BroncoII4x4.com

Ok i have an 86 BII and a 78FS Bronco, the plan....put the dana 44 and ford 9" onto the BII, i noticed a few of you have done this and basically what i really want to know is how difficult the swap is and how many hours it would aprox take. I asked around about a shop do it for me or even some individuals, i was quoted at about $1500+, and that is money i would rather not spend, haha heck thats a new set of tires and wheels right there. If theres anything you want me to be more specific of just let me know.
Thanks In Advance
Kyle

Well it is a pretty broad topic. First are you swapping in the rest of the drivfetrain too? If you are still running the 2.8 and stuff you are gonna have strong axles with a weak powertrain which doesn't make much sense to me. Use the $1500 you save doing it yourself to rebuild the bronco's engine and drop it in too, then you can use the tranny and t-case and might be able to have the big bronc's d-shafts shortened to fit. As far as the axle swap, the rear is simple, just cut the leaf mounts and move them in some, don't use lift blocks, if you want to know how the lift it without them just ask me. For the front, to use that axle as is you would need to cut you spring buckets off your frame and space them out be over the coil mounts on the axle. The C-wedges on that axle are part of a cast piece, some of the older ones had welded on C-wedges or like my 3/4 ton axle was originally leaf sprung so I just welded the wedges on under my coil buckets and have the radius arms in under them and run them back to my stock radius arm mount which I just moved back some on the frame. The steering is easy to set up, a track bar isn't hard. The front just takes patience and time to set up right so that it is safe on the road and drives straight. It can definately be done at home without too many tools, as long as you know how to weld or have a friend that can. If you have any specific questions that aren't cover on older posts just ask. BroncoII.org (temporarily at extremecode.org) has alot of people with solid axles.

It really depends on how difficult you make it. I think using full width axles makes it quite a bit more difficult. If you use EB width, it's almost bolt up. I think it's nearly as easy as installing a TTB lift.

To remove existing TTB stuff, you'll need to grind the heads off the rivots and pound them out with a hammer.

To mount the front end (EB width) there are 3 mounting points.

2 radius arm brackets, which require you to drill holes in your frame and bolt them up.

1 trac bar bracket, which needs to be fabbed. If you know how to weld, it's easy to make.

You'll need some steering linkage built as well. I recommend doing it right the first time and using the chevy stuff. You'll need to have your knuckles and pitman armed reamed out, or you can buy/borrow a reamer and do it yourself. You should be able to find someone to build you a tie rod and drag link.

The rear is as easy as moving the spring perches and shock mounts.

I think the whole process is a heck of lot easier if you go EB width. Easier to stay street legal, and it works great on our PNW trails.

OK thanks greatly, ive got a pretty good idea of what exaclty needs to be done now. And as you mentioned swappping the whol drivetrain over, I dont really want to use the 351M, my BII is my daily driver for now and as well, the 78 bronco i have now either has a seized engine or a seized transmission...so i dont even really have the full drivetrain. What i would like to do is just swap the front and rear axles to my BII and just use the C5 tranny, im hoping that should be strong enough. I might possibly consider a 5L swap down the line, but not anytime soon. Oh but my last question is about the driveshafts...can i shorten the FS ds and get an adapter to match it to the BII tcase? Or could I use a BII driveshaft, cut it in half and match the other half up with half of the fs ds ? Ha maybe im crazy...i think they are about the same diameter though...

All the BII crew I wheel with run their stock motors. My 302 is better though

For the front driveshaft, there is a good possibility that it will bolt right up. It may need to be lengthened because of lift though.

On the rear, I'm fairly certain you can get a different yolk for the t-case from an exploder, and the full size driveline will bolt right up if it uses a 1310 u-joint. They also make conversion joints, but I don't think they make one to adapt to the BII. I wouldn't recommend that anyway.

Ok thanks for the info, ill look into the driveshaft situation when i get everything taken apart. I bought some 5:13 yukon gears so im gonna see how well my engine handles with those, and then ill decide if ill do an engine swap down the line . Thanks Again

since you have the C5 at least WHEN you decide to do a 5.0 swap you can do the C5/C4 highbred tranny and keep the stock T-case until you break it too. On anything smaller than 37s the 5.13 should be great on the stock engine.

Ha I like how you emphasized "when", anyhow yeah so whats invovled in mixing the c5/c4, is it just a matter of attaching the c4 bellhousing to the c5? Thanks

I concur that an early Bronco would be the easiest, it took me almost a full day to do my front axle, and nearly as long to do the rear(10 minutes at a time, thought I was competing with DBrown to see who was slowest).
With a little parts matching I found a driveshaftoriginally in a 85 BII with ujoints, went to the spicer dealer and found a rear slipper section that fit that shaft and had 1310 joint for the 9"er, in front I swapped the dana 44 1310 companion flange for one that fit the stock BroncoII front drivemshaft, I did scoot the front axle far enough forward to use the front shaft in unaltered configuration, and it has held up and worked good for two years and three axles.


I have been building and selling the steering setup you see above, it works very well, and is so very simple.

how much do you sell that steering for? What does it consist of?

I removed the center of the crossmember and left the ends where the motor mounts bolt to. That is how it was on the F-150 donor. The F-150 had a cross member under the radiator. I welded in my own in the same location. This seems to give me a lot more room for engine placement and more room for the front diff on the straight axle on the up travel. Just a thought.

P.S. I am probably the slowest!!!

No way your slowest!!! I have you all beat

I don't know you guys, I would say that the military is making me be the slowest, my current project has been ongoing for 3 years now, and has another year and a half before it gets touched at all. I still gotta fab up a better trac-bar mount and a permanent trac-bar before my front end is done too.

that doesnt count. You have an excuse other then "im too busy". Yours is 1000's of miles away from you, where mine is in my front yard!!! Life doesnt slow down so it gets put on the back burner.....

I can honestly say that my tear down has not been that bad I am under a year from the time I took it apart and started the body swap.

how far have you gotten phillippi?