took me 3 days to write this one up
April 1994 Wife and I got out of the Navy in Sandy Eggo
2 years prior bought a 1972 Bronco , wrecked in front, not running 302 3 speed manual
2 years working on it, wiring, head gaskets, Holley EFI , rebuild tranny and transfer case, Detroit locker rear, ARB front , JBA headers and exhaust 4:11 gears 33's.
Month or so out from leaving buy a tent and plan cross country trip to Pittsburgh, need to decide to drive the 84 Bronco 2 or 72 Bronco. decide on 72 Bronco and then decide tent sucks and buy a Pop up camper 1 week before leaving ( tent on wheels).
order lift kit and power steering from Vintage Broncos is AZ and schedule install.
2 days before leaving get hitch welded on Bronco and drop ball setup , flares rubbing on tire , file flares down all is good.
Packout and move to first campground on Coronado island 1/4 mile from the house.
next day we are off to AZ camper is all over the place , stop somewhere near Alpine rest area and repack popup for more tongue weight,
get rolling about a mile down the road and figure out I left my glasses on top of popup, off next exit and circle around , cannot find them.
Bronco is running hot in desert.
Roll into Mesa find over night campground , move to superstition mountains for next day for few nights stay while lift is installed, went to 1 hour glasses or what ever they are called and ordered glasses, they will be in in a few days......show up at Vintage Broncos as scheduled and I'm not on the schedule but works me in says 3 days, 7 days later I'm on the road.
Off to Grand canyon, went to pick up glasses and they were broke in shipping.....find new place on my route and have them ship there...snowing half way there turn of wipers one wiper arm fly's off... hang out 5 days or so doing canyon things.
Vegas is next stop , Vintage trimmed my exhaust and fumes are getting bad in the Bronco, find exhaust shop, they put a half ass fix on for $100 .......contact K Bar S and see if they have a Ghost town tour coming up and they do, so leave Vegas after a few days and meet John in Beatty NV.
Death Valley days ....do a shorted version of K bar S ghost town tour only 4 of us , 1 Bronco stays behind and we do a side trip to death valley the next day , low altitude Bronco still running hot, wash board roads shake everything lose...good times.
Next stop Elk city Idaho , hunted around here and went to do some hiking, set up camp in the back woods , snow still blocking most roads , do some hiking, on one hike find some cat tracks over our tracks when we were coming back to the camper , move camp to a "camp ground" closer to town ...... heading into town to do laundry and the front wheel locks up , get it off into a pull-off and wheel bearing is locked up , get after it and it is not coming off even with a high lift jack handle on the breaker bar, a couple in a shitty single cab s-10 stop to check on us and offer to drive us back to town to find a tow truck about 20 miles to town ( 4 people in an s10 reg cab) they drop us off at the bar , bar lady give us a phone book , find a tow truck in Grangeville to come and get us, bar lady calls here son ( Thumper) to ride us back to Bronco , get Bronco ready for tow and tow truck shows up we got to Grangeville 50 plus miles or so away, find a rental car at a chevy dealer and remember passing a bunch of Broncos in a yard somewhere on the way thru Idaho , start driving and find it about 80 miles away, dudes wife answers door and dude will be home in about an hour, lots of Broncos and I pay good money for a spindle / hub assembly , drive back to garage and leave spindle and hub in front of door and leave a message on the answering machine of parts and will be there about noon to pickup.
next stop Yellowstone vis Missoula mt to pick up my glasses...some where in the middle of nowhere on a winding road next to a creeks and mountain throttle cable breaks and the only pull off we have seen in miles is right there, pull in and start working on splicing it together with a butt splice and a state cop pulls up within a few minutes and sees if we are good, I let him know if he come back this way and we are still here we are not good, he leaves and I get it repaired, get to Missoula and get the glasses, almost get to Yellowstone and butt splice fails, fix it again get to Yellowstone, still early season there we have the park to our selves stay about a week, order throttle cable to ship to Colorado Springs and find we have no heat in the Bronco.
Next stop Colorado springs somewhere in Wyoming oil pressure is low, find a bar/post office/auto parts combo store and buy 2 quarts , off we go, somewhere into Colorado the engine is missing pull over and can see an injector not firing , after cooling down and cycling ign seem to be working again, then it starts snowing around / after Denver laying down pretty good, getting dark , cant see shit with bronco lights pointing up ( part from trailer and part from Bronco had front end damage when I bought it) and only one wiper blade and no heat we pull over multiple times to clear the snow , one time pulling over I get out and and an abandon car is 10 ft front of me , never seen it, jump in behind a plow truck but cant keep up , but finally make it over mountain to get gas still snowing call my buddy in Colorado Springs he say it raining there and we are about 20 miles away, make it there an hour later , stay is for a week +/- , get wiper fixed, oil change and spare injector.
Next Stop New Orleans .....somewhere around Dallas Bronco is missing bad , find a rest area to change injector, I'm doing a walkaround front hub is hot , tear it apart find dude that put hub on put the tit in backwards on the lock ring, bang it out a little and re assemble and we make it to wife's Sister house in NO , Do NO stuff and get new lock ring to fix hub.
Next stop Cape Hatteras NC thru the swamps of the south I-10 sucks donkey balls getting dark rolling into Charleston SC find a state campground somewhere there been hearing noises for last 100 miles, once setup camp in a skeeter infested swamp, find rear u-joint pretty sloppy, next morning find a shop that will change it while we get breakfast , pick up Bronco about 100 miles its noisy again, have a look and it sloppy take apart , look like needle bearing fell out while assembling, found a Napa and took shaft in and they put in a new one and off we go, somewhere is the swamps of NC I get pulled over and get a speeding ticket, WTF is a cop doing here was my thought..
Pa is next destination stop at Brothers house on the way, he's working and girlfriend is home, we pull up to the apartment and park, she takes one look at the Bronco and makes up park far away from the apartment , she is in another pay scale than we are, she is still like that years later none of my shit is allow in her driveway I have to park out on the street in the grass .
150 miles later and we are home.
mid summer I decide to fix the Broncos heater, as I'm under the dash working the controls I see "pull for heat" on the knob.. dumbass.... shit was good the whole time.. Failure to follow instructions....I did rebuild this before the trip, wife still reminds me about the heat.
somewhere during the trip I had to duct tape the tailgate lift gate area to keep the exhaust fumes from killing us , marginally worked.
During this trip we decided this is what we want todo when we retire , took 29 years and we are on the road full time in new/ newer more reliable shit .
and 2 pictures from the same spot in Yellowstone 29 years apart +/- a few days.
