Notes from Wheeling / Breaking / Fixing / Loving the Bronco

[partylineisfine]

Hello Forum,

I thought I'd document some of the hits and misses from my 2021 Badlands Sasquatch since buying it 4 weeks ago. I typically drive my vehicles hard and use them to the top of their ability (see breaking point) and do most of my own work to fix what has been broken. I'll also note all upgrades and adjustments I've made. Everyone has their own look and I'm chipping away at mine.

Here is where the story starts:

My friend is sponsored by the Bronco Wild Fund for a non-profit I sit on the board for (Sons of Smokey). We do trail clean-up and land stewardship promotion. Bronco sent us to Moab in May for the rodeo for trail clean up. If I saw you there...hi again. If you were being spotted on Hells Gate, I helped the guy that put his white bronco on its side (a story for another time, but the learning here is to make sure your spotter knows what they are doing). Anywho, my friend procured a Brapter from his friend and asked if I wanted to co-pilot. We spent the week with some really awesome people and got to know the community much better. We also got to wheel the Brapter pretty hard and I was super impressed with the build.

4 weeks later I was scheduled to return to Moab for a every-other-year family trip. Normally, I trailer my 317,000-mile 1994 Land Cruiser I've built to be my rock crawler. This thing has been on some amazing trips and has never broken. Here's a pic:

I know...Mint

Come to find out, my wife hates riding in the land cruiser. I learned this 5 days before we were scheduled to leave. She stated and I held her to this: "Any wheeling vehicle you want, except the Land Cruiser, can we please buy it and take it instead?"

So, after about 24 hours of scouring the internet, I found a very lightly used 2021 BadSas with 17,000 miles on the ticker. There were others in contention, but they either needed me to drive 7+ hours to get them, they had too many bad modifications to undo, or the dealership was out of their mind with pricing. This one was in town, priced right and from a super laid back dealer.

After about an hour of thinking about it, I got this one. Immediately took the doors off and drove it all day.

Side note, this was an accidental troll of my brother-in-law as I purchased this 2 days after he was delivered his Bronco...after waiting 18 months.

The beautiful thing: now I didn't have to trailer my Land Cruiser 2,000 miles with my F150 and could just drive this to Moab.

Next up...how it did in Moab and traveling 2,000 miles with kids.

Sponsored

 

[graham5david]

Beautiful 94 80 series. This is my old one. It took me many places and never left me stranded. In my mind they are the ultimate offroad vehicle. Insanely overbuilt. I had a couple 40 series and an fjc as well. I miss the 80 but as with you my wife hated riding in all of them. She loves the bronco and enjoys wheeling in it. As much as I miss the others from time to time , I enjoy wheeling with my wife and the bronco has been very capable so far.

 

[partylineisfine]

Beautiful 94 80 series. This is my old one. It took me many places and never left me stranded. In my mind they are the ultimate offroad vehicle. Insanely overbuilt. I had a couple 40 series and an fjc as well. I miss the 80 but as with you my wife hated riding in all of them. She loves the bronco and enjoys wheeling in it. As much as I miss the others from time to time , I enjoy wheeling with my wife and the bronco has been very capable so far.

Nice LCs!

You have the same rear bumper as I have. I'm friends with the guy that owns Metal Tech, so I went all MT on the sliders and front bumper. His stuff is bulletproof. Hit the sliders so hard I thought my fillings would pop out. Rubicon was particularly hard on parts.

 

[partylineisfine]

Chapter 2: Getting there

Now that we have a Bronco, time to use it. I chose not to (although I wish I did) upgrade the tires and bump up the size prior to the trip, so it was time to pack up the stock rig for Moab. I have 2 kids; A 9-year-old daughter that's 5'1" and a 13-year-old son that's 5'8". I'm 6'2" and my wife is 5'7". I write that to give perspective. We have to pack a new smaller vehicle with 7 days of stuff and ride comfortably 2000 miles on a freeway at 90MPH.

Long story short, it packed up fine. We had plenty of room. The Bronco drove great and we averaged about 18.6 MPG. Not bad. We didn't have any roof rack (soft top) and had 2 bikes on a hitch rack.

