A friend of mine has had his wife's 1987 Bronco parked in covered storage since 2001. It was the first year of a new body style and ford switched paint systems that year and they couldn't keep the paint on it. Ford did a repaint several times on different panels but never stripped it. Eventually the rot got to the tailgate and rear fender wells. He had taken a lot of parts off and actually welded in a new quarter, a patch on the other quarter and a new tailgate bottom but never fnished beyond welding them in. He lost interest when his wife got a new truck and finally decided to part with it this summer. It has around 60 K on the odometer and always had been maintained. I didn't really need a new truck but I used to have a similar vintage 87 pickup with the same fuel injected six and always liked the truck. I believe the majority of the parts are stored in the back but expect finding the missing ones will be one of the challenges for a winter project. There are plenty of Bronco parts houses and parts are cheap. The fuel injection is not really integrated that much with the rest of the vehicle and compared to the prior carbureted versions in 1986 I prefer injection.
Unlike most to of the Broncos of this era, its relatively stripped with the only real options being an automatic and AC. It even has a split bench seat, manual door locks and window cranks.
I didn't really need another project but I have a 97 Sonoma pick up that is starting to have rust and emission issues and in NH and VT, bad emissions means no inspection. With an 87 its an antique so no emissions tests and it general its heck of lot easier to work on plus it doesn't have the Sonoma's penchant for lower ball joint replacements.
First project is figure out why it wont run as it was running when parked. I expect the fuel is bad, the tank is rotted out and the fuel pump in the tank is long gone. If the drive train works, its worth fixing and he even has a same year pickup with six cylinder 4 speed if the automatics toast.
If I can get it running, I may lift the body off the frame rails and clean things up and hit it with rust inhibitive paint, install new copper nickel fuel and brake lines as the road deicing chemicals in NH eat standard brake line then clean up the welds on the sheetmetal hand strip it and have someone shoot a new paint job on it.
Unlike my Unimogs they fit in my garage
so its good winter project.
Unlike most to of the Broncos of this era, its relatively stripped with the only real options being an automatic and AC. It even has a split bench seat, manual door locks and window cranks.
I didn't really need another project but I have a 97 Sonoma pick up that is starting to have rust and emission issues and in NH and VT, bad emissions means no inspection. With an 87 its an antique so no emissions tests and it general its heck of lot easier to work on plus it doesn't have the Sonoma's penchant for lower ball joint replacements.
First project is figure out why it wont run as it was running when parked. I expect the fuel is bad, the tank is rotted out and the fuel pump in the tank is long gone. If the drive train works, its worth fixing and he even has a same year pickup with six cylinder 4 speed if the automatics toast.
If I can get it running, I may lift the body off the frame rails and clean things up and hit it with rust inhibitive paint, install new copper nickel fuel and brake lines as the road deicing chemicals in NH eat standard brake line then clean up the welds on the sheetmetal hand strip it and have someone shoot a new paint job on it.
Unlike my Unimogs they fit in my garage
so its good winter project.
