta band to do the other side... just put the plasma back under the bench, it won't be useful on that side either. Also get some 6" grinding discs. You'll need all those tools to complete the job..
Good luck, you'll need it!

 

['84 Bronco II]

You need to get a porta band to do the other side... just put the plasma back under the bench, it won't be useful on that side either. Also get some 6" grinding discs. You'll need all those tools to complete the job..
Good luck, you'll need it!

Thanks! I just might have to price out a Portaband because I don't think the reciprocating saw is going to be great going through the casting and a 4.5" cut-off wheel isn't going to make it through.

 

[Sterlingfire]

Thanks! I just might have to price out a Portaband because I don't thing the reciprocating saw is going to be great going through the casting and a 4.5" cut-off wheel isn't going to make it through.

About 350 at hd and 130 at hf... get extra blades for it though. You'll bind it up and break them at the weld near every time. Before you cut the casting use the edge of your grinding disc against the edge of the casting lip and mark it with a paint marker. It will keep you from going too deep. It is very easy to over cut that part without a depth gage.

 

[Bebop]

Tim likes to mount engines by the heads in this chassis, but for whatever reason, I am not nuts about that.

Everything you do that's not how the way Tim designed it for, will end up making your life harder in the end.
Mount it by the heads. Works mint and clears the room for the upper links.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Everything you do that's not how the way Tim designed it for, will end up making your life harder in the end.
Mount it by the heads. Works mint and clears the room for the upper links.

My buddy's CK1 is mounted at the traditional block mounting points and there aren't any clearance issues with the mounts and his uppers which I believe are the exact same arrangement/geometry on a CH2. His headers are really tight on his upper links, but he is running an LQ4 and 2" uppers, I should have a bit more clearance with my 5.0L and 1.75" uppers.

I know there aren't really any issues with mounting at the heads other than if you wanted to pull a head in the chassis, but I just don't like it as much as mounting to the block.

 

[arse_sidewards]

I can see mounting anywhere other than same plane as the crank and trans rotation causing weird stresses that the various aluminum castings in the driver-train are not real world proven as being able to handle when shock loading enters the picture.

 

[Bebop]

I can see mounting anywhere other than same plane as the crank and trans rotation causing weird stresses that the various aluminum castings in the driver-train are not real world proven as being able to handle when shock loading enters the picture.

Come ride with me, I'll show you what shock loading the drivetrain is


I got the same nay sayers telling me I should support my atlas from the rear output and that my trans will break.
My drivetrain is mounted by the aluminum heads, single point at the trans and I've hucked the shit out of my buggy.
It's completely fine.




But I promise, this is the last comment I make about the technical choices of BFR. I hold Tim in very high regard and his rigs work best when they are built as he intended.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Come ride with me, I'll show you what shock loading the drivetrain is


I got the same nay sayers telling me I should support my atlas from the rear output and that my trans will break.
My drivetrain is mounted by the aluminum heads, single point at the trans and I've hucked the shit out of my buggy.
It's completely fine.




But I promise, this is the last comment I make about the technical choices of BFR. I hold Tim in very high regard and his rigs work best when they are built as he intended.

I understand, I'm not knocking Tim's way of mounting engines, I would just prefer to mount to the block. I don't think whether the engine is mounted by the block or the heads is going to make any functional difference provided that their aren't clearance issues with either method.

 

[arse_sidewards]

Come ride with me, I'll show you what shock loading the drivetrain is


I got the same nay sayers telling me I should support my atlas from the rear output and that my trans will break.
My drivetrain is mounted by the aluminum heads, single point at the trans and I've hucked the shit out of my buggy.
It's completely fine.

I'm sure you can get away with it. Some guy with a different setup might not. Unless it gains you something worthwhile why add the extra variable?

 

[Wfoyota]

You're not the first person ive read about or know personally to have issues with cnc parts, bolt holes, little quirks, etc that were overlooked straight from BFR. I have no real world experience with these buggies except for being around Bebop's and a few others that friends have. My opinion means nothing and should be taken with a grain of salt but it honestly seems like this is a common theme for these chassis's. Bebop's works great and straight performs as well as the others I have been around, but each of those buggy owners has had serious complaints about the chassis design, cnc parts not fitting, etc whatever during the build phase and when it was done. However, Cad and the real world are separate things and just because it works in Cad does not mean 100% success rate when its transferred. Hope things smooth out for you on the chassis side and that you are happy with the finished product, it's looking good so far!

