Bill's Early Bronco build

[Bill Profile Private message]

In the mean time seats came in

[Jeremyrowell]

Nice seats! Be careful cutting that tubing, I hear it can leave sharp edges!

[Bill Profile Private message]

Ha ha ,, I guess so ,, nasty cut on ol Robert poor guy ,, he came over 2 days after it happened and he was getting around pretty good,,, 30 stitches and 8 staples .

Finally got those dimple pieces in

[Bill Profile Private message]

Now to support my shock hoops

[Bill Profile Private message]

I went over to Robert lost and bloody the other day and he had a tric tools tubing notcher,,, I have been using this cheap ass harbor version for like 3 years and built my entire red and blur buggies with one and struggled with it the entire time . I finally broke down and found a woodward fab version for like 198 no tax and free shipping so I got it. I didn't notice that it does not do any notches other than straight dead on into the center of the pipe . So if I ever want to put on tube offset on top of another , its plasma cutter for me.

[Bill Profile Private message]

I had to get an idea how high my fender wells up so I tack a coup of pieces of flat steel onto the pipe as a guide then marked them and cut the support pieces at the angle I needed then put 4x4 3/16 flat pieces to the bottoms of them so they can be bolted to the adjoining side under the fender well

[Bill Profile Private message]

I had the hardest time holding those fender wells in place to drill them do the edge would stay snug against the inside of the body , I know your thinking why didn't I just weld them in first? Well I wanted to have access to the lower parts of the hoop supports to weld them in . Here is another pic with a gusset in ,, I put those in prior to checking in my drawer of tabs to see how many I had ,, I only had 2 , this is my life story in a nutshell. I wanted the other side to match. I knew they were left over from building the red buggy and they are distinctive , with 5 holes in them . I was worried I wouldn't be able to find any. I searched my receipts of the red buggy build and found them,,, I bought them at KAR TEC 4x4 , checked the site and fortunately they still had them . Cheap too!!!!

[Bill Profile Private message]

The under side , that's all 3/16 DOM ,, strong stuff,,,,,, wow that's not a pretty weld , I guess I should have grinded it down first lol.

[Bill Profile Private message]

So , my shifter story ,, my brother Jack who is also building a Bronco put one of those ol time looking shifters from lokar . You push the top in with your thumb and move it to any gear. We are both running AOD trannies. He had to use a kit that replaces the shift lever inside the transmission to make the shifter work with an AOD. I figured I had to do the same. I didn't want the ol time looking shifter and I used a B&M mega shifter in my red bronco , it looked and worked well but this bronco being my last one , I wanted something special or more aggressive . I love the Art Carr shifters which are now called Winters Sidewinder. They are in tons of buggies including mine . First, they don't make them for an AOD , so I did some research and discovered that Winters , the makers of the shifter are in PA. I called them and it's a huge conglomerate they told me they bought the design and Art Carr can no longer use his name for selling them, he sold all rights. I did a search and found "California Performance Transmissions" , the real Art Carr. This guy is a legend in the tranny world , no way did I figure he was there. I called , a gal answers , I tell her of my search for an Art Carr shifter that would work with an AOD, she says hang on , talk to Art. This old guy picks up , this is Art he says. So I talk to Art for like 20 minutes . He tells me the story of him selling his name. He made tons of money from it but eventually got bored and started another tranny shop . He says the Art Carr/Winters shifter can in fact work with an AOD and that he could sell me the kit to replace the shift lever in the AOD to make it work. Sound exactly what my brother already did to make the lokar work.

[Bill Profile Private message]

You can get the winters shifter in every type shift pattern. So I look at the length of the shifter , 15 inches ,,, way too freaken long for a bronco. they make console type shifters but I would have to fab a box for it to sit on , more work and time,,,can't use it . So while fiddling around typing in many variations of the word shifter in a search, I stumbled onto KILDUFF shifters http://www.kilduffmachine.com/ this guy is in LA make cool looking shifters. I called him and talked extensively about his shifters and my size constraints we got down to a , Horseshoe Standard 3, with an 8 inch long body , 9.5 tall. It might work and they are pretty neat looking .