1/22/2006

I've got most of the functional things taken care of on the bronco so I've begun spending more time on the interior. The new seats from the 2004 have been waiting long enough and it's time for installation. Every time I've shown the bronco to people I tell them the biggest challenge in front of me is installing the seats, and every time they bust out laughing. They see how much work it took to get the engine and everything installed and just assume the seats will be a breeze. What they don't get is that Ford doesn't make seats for their trucks anymore that slide far enough forward to climb around behind them. That's what third or fourth doors are for. Well, my bronco doesn't have an extra door and I need the seat out of a 4 door truck to slide 14" forward. How am I supposed to rig that up?

Anyone that knows what this is won't believe what I'm doing with it. It's strong (12,000 lb load capacity) smooth, and has absolutely no slop in it at all. What really kills me is I'm not using it to build the plasma table I've always wanted. Oh well, I got a really good deal on it.

Here's the bottom of the seat as it comes stock. The rails only travel about 8 inches. I need 14. The rail gives me slightly more than that. So how do I mount the seat to the rail?

I basically ripped off the stock feet leaving the adjustment rails in place. Then I fabbed up a huge heavy bracket to bolt accross both stock rails and leave an opening in the middle big enough for my linear rail to attach. You can see the heavy steel I used that bolts into the subframe underneath. This seat isn't going anywhere.

I appologize for the poor picture quality, but this shows the seat bolted down along with my latch mechanism installed.

Here's the seat in its normal position for someone with long legs like me. Imagine how far that thing has to go to get in behind it.

Here it is after sliding forward on the linear rail only. It bumps right up against the dash. Unfortunately the seat doesn't tilt any further forward than that. The tilt adjustment won't allow it.......yet.

Once I get some time to work on that I'll make it tip much further forward and will make it much easier to crawl behind the seat.

I'd say it's shaping up nicely, don't you think?

12/10/2006

I can't believe it's almost been a year since I've updated the site. All I can say is TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE HAVING FUN!!!!!! What good is an awesome bronco if you can't go out and use it? I can truly say that I used every bit of this bronco's off road functionality this year. Balancing on two wheels going over obstacles, scraping the bumpers on the way in and out, the usual stuff. For the record the odometer now reads 14,146 miles. 2,369 of those were done in the drivetrain's former life, meaning I've put 11,777 miles on this project of mine. Nice. I would have pulled over at 10k and done a little dance if it had occured to me.

This is a shot of where I was yesterday, the hills above Green Peter reservior outside of Sweethome, OR. You can see my bow leaned up against the rear tire of the bronco. I did a lot of archery hunting this year and the bronco did its part getting me anywhere I wanted to go.

This doesn't look very menacing to drive through, until you look a little closer and see the footprints in the mud. This is what eastern Oregon dust does after a good rain. It's slicker than snot. If I hadn't put the Trutrac in the rear axle I think we would have been walking out to get help. 20 yards back up the road we'd just decended a sudden 3 ft drop that pitched myself and my passenger up on the dash as the front left wheel went over the edge. I hadn't considered going back up it until I saw this. Fortunately I didn't have to turn around and try it.

The miles fly by much faster when you've got good tunes to listen to on a nice set of speakers. I picked up four of these 6x9's and installed two of them in the diamond plate. I've been meaning to do this ever since I installed the plate years ago, and finally broke down and spent the time and money to do it.

I've only got the center console about 3/4 installed. It's not totally bolted down in the front, but I've got the important part in the next photo. Yes those are spent amunition casings in the cup holder. I throw lead as well as arrows from time to time.

This is a 2500 watt power inverter. It converts the 12v of my automotive electrical system into a simulated 110v household alternating current. How much power is that? Your average household outlet is only rated to 15 amps. Modern kitchen outlets used for microwaves and dishwashers are rated to 20 amps. This thing is rated to 21.2 amps. I actually used it to power a microwave and heat up some soup in the field. I plan on tying in at least a couple GFI outlets in the diamond plate in the back for easy access.

All those miles and trips to go hunting earned me a nice big rock in the windshield from a dump truck. I'd gotten some weld splatter on the windshield when I was fabricating, but it wasn't really enough to justify replacing it. I guess now I have a reason.