 

[pennsylvaniaboy]

You're not the first person ive read about or know personally to have issues with cnc parts, bolt holes, little quirks, etc that were overlooked straight from BFR. I have no real world experience with these buggies except for being around Bebop's and a few others that friends have. My opinion means nothing and should be taken with a grain of salt but it honestly seems like this is a common theme for these chassis's. Bebop's works great and straight performs as well as the others I have been around, but each of those buggy owners has had serious complaints about the chassis design, cnc parts not fitting, etc whatever during the build phase and when it was done. However, Cad and the real world are separate things and just because it works in Cad does not mean 100% success rate when its transferred. Hope things smooth out for you on the chassis side and that you are happy with the finished product, it's looking good so far!

This would be the 3rd or 4th build that I have heard thi problem as well. On mutliple forums as well. They seem like great chassis, just need more fine tuning.

 

[willis_racing]

Thanks! I just might have to price out a Portaband because I don't thing the reciprocating saw is going to be great going through the casting and a 4.5" cut-off wheel isn't going to make it through.

I can bring over my 7" grinder too if you just need a little more depth of cut and dont want to just go buy a portaband.

Portabands are a badass tool you wont regret the investment on though.

 

['84 Bronco II]

I can bring over my 7" grinder too if you just need a little more depth of cut and dont want to just go buy a portaband.

Portabands are a badass tool you wont regret the investment on though.

Thanks, I might take you up on that because I am a cheap bastard, but I am going to be out of town the next two weekends. I'll let you know.

 

[arse_sidewards]

If you already have a big compressor an arc gouging setup for a stick welder is pretty cheap and you can blow away a much higher volume of metal with it vs a plasma.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Some minor updates:

Did a little more cleaning on the Dana 60, and I am at the point where I need to start cutting away the center section casting around the tube. I liked the way Thomas Meiser (Fabn801) trimmed just enough of the casting to fit a link bracket on a recent build of his and I might try to copy that.

Some more Dana 60 debris:

I ordered a Midnight Metalworks transfer case and they are 10-12 weeks out. I also put in an order for the shorty 27 spline 300M adapter from Advanced Adapters (PN 50-2905), so hopefully I can get my drivetrain location nailed down once my transfer case shows up.

My beadlocks from Sidetracked Offroad and 2.5" x .25" wall DOM for my lower links showed up on Friday. Good god the price of steel has gone up The 2.5"x.25" DOM was damn near twice the cost per inch as what I paid a year ago ($2.88 vs $1.75)

I was excited to mount up the roller tires I got from a buddy, but I ran into some issues...

Wheels out of the box, they weighed 41Lbs each with hardware (minus center caps).

Got the first one mounted up no problem...

But the second and third wheels both had inserts spin while I was just snugging up the bolts with an elbow wrench by hand I stopped tightening up the bolts at that point, and of course the inserts backed out with the bolts. No, they were not cross threaded and yes I was using lots of anti-seize. I left the fourth wheel in the box and sent an email to Sidetracked offroad. We'll see how they want to take care of this, but I get the feeling this is going to be an instance of "you get what you pay for."

 

[Bebop]

Red locktite the inserts and you'll be fine.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Red locktite the inserts and you'll be fine.

I forgot to mention in my post that I tried hand threading bolts in without the ring after pulling out a few inserts, and the bolts thread through some fine, but most of the inserts bind up really bad after a few turns in and I can't thread the bolts in with my fingers. I don't know if it is a bad batch of inserts or if they are locking inserts mixed in, but I didn't think they made locking inserts in this style that is only retained with thread locking compound.

If they tell me to go pound sand, I'll just replace the one that spin with some key-locking inserts.

 

[Bebop]

I'm assuming here, but cheap china wheels = cheap china inserts and cheap china hardware.

Did you try to use good / known provenance bolts ?

Maybe the china bolts are shit.

I've had the case on other parts. The threads were rolled out of tolerance.

 

['84 Bronco II]

I'm assuming here, but cheap china wheels = cheap china inserts and cheap china hardware.

Did you try to use good / known provenance bolts ?

Maybe the china bolts are shit.

I've had the case on other parts. The threads were rolled out of tolerance.

Yeah, I bought some longer bolts from Fastenal to get the ring started and they have the same issue going into the inserts. I definitely think this is a China QC problem at this point. Interestingly I looked for a country of origin and there are no markings on the wheels or the packaging Like I edited in my previous post, I'll probably just replace the bad inserts with key-locking inserts if Sidetracked doesn't want to do anything for me.

I would have rather bought Dookey's wheels, but it was hard to pass up a $800 savings, especially since wheels are easy to change down the road.

