More Das Bronco Upgrades Part: 2

Today, we'll show you how project do

Bronco's new electrical and mechanical gauges work. Then we'll add headers, mufflers and an exhaust system. Finally, we'll customize the valve covers with our logo. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey guys, welcome to trucks. Well, the last time we had Ds Bronco in the shop, we did some transmission work, threw some ignition parts at it and we added some gauges. Now, obviously, the transmission and ignition parts are working out. Well, this thing's running great, but as far as the gauges go, well, we only had them mocked up on the dash and in the dash. So we wanted to take a minute and show you how we've got them hooked up.

Now, these gauges are mechanical, meaning that the oil pressure gauge has a tube coming out of the back of it fed through the firewall and plugged into a port at the back of the engine block behind the intake manifold. When the engine fires, pressure builds and oil works its way up the tube and acts directly on the back of the gauge. No electronics required. You can even see it happen when the engine fires.

Now the coolant T gauge is similar but coolant doesn't pass up through the tube to the gauge itself. It has a hollow metal tube filled with an inert gas and surrounded by a protective metal winding.

It's sealed to the intake manifold and submerged in the coolant. When the coolant gets hot, the inert gas expands and that expanding gas acts directly on the gauge. Now, as far as the rest of the gauges go while our auto gauge tachometer and involved

meter, well, they're obviously electrical as is our B and M transmission temp gauge. Now, the trans temp center, we just got threaded into the side of the pan that we showed you last time we had this thing in the shop. Now to wire up our tack, all we had to do was splice the signal wire into the coils, negative side wiring every time the coil is turned off, it sends a pulse or a signal to the tachometer converts that to RPM, the more pulses, the more RPM.

Now, the last time we showed you these gauges, they were just walked up into place. They were in the right place, but we hadn't wired them in yet. Well, now we have and we wanted to show you a little bit closer look. But before we do that, check out the placement, this panel works really well. It's right in my line of sight when I'm wheeling and the tack as high as it seems with the monster t

size. It doesn't interfere with my view over the profile of the hood, trans temp gauges right there. Great communication. Let's take a closer look.

Now on the backside of the

bezel, you can see how we've got things connected. The illumination circuits for the gauges are bundled together to one common 14 gauge wire that's connected to an accessory fuse in the fuse block.

Here, we've got one gauge connected in series grounded to the next gauge and again, grounded to the next gauge and then grounded out to a solid chassis ground. So everything's grounded together. The benefit of doing this is you've got one wire to snake through your dash where it can be really tight and confined. So one wire connects everything's connected. Now, this, this is the temperature gauge and is connected directly to the temperature cinder which is screwed into the intake manifold under the hood. Now, this is a hollow tube like Ryan said, filled with an inert gas. So it's pretty important that this isn't kinked. You've got a good free flow for good accurate read.

Now, the oil pressure gauge is also mechanical and you saw when we started it up, it pushes oil up through the line to the back of the gauge and gives it a reading. Very important that you don't kink this line. Otherwise you might get a false reading or at ho

case scenario, it could split and leak. You don't want either of those.

Now, before we screw the bezel back into the dash, it's a good idea to test the wiring. Just make sure we've got everything connected properly. Especially if you're building something like this on a bench top. It's a great idea to use an external power source. So we're gonna use our power probe and energize the illumination circuit.

Yep, our gauges are lit up.

Chances are we did it. Right.

All right. Well, let's see what we've got.

We got key on and you can see the illumination on all of the gauges. I've got it hooked up to key on. That's because I didn't want to hook it up to the light switch and have to depend on that. I want it lit and backlit at all times in case I'm wheeling in dark areas or starts to get overcast and raining. I wanna be able to see it as best as possible at all times. So let's make it run.

All right. Here's something that we've never seen before.

Ok. Let's start with the

B beer

at

idle. It's right at 12, maybe 11.5. But

get the revs up and it's right around 14 bolts just like it should be.

But check this out.

We got it

more than 70 P si on the pressure gauge for the oil. Now, granted it's a fresh engine and the oil is still cold. But that's,

that is awesome oil pressure because when the Wisconsin city changes and the oil heats up, that's gonna drop. We're still gonna be in a great range. That's pretty awesome.

Now, here, the water, it hasn't had a chance to cycle and heat up. So we're gonna take a real close look at the water tap. Once we get this thing up and do an initial test drive, make sure the thermostat's operating correctly and everything's flowing just like it should.

Now the tags giving us the feedback we want bridling right about 600 RPM. I'd feel a little more confident about 700. We could adjust that later.

The hard thing is we don't ever want this engine to spin past about 4500 to 5 grand. It's a big block. You want to be careful. This is the tool we need for some hardcore wheeling to make this engine live.

