Meet Minty, my 2dr on 37's, "Vintage" Build Thread!

[Mirage]

Hard to believe this was $250, plus another $50 for the air coupler bracket... Ordered it from Everything Bronco Aftermarket and honestly surprised I got it, after reading all the negative feedback about them..., but it showed up last night, a full 4 days before it was supposed too! They never replied to any of my emails about it, but it took roughly 2 weeks to get here. On the other hand, I emailed KR Off-Road, (since they're the company that makes this) and asked them how soon it would ship, as on their website it says estimated shipping January 23rd and all I got back from them was, $25 off until January 20th...

Was planning on installing it today, but our awful negative temps the other day, required my attention to do something else...

New 80g water heater vs our, dead, barely 6 year old 40g water heater... Was planning on replacing the diode, elements and thermostat, but when I was removing the foam around the diode, hot water just came out of nowhere! From searching on the net, it says that happens when there's an actual hole in the top of the tank... Oh well, we wanted a better water heater anyway! New 80g one was $900, ($1300 off on sale!)

Took me about 3 hours, but I switched everything from PVC/CPVC to full PEX!

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[Mirage]

Well, last night, I started feeling piss-poor awful, glad today was a holiday! My boy pitty and I went to Lowe's/Home Depot to return some water heater stuff and after that, I just felt crappy all damn day! I'm into building Lego stuff and a couple of months ago, I finally pulled the trigger on the UCS Millennium Falcon!

27ish hours later, it was finished!

It has been sitting on this patio table for 2 months, without anything happening to it... Right after I built it, I ordered the very nice and sturdy acrylic stand from the UK, which finally arrived Saturday night! I built it this morning! I also bought a 24" wide x48" long shelf (and 3 HD 19" long shelf brackets), that you can see the stand sitting on!

Directions/video say 1 person can mount the Falcon on the stand.....

I have no clue WTF happened, unless I was just so weak from being sick that it just wasn't going to happen and this was the result... The Falcon weighs damn near 30lbs and 33" long, 8"+ high, 22" wide! I was so pissed off!!!! I found everything and put everything on my desk and started rebuilding it... 3-4 hours later, it was mostly complete, even though I have a bunch of small piece left over, that I have no idea where they go... and the rear engine flaps keep falling off everytime I put them on, so super glue is going to be used, when I feel like reassembling it!

I put my other Falcon Lego's with it and made a old/new character stand! I need to order parts to make a neater one though! I have D-O, but unsure where I put him? I have the other smaller 2013/4 Falcon, but unsure if I'll mess with displaying it here, I might?

So, by this time, it was about 3:30pm and I forgot I was going to install that air compressor mount, so I went into the cold weather out back and got it done!

My rear compressor wasn't working, but after some test lighting, I found the issue, that shitty pigtail connector to the upper right in the pic... I will make these 2 hots/grounds permanently tired together on a warmer day! I modified the air coupler mount too, since the ARB on/off switch hole wasn't needed, as my switch is on my upfitters!

I also made a better ground stud on the neg side of the battery cable, as I've been reading accessories aren't supposed to be connected at the BMS nut? No clue if that's true or not, they're all doing the same thing....

Discovered the smaller stud on the posi side is an M5. Couldn't find a flanged M5 nut, so I just stuck a wingnut on there for now? I'll order one from McMaster Carr, along with some other stuff this week!

I didn't have time to fix my "new" front diff skid plate, but I'll get to it soon!

 

[Mirage]

I have made an updated list of every part added on my Bronco, on the 1st post of this thread, if anyone cares to know?

 

[Mirage]

About 2pm yesterday, I went outside, (first time I've been outside since the 19th!, other than my doctor office visits!) and started looking at the posi/neg wires on ARB Twin pigtail.

For a while now, only one compressor had been working, then both quit, then back to one.

Apparently I had to modify the harness when I ran it through the firewall on my JK and mounted under my passengers side seat? Anyway, I barely touched the pigtail connection and the 2 positive wires, on the butt connectors, on harness just came out...

I R&R'd the pigtail and tightened the connectors, then I used some proper butt connectors and pliers made for them to repair them properly! Well, properly would've been soldering the wires, but I wasn't in the position to do that today... A new harness is $100, so I might just buy one soon?

This looks way better than whatever I did last time, LOL! I tested it out after the "fix" and both compressors were working fine! I need to put them in some wire loom tomorrow.

No pics, but I then took my front diff skid plate off and started working on the new parts I'm going to use! This should be finished tomorrow, then I'll take new pics!

A few months ago, I started hearing a small metal to metal rattle in the rear end, when I hit a little dip in my driveway? I thought it was my D-rings hitting my bumper, but today, I believe I found the culprit! I got under the Bronco and started grabbing/shaking things and my practically new 3rd revision of my MetalCloak rear diff skid plate had already worked itself loose... I tightened the piss out of it and no more rattles, so maybe that was the issue?

 

[Mirage]

So, I went back to work last Monday from being pretty damn sick for 2 weeks, since MLKJ Day actually! I wasn't exactly back to my normal self and got sick again Tuesday night, having to take off Wednesday and go back to the doctor... Then going back to work Thursday and Friday. I am so beyond ready to retire yall! 3 years 11 months left! It cannot get here quick enough! By that time, I'll have 25 years with the company I work at! But, anyway, today was sort of warm and sunny, so I decided to attempt to work on my old F-150 and also the Bronco?

Started changing the oil on the truck and felt pretty good, so I started working on the Bronco afterwards!

