Bill's Early Bronco build

[Bill Profile Private message]

I have slowed down from my usual slow pace which means I practically stopped, during the holidays .

Plus Grand kids put a financial strain on me during xmas. Plus , it was xmas so I rewarded myself with a new pistola , for those who don't know I am a self diagnosed paranoid scitzo and a retired po po, so I carry a gun on me virtually every where except the shower .

If I'm welding in the garage , I e usually have 2 guns one in my pocket , a Kel Tec .32, and one nearby hidden under something. The one hidden needs to pack a bigger wollop . So I bought a 12.7 ounce Kel Tec PF-9, 9mm with an OD (green) slide.

It is one of the smallest 9mm's you can buy. see the pic. It holds 7 , 6 rounds in the mag , one in the pipe. I shot it already , really snaps in your had , has a very long trigger pull which I thought was odd but every round is double action. The long trigger pull seems to almost work as a safety . I really like it .

I did however mount the freakin windshield frame . The cowl was bowed where the new windshield frame bolted on . I guess from years of metal fatigue I hade to get a harbor freight ram and push the cowl up a tad to attempt straitening it . It worked for the most part but the hinge still bows a bit at the center , so I drilled and tapped the bottom of the windshield and pulled it down with some 5/16 bolts , it's not noticeable . I ordered some billet aluminum windshield knobs to pull it up in place it will look good ,, I think

[Bill Profile Private message]

I thought I would throw in some gun stuff occasionally since the readers of this build thread are almost certainly exclusively guys. Which means guy talk !! . So , sometime ago I traded an SKS and some cash for a spike arms 16" barrel 5.56 chambered AR 15. I saved and later bought a complete upper 16" bull barrel chambered with a WYLDE configuration which makes the use of .223 rounds more accurate. Meaning it shoots 5.56 and .223 with equal accuracy. I sold the spike upper for 300 which off set the cost of the 500 for the bull barrel. I bought a timney 3 pound trigger for greater accuracy and put a Nikon P-223 3-9 variable scope on it . I am not an AR fan but my son got me into this . If I was going to shoot with and AR 15 I wanted it accurate . In the pic the 3 bullet holes in and around the one inch red dot are mine. That's a little over a one inch group at 100 yards , not bad. But I was hoping for better ,,, good enough for the zombie apocalypse I guess.

[Bill Profile Private message]

This is the start of the roll cage , I had such a hard time with this . I kept getting stuff crooked , wrong bend, blah blah. I took a day off after this day . It gave me a headache

[Bill Profile Private message]

This is an end of the day stress reliever

[Jeremyrowell]

We need to go shooting sometime Bill!

[Bill Profile Private message]

Finished the fender wells ,,, I stopped working on the cage because I realized the fender wells would be incorporated into the cage ,,, they had to be done first

[Bill Profile Private message]

oh shit they are sideways

[Bill Profile Private message]

Still working on the cage,,

[Bill Profile Private message]

So I felt it is a good time to start looking into dimple dies for the 1.5 holes I was putting into the support/deco plates that went between the up bars or "B" pillars as lots of folks call them. I knew that Robert Young had a home made version of a dimpler so I went and got it ,,, unfortunately it is just a cone shaped piece of metal with a harbor freight hand press thingy and it works in some applications but not this one . I apparently needed a regular dimple die . This is one of those lessons where you say , there is just nothing else that will do except the good stuff. I hate it when I can't skimp. Fortunately this is a sample piece.

[Bill Profile Private message]

So I shopped around and found the least expensive dimple die , about 60 bucks and it's in route to me casa ,, so in the mean time I thought I'd work on the cage . I wanted to put speakers and a good LED dome light into the roll cage just above the driver/passenger heads. So that meant running wire or just drill holes and pull it through later . Problem with running wire through prior to welding is that it gets the wire really hot and burns it up . The problem running wire after is the sharp corners on the metal , I would have to spend tons of time making the holes with smooth beveled corners so wire would go through while being pulled. I opted for the burn up method. These wires are blurry but you can see the black ,,, ya that's burned up . So I was able to pull it through and repair the wire, thinking , well I can't do this again. I shopped around the garage looking for even the smallest of ideas to prevent the heat of welding from burning up the wires . I happen to see a piece of embry cloth laying on the work bench . You know the thick stuff that comes in a role about 2 inches wide? It's really thick paper with sanding material on one side. I welded on some sample metal and put the embry cloth against it , it smelled sort of like leather burning . I picked it up and there was nothing . The embry cloth withstood the heat of a fresh weld . So I proceeded to wrap the wire with embry cloth sand paper putting the sand paper side next to the wire as to prevent slippage. I stuck the wire back into the hole and will weld it today with the help of running water out in the driveway. I will weld about an inch then cool it with the water hose , then continue like that till it's welded up . Prior to putting the speakers in I will test the continuity of the wires, probably with a 12V battery.