5/30/05

IT'S ALIVE!!! This morning I was able to get enough of the wiring figured out to actually fire up the motor. It really works! As you can see from the photo I've got most of the dash already assembled. The driveline is supposed to be done this week and my brakes are already bled and functional so this weekend I should be rolling out of the garage. At this point I have no brake lights, turn signals, or head lights so actual road travel will be limited. I also need to get some new shims for the rear axle so the driveline geometry will be correct. Once all that is done I still need to make my speed sensor trigger wheel and mount it on the input to the rear axle. There was also a little blue and white brake pedal sensor that wouldn't mount up properly with my new dash location. I'm not sure whether it's supposed to operate the brake lights or cancel the cruise control but either way I need to come up with another mount for it. I'm quite relieved and excited that all my time and money are finally paying off. Sorry I didn't have more pictures to show but the bronco is taking priority over the website right now.

6/05/05

I got my new driveline installed and the bronco is on the road! The power of the new 5.4 triton is beyond my expectations. With the old 400 motor I had to turn the steering wheel to one side to get the tires to spin and the 5.4 bakes them on dry pavement at 3/4 throttle. Nice. I do have a leaky "non-serviceable" radiator that will cost me $350 to replace and I have an electronic throttle DTC that occurs every time I put my foot in it over 30 mph. Once the code comes on the engine starts to misfire which makes me think it's an artificial detune to get me to take it in. I pull over, turn the engine off then on again, and everything runs fine. I'd get a little more detail on it but my laptop died right after I read the code. Oh well, here's a video clip of the bronco in front of my house. It's 2.68 Mb so it may take some time to download without a fast connection.

On the road!
(Mpeg - 16 Sec - 2.6MB)

7/17/05

I appologize for not having updated the site in a while, but I really needed a break just to enjoy my new toy. Also I had some computer glitches that I wanted to nail down before delivering an update. I've been working on a few things over the last month and will just list them out here starting with the oldest.

Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS)

Newer vehicles no longer use a mechanical cable to read speed. They have some sort of trigger wheel in front of a sensor that can compute vehicle speed based on the number of pulses per unit time. The 2004 Ford trucks are no exception. In order for my cruise control and ABS to function I needed to have a vehicle speed sensor that mimicked the one on the differential housing of the 2004. The one on the differential housing read a 108 toothed wheel on the ring gear. My problem was my old Ford 9" doesn't have a toothed wheel in the differential. Rather than try to modify the gears I decided to add a trigger wheel on my driveline.

I machined a round plate of steel and used my rotary table to drill holes for 32 press fit pins. The pins had to be long enough so when I went over a bump they would still be in front of the VSS as the slip shaft did its job. Why 32 pins you ask? My axle ratio on the bronco is 3.5:1. That means the driveshaft turns 3.5 times for every revolution of the rear axle. Remeber I said the stock rear axle had 108 teeth on the ring gear. 32 teeth x 3.5 = 112. So now for every revolution of my rear axle the computer is seeing 112 pulses instead of 108. That's bad right? Wrong. The tires on the 2004 were 31" in diameter. My bronco tires are 32". If you do the math the additional 4 pulses per revolution of my bronco tires compensates nicely for the extra distance travelled. Pretty slick huh? Check out what it looks like on the completed driveline.

Here's a shot of it installed with the sensor in place.

Front ABS Sensors

The 2004 Ford had wheel sensors on each of the front wheels to detect a lock up condition. There was no such allowance back in '78 on a Dana 44. I decided to "upgrade" my brake rotors with "cooling" holes that just happen to function as a trigger wheel for the front ABS sensors. That rotary table sure comes in handy. The picture shows the small dimple from my center drill. I opened up the holes to around 0.20" but didn't go all the way through.

Here's a shot with it all back together and the sensor installed.

Headlights

The headlights on both the '78 and the '04 have twin elements per light. However the headlights on the '78 use one for low beam and two for high beam. The '04 uses one for low beam and the other for high beam. That makes it kind of hard to power the older bulb with the new wiring. Basically I'd be stuck with high or low beams all the time. Instead I decided to adapt the bulb and reflector from the new truck into the front glass of the bronco. Here's a picture of the older light popped open. They're not meant to do this by the way.

I then tore apart the headlight assembly from the 2004 and whittled the reflector down until it could be glued into place. Here's what it looks like installed.

You can still see the round edges on the sides, but it's hardly noticeable......until you turn them on.

If you're driving at night in western Oregon keep an eye out for the bronco with the not-so-square but not-so-round headlights. It's actually not nearly as noticeable (or as yellow) as it appears in the picture. They sure are bright though.

Interior

I also found time to snap most of the interior panels in place and it looks pretty nice.

Electronic Issues

I've been having a pretty consistent error code of P2106 every time I hit 42 mph. This wouldn't be so bad except it puts the truck into limp mode which causes an artificial miss and sputter from the motor. All I had to do was turn the motor off then back on again and it was fixed, as long as I was below 42 mph! P2106 is a "throttle actuator control system" error which refers to the electronic drive by wire throttle on the '04 trucks. This simply could not be the case since the error was entirely speed dependent. It didn't matter whether I had my foot to the floor or what gear I was in. Right at 42 mph WHAM the truck wouldn't run right.

I did a little searching on the internet and found that Ford has realeased some TSB's (techincal service bulletins) for vehicles with a similar problem. Fortunately I was able to hook up with the son of a coworker who happens to work at a nearby Ford service center. He connected up to my computer and downloaded an update which eliminated my 42 mph woes! I have had a similar condition come back about three times since, but for the most part I'm cruising down the highway with cruise control at 70 mph and less than 2,000 rpm. Nice!

The really fun part was driving that thing into the Ford service department. Most guys walked up to it and just stared. They just couldn't believe I'd been able to do the project at all, much less in under a year. The best response I've heard so far is "Dude, are you married?"