Hellwig 68 Bronco Project

[bknaus]

This is a build I'm doing for work and I have a couple threads going for this on Pirate and Classic Broncos. The people on those forums have a lot of opinions but I have no idea if they are master fabricators or drive a Prius and just watch the Top Truck Challenge DVDs. I figured I'd post up here where I might have an idea if you know what you're talking about or not. Also, this has been going for a couple weeks now so bear with me on the tons of updates right away and forgive me for the lack of Toyota. Any opinions or ideas are appreciated!

We basically have a Bronco that we're just keeping the body and VIN and everything else will be new. Our plans is to have the suspension on the frame with the drivetrain mounted by SEMA (10/25) to have in the Hellwig booth. Then get back, finish everything else including body and then take it to Moab!

Plans:
2011 Ford Coyote 5.0 crate engine
6r80 Tranny (6 speed auto w/ 4.17 first gear)
3:1 Atlas T-Case
Art Morrison Frame
Delphi steering box w/ ram assist
Fox Coilovers
Hellwig Sway Bars (obviously)
Currie 9 Inch Axles with 1 ton outers
4link rear
Radius arm front
And a million other details

Now, pics of how she started:


How it showed up, plates with Feb 1988 stickers...


Playing a little before teardown and to check clearance on our Bronco sway bars. LOTS of frame flex put the fan into the radiator...


Interior


Original 289 with X23,000 miles. Your guess on the first digit...

 

[bknaus]

The tear down! There was just as much grinding as there was use of sockets to get everything apart. There's some solid rust repair/bodywork in the future... Overall though, everything went pretty smooth.


Topless (18+ only?)


Stripped


Our synchronized fork lift body removal dance. Worked really well and let us leave all the drivetrain intact


Body


Everything else

 

[bknaus]

The heart! Maybe no more backfiring with this one like the 289 it used to have?

Ford 5.0 Coyote still in the crate. Opening that container was a great feeling!

 

[bknaus]

Parts have started trickling in. As usual Randy's Ring and Pinion had us covered and got us our stuff right away.

We got the Randy Nodular Daytona 9" third member for the rear with 4.86 gears and a Grizzly locker. The Daytona has a nice big pinion support that we really like.

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/7-18-2012 New Parts/000_7390.jpg

We got our 6r80 transmission out of a wrecked 2011 F150 5.0 with only ~1000 miles. The tranny's bolted to our Atlas t-case adapter made by Tumblin Automotive. The adapter is really nice and uses all the factory seals and bolts right up!

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/7-18-2012 New Parts/000_7381.jpg

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/7-18-2012 New Parts/000_7384.jpg

We also got some Randy D60 35 spline flanges (YHC 50005) and D60 35 spline Yukon spin free locking hubs (YHC 70002). The locking hubs look really beefy and have that added bling factor. They're also all heat treated hopefully making them not be the breaking point?
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/7-18-2012 New Parts/Randy.jpg

 

[bknaus]

Well, took some pictures of our axles and progress there. Currie Enterprises made us some awesome stuff!

Currie front axle housing with 3.25"x3/8" wall tubing and 1 ton knuckes


Currie rear axle housing with 3.5"x3/8" wall tubes and 1 ton outers


Our front Currie third member with 4.86 gears and ARB locker

 

[bknaus]

Our original plan was to set up the suspension the old fashioned way with the frame, finding center line, designing brackets, etc but while we wait for the frame it seems like SEMA is just around the corner so we decided to try something new for us to speed up the process. We measured our axles with our CMM and then using data from that and both Currie and Art Morrison we designed our brackets, are having them laser cut and will get them tacked into place before we even have the frame in hand. We'll see how it works out!

Measuring the rear axle with our Faro arm

Rear axle measured with the Faro arm

Rear axle with bracketry for the sway bar, coil overs and four link

Front axle measured with the Faro arm

Front axle with bracketry for the coil overs and radius arms

 

[bknaus]

We got our frame in from Art Morrison. It came with most of our bracketry already welded in place and is really a piece of art.

Taking it our of the crate


All ready for suspension and drivetrain


Skid plate


Rear coilover mounts


Front coilover mounts


Stack-o-dimes on the link brackets


We also have our front radius arms and rear links for our 4 link with some huge Johnny Joints

Front radius arms


Rear 4 link


Begin overtime run to make SEMA!