And again, the trans

temp gauge just like the water gauge. Well, it hasn't had a chance to heat up yet, but we're gonna keep a real close eye on that like you do everything else.

So I'm pretty happy with that and if you've noticed,

but the exhaust system is stupid loud. That's because we're running open cast iron manifolds. We're running open manifolds because we never assembled the exhaust system after we put the transmission back in. There's a good reason for that because we want to make this thing breathe a little bit better with some better exhaust than the restrictive cast iron manifolds that this 460 came with. And that is what today's show is about

up next. It's a new exhaust system for dust

Bronco and later blasting a logo into the valve cover. Stay tuned.

Hey guys, welcome back to the shop. Now, like Kevin mentioned earlier, we're looking to improve the air flow on the exhaust side of things for D OS Bronco and that means replacing the somewhat restrictive factory cast iron exhaust manifolds. Now, we helped him out a little bit with a mild poor job when we first put our 460 big block together. But now we're looking to take it up a notch. So we're going to go with set headers.

Now, since the 78 and 79 Bronco

never came with a 460 from the factory. Well, finding a set of headers can be a little bit of a challenge and take a little bit of research, but we found some and they from the Bronco Graveyard and made by LNL. Now they feature inch and three quarter primary tubes and really thick FLS. So we shouldn't have to worry about warpage and there are four to one design. Now, these are three quarter length style headers as opposed to the true full length long tubes, which should make installation pretty straightforward.

They've also got that cool, good looking nickel coating.

Now, the rest of the kit includes the collective reducers, gaskets and all the hardware you're gonna need to get a set of headers installed on your big block powered board.

Now, even though we have both positive and negative cables hooked up to our battery, we've got an isolation switch wired into the ground side and it's in the off position.

That way we don't arc out our steel header on the battery or the positive connection at the starter.

Now, to make sure our header installation ends up being leak free. We're using stage eight locking fasteners to prevent the bolt from backing out during the thousands and thousands of heat cycles. These headers are gonna see.

Now, the kit we got from the Bronco Graveyard also includes the collector adapter and that's where we're gonna start for the installation of the rest of the exhaust system.

Now, we're running a pair of high flow catalytic converters to help in emissions,

but they're known to get kind of hot. So when we're done with this, we'll make sure we wrap them and the pipe around it with some sort of thermal insulation product and that'll keep us from cooking the fluid in the pan or anything else around us.

Perfect.

All right, with the bulk of our exhaust system fabricated including the 2.5 inch high flow catalytic converters. We're just about ready to hang some mufflers. Now, for exhaust tubing, we just use some leftover pieces from a flow master 2.5 inch tailpipe kit and the smooth manual bends will make sure we capitalize on the increased flow that the headers are going to provide.

Now for sound control, we're going with these hush power two mufflers. Now, these are nice and compact and obviously don't take up much room

and they're a great option. If space is at a premium in your vehicle, they're also known as the resonator and you can use them in conjunction with your current exhaust system If you just need to quiet it down. Some,

they've got stainless steel internals and a cool shell design, meaning it's gonna keep the heat inside the exhaust system instead of radiating and heat soaking everything around it.

And with these installed, we can take the edge off some of the sound. Our header equipped 460 is gonna make without killing any horsepower.

And by rotating the position of the mufflers, we're able to get the bottom muffler to lay flat and it's just about flush with the bottom of the frame rails which keeps them tucked up and safe.

After tack welding both turn downs into place. We added a single muffler hangar that's welded to both tail

pipes.

Hey, guys, welcome back to trucks. Well, as you know, we like to name our projects like a lot of you do at home. Part of the reason for that is it helps kind of pull some character and personality out. Well, do

S Bronco doesn't have the project name anywhere on it, but we're gonna change that using these,

these are Edelbrock signature series valve covers. They're nice

quality stamping and triple chrome plated. They look great just like they are. But here's the deal they sit at about this angle on the engine and when you open up the hood of D Os Bronco, it's high enough to where the first thing you see is gonna be this giant piece of chrome plated real estate. Well, we thought it would be the perfect location to put the D Os Bronco logo.

Now, this is a really easy project to do. It's very inexpensive and it looks fantastic. Really, all we did was get our local sign shop to make up a sticker that acts like a template.

First, you wanna make sure the surface is clean. Acetone takes care of it perfectly without a residue,

then center up your sticker.

Now the sign chop has trimmed out the middle of the logo leaving us with a perfect outline that we don't have to mask.

Now make sure you press your edges down so you have a nice firm line,

then you can peel the adhesive backing off, revealing the logo in a positive format

using masking tape and traditional masking supplies. I've covered the outside of the valve cover for obvious reasons.