The other day, when leaving work, I noticed my passengers side of the hood was at least opened an inch, maybe more? I opened the hood and immediately saw what the issue was, it was were I mounted the ARB air coupler, on my newest OBA setup. Crappy thing is, the same company that makes the compressor mount, also sells that bracket separately and shows the coupler mounted exactly as I mounted it.... Anyway, I thought about rerouting the line with some 1/4" brass, but tried something today and the hood closes absolutely fine! I also cleaned up my wire repair, (that I did last week), a little nicer!

Next, when I ran my winch master cut-off switch, I didn't have the correct size terminals and also ran the 2g cable a little short... So, yesterday, Autozone had both correct terminal sizes I needed, also for 2ga cable, so I grabbed both of them! I did a much nicer job with the new cable, made it a tad longer and used some nice wrap over it!

Lastly, I finished my modified front diff skid plate. This time, I used a piece of 1"x1.5" rectangle tubing, instead of those pieces of pipe I had used before. Up front, where it mounts to the bash plate, I used much nicer stainless bolts with lock-nuts. It should take a hit pretty well?

 

[Mirage]

Got the Bronco aligned Monday afternoon. Wish I took a before pic, because the front end was all out of wack! It drove straight beforehand, but I noticed over the weekend that the front tires looked funny, (not funny haha, funny queer!), the young man that did the alignment said that the passengers side was toed 5/8" out of spec alone! Everything was messed up, but they got it all straightened out for me and cheaper than most of these big box tire companies!

I've been in the Huntsville area all of my life and never knew about this place until Monday morning! Family owned and operated, Tom Sharp Tire Center, been in Huntsville since April 1965! The founder, Tom, died in 2024 at the ripe age of 94, but his son and nephews are still running it today!

Tire Discounters had been taking care of my vehicles for the last few years, until I stopped by there Monday morning! They had fired the guy that had been awesome to me and this new dude said they changed their policy (price) for aligning lifted vehicles.... $300 total! I said yall have lost your minds! I will not be doing any business with yall anymore! Same way with the local Firestone I used before TD, the new people they're bringing in are now, we can't this or we can't that, etc...

Side note: I've also been thinking about selling the Bronco, but after yesterday, I will not list anything for sale on this forum again!

 

[Mirage]

So, about a month ago, I ordered some White "FORD" Tailgate Letters from Stickerfab and thought they got lost in shipping, but magically arrived at the house last Thursday night!

Unfortunately, they are still too wide to fit on my tailgate with my HD Barricade Spare Tire Kit... So, I'll be looking for a different hinge setup to hold my 37'' spare tire, just so I can use these letters

 

[Bronco21Maybe]

I really like the green with the white top and wheels and grill. Super sharp!

 

[Mirage]

I really like the green with the white top and wheels and grill. Super sharp!

Thanks! I'm happy to be one of few like this and happy Ford didn't make a Heritage in EG

 

[Mirage]

Alrighty, almost all the new stuff I ordered for the spare tire has arrived. I was hoping to work on it today, but now it's raining. I will try my best to get it finished this weekend! This is all because I want to use the tailgate letters, LOL!

 

[Mirage]

 

[Mirage]

I worked on all of the above, went in for an hour or so and came back outside. The way the spare tire looked was awful, so gears started spinning in my head and I decided to remove the RC Tire Relocater part!

Also, when I ordered the OEM Tire Carrier, (I threw mine away 2 years ago), from eBay last week, I had no clue there were different ones for the Sasquatch... The one I ordered wasn't for a Sasquatch, but after some researching, it seems like the differences are the camera tube length and the length of the wheel studs?

I "modified" my OEM carrier with parts from the Barricade HD carrier I will need some slightly longer bolts, but it'll work for now!

My front camera had come loose from the OEM black holder and had fallen down some. When I would use the front camera, it would only come up on the screen as a half circle! This pic is after the fix!

And I finally installed and wired up my 2 rear "Dust" lights after 2 years of owning the Bronco, LOL!

 

[Mirage]

I also removed that awful dim license plate light last weekend. I ordered a better one, not sure if it's better quality wise, but it actually lights up my plate at night better!

Also, ordered some longer 10.9 bolts for the spare tire holder, that I would feel more comfortable having in there, with the 37 hanging off of it now! As well as some XT Spare Tire Lugnuts, to "bite" the stud a little more, although, I've been driving the Bronco to work all week and it's not gotten lose or anything, so it's probably just another overkill thing I want to do, LOL! I will attempt to get those installed this weekend.

I also ordered the inner vent trim piece that goes on the inside of the tailgate. For whatever reasons, all the Ford and eBay sellers want $80 +/- alone to ship it, why? I found it to be shipped for $40, but still, why so much? It's not long or heavy?? I need the 2 outer tailgate center "vents", but apparently nobody has those available, anywhere, at all....?

We are thinking about going on a lite offroading trail in a couple of weeks, so if that happens, I'll try to get some pics?

 

[Mirage]

It rained all weekend and I had a ton of stuff to do over the weekend, so I didn't get anything done to the Bronco, hell, we didn't even get to go riding like we planned... Maybe next weekend?

 

[Mirage]

This massive shipping box, measuring in at 30"x17"x16", from the Levittown Ford dealer up north, to ship the inner tailgate trim! $40 bucks to ship it, originally it was $80 to ship it, but I had a 50% off shipping code! No special 2 day shipping or anything, it took almost 2 weeks to get here... Box was caved in and there was a single piece of wrinkled up paper in the box...

That massive box above to ship this tiny piece of trim....

Inner tailgate trim installed. At least it looks nice back on there. I assumed these things were everywhere online, but it took me a while to find one, period... Shocked when I say the shipping price, but everyone that had one available, the shipping was through the roof!

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