 

[Sterlingfire]

If you look close at the insert, the thread looked all kinds of jacked up.
Knowing that it is what it is, why would they put threaded inserts into the aluminum when you can just thread the bolt into the aluminum? I know all about surface area of threads, but my dirty life wheels don't have inserts and i didn't have one gall up on install. I have yet to remove a bolt that's been torqued though... and they haven't even seen the weight of the vehicle yet, so still haven't even come close to using them. Maybe one day

 

[JNHEscher]

Is there enough room to thread bolts directly into the rim through the inside with enough thread length sticking through for nuts to go on? I tend to do this on wheels and differential housings. They act as studs that can stay in there instead of running bolts in and out of the more expensive parts.

 

['84 Bronco II]

If you look close at the insert, the thread looked all kinds of jacked up.
Knowing that it is what it is, why would they put threaded inserts into the aluminum when you can just thread the bolt into the aluminum? I know all about surface area of threads, but my dirty life wheels don't have inserts and i didn't have one gall up on install. I have yet to remove a bolt that's been torqued though... and they haven't even seen the weight of the vehicle yet, so still haven't even come close to using them. Maybe one day

If it was something that would just be going together once or rarely disassembled, threading into aluminum would be fine assuming it is a decent alloy/grade, but aluminum threads tend to wear out and strip on things that see frequent assembly and disassembly. Galling is an issue with aluminum threads but is easily mitigated with lubricant or anti-seize. It might be fine without inserts, but I wouldn't feel comfortable running without them since this thing is going to see a lot of slick rock so the tires are going to get flipped a time or two throughout their life.

The bigger issue aside from the cost associated with buying 96 new bolts is that the counterbores on the ring would have to be re-machined which I do not have the capability to do myself.

Is there enough room to thread bolts directly into the rim through the inside with enough thread length sticking through for nuts to go on? I tend to do this on wheels and differential housings. They act as studs that can stay in there instead of running bolts in and out of the more expensive parts.

The back side of the ring mounting surface is very round, and even if it weren't, there is not enough space to get a long enough bolt back there. However, the thought of using studs hadn't crossed my mind until I saw your post; however you have the same disadvantages of buying new hardware and re-machining the counterbores in the ring.




The good news is that Sidetracked Offroad already got back and they're going to take care of me

 

[Sterlingfire]

Makes sense. I don't really plan on taking mine off for a long time if ever unless i rip a tire open.

Good on them for taking care of you!

 

[MAC33]

Some minor updates:


I ordered a Midnight Metalworks transfer case and they are 10-12 weeks out. I

How’s MM on their delivery times?

I’d like to order a case in the near future but have had a multiple weird interactions with them on FB regarding some Dana 300 parts

 

['84 Bronco II]

How’s MM on their delivery times?

I’d like to order a case in the near future but have had a multiple weird interactions with them on FB regarding some Dana 300 parts

I'm not sure what you mean, are you asking whether or not they'll meet the 10-12 week lead time? I have no idea, but everything I've read about them has been very positive so far. Maybe woody could help answer your question seems he seems to have more inside knowledge than most.

 

['84 Bronco II]

I haven't updated in a while, but not much to report other than I am still waiting on my transfer case from Midnight Metalworks. I am just over the 12 week mark for the lead time they had published on their website at the time I ordered. Looking at their Facebook page doesn't inspire confidence as there are people who have been waiting for 8-9 months posting about their dissatisfaction, and the company representative who is running the page just keeps giving everyone the "check's in the mail" type response

I guess I'll try to get in contact with them this week and see if they can give me the warm fuzzies. It is just kind of shitty since they charge you at the time of the order, whereas Advanced Adapters only charges you once they are ready to ship. I am really hoping this case lives up to the hype...

 

[YeeP]

Subd

 

[crazybluerider]

I haven't updated in a while, but not much to report other than I am still waiting on my transfer case from Midnight Metalworks. I am just over the 12 week mark for the lead time they had published on their website at the time I ordered. Looking at their Facebook page doesn't inspire confidence as there are people who have been waiting for 8-9 months posting about their dissatisfaction, and the company representative who is running the page just keeps giving everyone the "check's in the mail" type response

I guess I'll try to get in contact with them this week and see if they can give me the warm fuzzies. It is just kind of shitty since they charge you at the time of the order, whereas Advanced Adapters only charges you once they are ready to ship. I am really hoping this case lives up to the hype...

End of February and still waiting here. Wait is becoming extra fun now as my current 300 is starting to make some "I could maybe use some bearings" type noises.