Couple of ride notes:
- It drove better than the Brapter on the highway and at speed. Tracked better.
- The wind noise was fine. past 70 it's about the same as 90. Kids wear noise-canceling earbuds. My wife and I could talk easily. Those that complain about noise at speed should buy a Lexus.
- The back seats need cup holders. Ordered some pretty nice ones that screw into the mounts.
- I'd suggest some sort of garbage can for the back seats. My family got used to putting trash in the doors. The doors don't have good compartments, so there was not an easy solution.


This is a bit of a boring entry, but thought it was relevant to the entire analysis of the Bronco. It's a good long-haul rig for a family of 4.

Next up: How does it handle Moab?

 

[partylineisfine]

Moab: Day One

So, after 13 hours straight in a Bronco, we arrive in Moab. Tradition for our group is to unpack as quickly as possible and the guys that brought capable rigs take them up the first part of Steel Bender (*rated 7) to a place we call Beer Hill. It's an attempt to shake off the driving rust and have a beer after driving with your family for an extended period of time. The first part of Steel Bender goes through some private property, through 3 creek crossings, and up a few decent lines.

This was no ordinary year. The creek was more of a river. I started driving through it not realizing I was still in 2WD. Starting to get stuck with water up the bottom of the door sills, I punched it which buried the front end and pushed water up onto the windshield. After a little gurgle, the water didn't seem to do much or any damage to parts so we pushed on...in 4WD. Also, the drain plugs are nice to have and didn't know they existed until this moment.

Another pretty cool thing I learned is the air intake under the hood line has a water trap before getting to the intake. Under crossing situations, the water goes into the trap before going into the intake. If you decide to water cross more than above the headlights for a sustained distance, you'll probably need a dorkle to save your engine. Don't take this as an endorsement to river cross. Water is hard on vehicles. Dumb shit happens all the time and there are few options when you get in trouble. Know the trail and expect the worst.

"Creek Crossing" (this is usually just barely up to the bottom lugs most years. They got a lot of snow) This is my friend's bronco on Patagonia 35s

First optional obstacle on "Beer Hill." I didn't try this as it didn't seem possible with a 4 door's breakover with stock 35s. I might have been able to scratch my way up, but this was just a shakedown.

Other than hitting the control arm brackets a few times (which are very sturdy), the frame cross members, and the front skid a few times, the Bronco did as expected. Gearing is good, lockers and sta-bar disconnect are awesome, and the front camera is a nice to have after driving blind for years.

So far, so good.

 

[va011101]

Chapter 2: Getting there

Now that we have a Bronco, time to use it. I chose not to (although I wish I did) upgrade the tires and bump up the size prior to the trip, so it was time to pack up the stock rig for Moab. I have 2 kids; A 9-year-old daughter that's 5'1" and a 13-year-old son that's 5'8". I'm 6'2" and my wife is 5'7". I write that to give perspective. We have to pack a new smaller vehicle with 7 days of stuff and ride comfortably 2000 miles on a freeway at 90MPH.

Long story short, it packed up fine. We had plenty of room. The Bronco drove great and we averaged about 18.6 MPG. Not bad. We didn't have any roof rack (soft top) and had 2 bikes on a hitch rack.

Couple of ride notes:
- It drove better than the Brapter on the highway and at speed. Tracked better.
- The wind noise was fine. past 70 it's about the same as 90. Kids wear noise-canceling earbuds. My wife and I could talk easily. Those that complain about noise at speed should buy a Lexus.
- The back seats need cup holders. Ordered some pretty nice ones that screw into the mounts.
- I'd suggest some sort of garbage can for the back seats. My family got used to putting trash in the doors. The doors don't have good compartments, so there was not an easy solution.


This is a bit of a boring entry, but thought it was relevant to the entire analysis of the Bronco. It's a good long-haul rig for a family of 4.

Next up: How does it handle Moab?

Love the details here. I have had my BadSas for 48 hours and anticipate some family hauling. I didn't realize the back was without cup holders. What solution did you find?

 

[partylineisfine]

Love the details here. I have had my BadSas for 48 hours and anticipate some family hauling. I didn't realize the back was without cup holders. What solution did you find?