 

[bknaus]

We got the engine, transmission and t-case in. We're running the crate Ford Racing Coyote 5.0, a 6r80 out of a wrecked 2011 F150, Tumblin Automotive's adapter and the Advanced Adapters 2 speed 3.0:1 Atlas transfer case. We may mess with the clocking on the transfer case some more to see what looks best for driveshaft angles and cross member clearance and we're finalizing the tranny mount but otherwise everything worked out.

Engine went in first

Motor mounts

To increase clearance to the passenger side shock mount we swapped out the factory Ford header (bottom) with an aftermarket header (top)

The whole package

There are more pics in this album

 

[bknaus]

Figuring out the final location for everything on the front radius arms, checking brackets, ride height, pinion angles, driveshaft angles, oil pan clearance, etc

We were a little anxious about oil pan clearance but after some inital cycling we should be fine. We raised ride height ~1" just to be on the safe side.

PSC steering box fit like a glove. The high pressure lines for the hydraulic assist are close to the alternator pulley but we replaced the PSC fittings with some swivel 90 degree fittings and made everything clear.

The rear's just waiting for the final ride height numbers from the front so we can start setting it up. It looks good so far.

 

[bknaus]

We put the body back on it to check engine fit, make sure our axles are fairly centered in the wheel wells and make a final decision on tire size.

Getting the body on required trimming the inner fender some, none on the top but some on the edges. Lots of lower, lift, trim, repeat to make sure we don't take more than we need to.

You can see we mostly had to hit the passenger side since the engine is offset that way to allow steering on the driver side. We love the look of the engine in there!

We stole two tires/wheels off our owner's Jeep for test fit purposes and it looks like we're going to add a 1" body lift and run 37s. These pics are with the driver side at full compression.

 

[bknaus]

We made the 1" body lift and also threw the front clip on to check outer fender clearance (and to just check out how she looks ). We will have to do something with the front fenders but we're still talking about different options. This will be about ride height.

Getting the rear axle centered in the fenders. These were already cut when we bought her so it looks pretty good (other than it looking like the cuts were made with tin snips). Once again, this will be ride height.

As always, more pictures are in the album HERE

 

[bknaus]

We got the rear 4 link all tacked in place and the pinion angle pretty much set to order our driveshafts.




Here's our tranny mount using a Daystar Poly mount and a custom bracket we made to attach to the rear of the Tumblin Automotive adapter. This is welded to the crossmember that the t-case skid plate bolts to.


Here's a pic of the 1" body lift we made the other day. We made it using scrap sway bar material so it's all 4140, should we heat treat it to just go super overkill?


We ordered one pitman arm and then digging through the piles of stuff that was in the back of the Bronco when we bought it we found two more in the original Moog boxes. We'll see which works best.


We also got our tie rod on with some HUGE Currie rod ends. The tie rod is 1-5/8x.250w 4130 that we drilled and tapped the ends for the 1-1/4 threaded rods. We'll heat treat it in house once we figure out all our tabs for the hyro assist ram. Can you tell we didn't want to break/bend it?


Right now we're at negative caster so when we break the tacks and rotate the knuckles back the tie rod will be a lot higher in relation to the axle. We're thnking about leaving it on the lower mounts and not using the higher arms. Thoughts?


That's it for now, if you made it through all that chaos thanks!

 

[Dusty]

THE REAL DEAL
looks great
keep it up

 

[BirDog]

Mrs

Very Cool.

Subscribed .

 

[Hottrod81]

Is that Mark's Bronco?

 

[bknaus]

Is that Mark's Bronco?

Mark Hellwig? If so, yes it is

 

[Hottrod81]

Yeah. Grew up next door to his sister and went to high school with his daughter.

 

[hudyhue]

Nice always liked old broncos....cool build keep postin

 

[slickrock]

That's too nice to tear up. Restore it and get act apply one to build. But I like the project

 

[bknaus]

That's too nice to tear up. Restore it and get act apply one to build. But I like the project

The body looks a lot nicer in pics than in person, between all the rust under the front clip and the janky cut fenders on the rear (along with all the broken welds on the frame and the backfiring engine with a ton of miles) there really wasn't much worth saving. And we're not tearing it up, we're improving it