Early Bronco Restoration - Bronco Connection LLC

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77 South Dakota repaint project

We have this nice 77 in for a complete body on frame repaint project. The customer has done most of the sheet metal work himself. We are going to be prepping and painting the truck to his requirements.

Ready for the body work to begin

From time to time we have customers who want us to work on their rigs with parts they buy from other vendors. While this does not bother us, we must note that we do not warrant anything done with parts not purchased from us.

We also will not discount labor rates charged to make things fit or work correctly if not purchased from us.

The left front fender on this project is a perfect example of why we have this policy.

We do not know which of our competitors the customer bought this fender from, it really does not matter. But it is not the quality of fender that we stock or sell. Consequently it does not fit correctly.

The picture to the left shows that the fender is a good quarter inch wide from fitting the grill correctly. And the picture below show that it does not fit the peak of the grill either.

To the left you can see where we had to cut the fender apart and reweld it so that it would form correctly to match the door lines.

Unfortunately we had to cut the front of the fender apart to get it to fit correctly.

I guess that the lesson to be learned from this is that cheaper is not always better!!

The labor to correct the poor fit of this fender is far more than what the customer paid for the fender in the first place.

That is why we only stock and sell parts we use on our restorations.

They fit much better than the "Cheaper" body parts that the Wally World of Bronco parts sells.

We have found several other spots that need attention before the body prep can start.

After finding more cancer than originally thought, we have decided to remove the body from the frame.

This way we can go ahead and sand blast it to make sure we get all the cancer removed.

We also found that a rear body mount is completely rotted away.

This will get fixed now where it may have been overlooked before.

On to a rotisserie for repair and blasting.

We will even need to repair the frame from rotted areas.

Sheet metal is ready for paint

The body has been blasted and is ready for sheet metal work

A few more rusted areas were found after the blasting was done.

We fix them before starting the final body prep work for paint.

The body is just about ready for seam sealer and etc primer. Then on the primer surfacer and sealers then finally base coat and clear coat.

Once we started the blasting process we found that the tailgate is rotted from the inside out.

It will be cheaper for our customer if we replace it with a new tailgate than repair it.

Yes, this picture was taken before the clear coat is applied.

While the truck ran great the chassis is a little gnarly!!

The transmission leaks and the fame is a bit too nasty for the newly painted body to sit on.

We will fix the leaks and see what we can do to get the chassis looking better.

I have been asked to note the Stupendous and Amazing welding job done on the sheet metal before the rig was brought to us!!.

Good Job!!

We needed to seal some leaks in the transmission so we decided to go ahead and pull the engine and transmission assemblies,

The entire chassis was blasted, body mount areas repaired, rear hitch installed and everything was cleaned and prepped for paint.

We applied POR15 to the entire chassis and followed with chassis black enamel for further protection.

With the transmission sealed up drivetrain components are being reinstalled and readied for the body.

We mask off all the painted areas and then apply etch primer to the remaining bare sheet metal.

We apply a good coating of urethane to the underside of the body.

Again, etch prime the inside of the tub.

We then apply the sound deadener coating.

Ceramic insulation coat is applied

And finally a coat of urethane will make this tub nearly impervious to rust.

The body is ready for reassembly!

Hard top is ready for paint as well.

Dash is reassembled, wiring restored and switches cleaned.

Final wet sanding and buffing to get the body finished.

Another Bronco project Completed!!!