You can see I've got the rest of the valve cover pretty much sealed up. That's because I don't want the blast media to scratch any of the other chrome keep this in mind as well. Keep your pressure down low. It'll etch just the same and you won't roll any of these edges up. You have a nice hard line around your sticker.

The

pressure set at about 15 P si which is very low. We're using aluminum oxide to blast with.

Notice also that I'm spraying directly on to the logo 90 degrees or perpendicular.

Now, before you unwrap it, make sure you blow any residual glass media off just so it doesn't scratch the chrome.

Now, when you're removing what's left of the sticker, be very careful around the edges. You don't want to scratch the chrome because it could ruin the effect.

Well, a few minutes of your time and a few bucks at the sign shop and you've turned an off the shelf valve cover into a custom one off piece. And the best thing is this is still chrome if you get it dirty. Well, you can just take a solvent, rag and wipe it off and it's as good as new. I

think even Vic Edelbrock could be proud of this one.

Now, while Kevin finishes up that other valve cover, I'm going to take care of some basic maintenance. Now, the brake fluid that's in the system. Well, it's been there since we put this Bronco together a few years ago

while it hasn't seen that many street miles or even gets used that much. Well, it still doesn't matter. Brake fluid wicks moisture in over time and needs to be flushed out and replaced at least every few years. So that's what I'm gonna do right now using our mode of products, power bleeder.

Now, the kit includes a number of different caps that are a direct fit for a lot of late model vehicles, but for our old school style master cylinder, well, we needed to use the universal adapter cap

and that simply involves using these threaded Jay hooks, wing nuts and these two small sections of chain to tighten down the cap and make sure it's sealed evenly all the way across the master

cylinder reservoir.

Once you've checked for leaks, using just air fill the power bleeder with clean brake fluid

and pump to about 10 P si

now you want to start the bleeding process with the wheel farthest away from the master cylinder, hang a catch bottle

and a clear plastic tube. So you can see the fluid running out

and just crack the bleeder open.

All right. Now, once you're satisfied that the line in the wheel cylinder is flushed out with clean fluid, you move on to the wheel cylinder or brake caliber, that's next farthest away from the master until you're done. Just remember to keep an eye on the power bleeder. Make sure you still got pressure and fluid in.

You're watching trucks for a DVD copy of this episode, just go to Power Block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling. Start your own trucks, collection delivered right to your door from the power block.

Hey, guys, I know you remember the Second Chance Silverado. And we are stoked that we were able to give this thing a second life and rescue it from a certain death at a salvage yard. But proof to the second life is a fact that is starting to accumulate some scratches and rock chips on all the corners, but there's a great fix for that. That's inexpensive and easy to do.

Well, duple color has factory color coded touch up paint that's available at your local auto parts store. All we did is take the paint coat out of our truck, match it up to the bottle on the shelf. You've got a couple of different options. The first one is the touch up brush.

Just make sure that your paint is mixed and shaken.

It works great for larger scratches.

Now, the same touch up bottle becomes a paint pen. The roller tip on the top allows paint to flow out and take care of very fine scratches.

Just get rid of the

orange insert,

put the top back in,

shake it up.

You've got a lot more control.

You can see a very fine line is possible to apply.

Now that we showed you how it works. Let's see how the color matches

these are typical chips caused by opening the door into some immovable object.

Literally, all you do is brush the paint in and let it sit and you've got a repair that's gonna keep the panel from rusting and the color match is bang on.

Now, if you need to, you can follow that with a second coat and finish it off with some touch up clear.

Now, there's a lot of great benefits to an A GM battery like this optima. But one of the downfalls is that when they completely lose their charge, it can be kind of a pain to bring them back to life. Now, you can actually fool your old school battery charger into reviving an A GM by attaching another battery with a set of jumper cables so that the old school charger senses the load from the second battery and transfers a charge to the first battery. Well, it's probably not the safest or the best way to do it. There's a much better method. C tech has a new generation of smart battery charges like this multi US

and

now they're great for conventional batteries, but they have dedicated features specifically designed for a GM.

The recondition feature can revive a severely or completely discharged battery and will bring it back to a useful life safely and efficiently.

Now to make sure that you never fully discharge an A GM, you can hardwire this plug into it. If you got a weekend Wheeler like Ds Bronco or a car in storage that you don't drive very much that way you can maintain your battery without the risk of overcharging and protect your investment.

All right, we'll top it off with a New Edelbrock three inch air cleaner. Ryan fired up.

Yeah,

that sounds better, man. We're one step closer to getting this thing back on the trail. If you got any questions, you want a closer look at what we did on today's show. Check this out on the web, Power Block tv.com. Thanks for watching.