I got this one. Works pretty well. Needs to be removable to fold the back seats down.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTD68P77?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

 

[mcinfantry]

Excellent content so far.
Just made my way back from Moab and interested to see your take

my description is my 2 door is it is about as 90% capable as what I’ve built in the past, but I also don’t have to plan to work on it all the time

 

[partylineisfine]

Excellent content so far.
Just made my way back from Moab and interested to see your take

my description is my 2 door is it is about as 90% capable as what I’ve built in the past, but I also don’t have to plan to work on it all the time

What trails did you hit?

 

[partylineisfine]

Day 2: Father's day

To my wife, she believes Fathers Day is all about getting away from your children. I think there's a lot to love about that belief.

So we decided to do a hard trail that nobody else wanted to do. Steel Bender all the way through.

We've done sections of Steel Bender leading to this point and never had an issue. There are 3 main obstacles buried half way through the trail.

So, I loaded 3 other meat sacks into my 4 door and set off in the morning to do the loop.

What I learned:
- The Bronco had better approach and departure angles than the Land Cruiser
- The Land Cruiser had almost 8" better breakover than the Bronco
- The Framerails will hit far before the sliders
- The support cross member is going to get bashed to shit but protects the sta-bar and other stuff pretty well.
- The trans pan is completely exposed (this will come into play in future posts)
- The transfer case is completely exposed
- The gas tank is a bit exposed but has a skid. I wish it was better tucked.
- The front skid is fine for slow approaches
- Trail turn assist bailed me out from a tippy spot
- Although I didn't hit them, I could have used shock mount skids.

Overall, it was an awesome trail. I got a bit shinier underneath, but nothing broke. We did name the Bronco Bill after Mr. Bill. My friend happened to have a Mr. Bill toy that we zip-tied in front of the camera which lead to everyone saying Oh Noooooo! when we went down steep parts of the trail.

 

[partylineisfine]

Day 3: Family Day

As a group of 9 families, we chose to tackle Fins and Things for the grins. Not anything too crazy on this trail, but there are a few party lines. It almost felt like the broncos of the group were there to give a tour to the 5 other jeeps.

We had 2 old CJ5s that couldn't do the angles of some of the obstacles, so we ended up towing them up. Great optics for Ford.

After Fins and Things, we headed to the grocery to get hell's revenge sandwiches (I highly recommend) and set off to Tower Arch. This is a tradition in our group to do it every year. We go the back way through dinosaur tracks and then head through Arches NP. There are a few spots that are a little twisty, but nothing that you couldn't do on 31s and some know-how.

No damage, although kids got really tired of the dust, heat and no doors.

39% on the dash

 

[awall987]

Ohh Nooo! Mr. Bill

 

[JediMcMuffin]

You are officially my favorite person on this forum. Well done, can't wait to hear more.

 

[Acadist]

Day 2: Father's day

To my wife, she believes Fathers Day is all about getting away from your children. I think there's a lot to love about that belief.

So we decided to do a hard trail that nobody else wanted to do. Steel Bender all the way through.

We've done sections of Steel Bender leading to this point and never had an issue. There are 3 main obstacles buried half way through the trail.

So, I loaded 3 other meat sacks into my 4 door and set off in the morning to do the loop.

What I learned:
- The Bronco had better approach and departure angles than the Land Cruiser
- The Land Cruiser had almost 8" better breakover than the Bronco
- The Framerails will hit far before the sliders
- The support cross member is going to get bashed to shit but protects the sta-bar and other stuff pretty well.
- The trans pan is completely exposed (this will come into play in future posts)
- The transfer case is completely exposed
- The gas tank is a bit exposed but has a skid. I wish it was better tucked.
- The front skid is fine for slow approaches
- Trail turn assist bailed me out from a tippy spot
- Although I didn't hit them, I could have used shock mount skids.

Overall, it was an awesome trail. I got a bit shinier underneath, but nothing broke. We did name the Bronco Bill after Mr. Bill. My friend happened to have a Mr. Bill toy that we zip-tied in front of the camera which lead to everyone saying Oh Noooooo! when we went down steep parts of the trail.

Love Mr Bill on the camera…….classic!

 

[I Like Soup]

This is great! I was in Moab over Father's day and beyond. I saw your party pull those 2 older jeeps up Fins and Things! Some guy was in your group with a Bronco with Instagram stuff all over it too. Small world! I was with another Bronco and we all stood around for a bit talking.

Sponsored