Dan's '68 Bronco Project

My friend, Gary H., is a dyed-in-the-wool hot rodder, so it stood to reason that a variety of hot rod-related tricks—such as the recessed tail lights we've got goin' on in the last photo on this page—might find their way into the Bronco.

This page shows how Gary handled the metalwork on the Bronco's dash. The photos on this page show how he narrowed the glovebox to clear the ProtoFab 6-point roll cage. (This is hot rod fabrication at its best!) What he did was section a 2-inch+ piece from the door, and weld the edge back up to make a smaller door. Then he moved the right-hand portion of the dash in-board to match the size of the door, and filled the gap with a similar gauge piece of sheetmetal.

Click on the thumbnails below for full size images.

In the lower row of photos, the third image from the left—the full view of the dash—notice my steering column behind the dash, which has the opening cut for my DIN-mount Alpine stereo. You can also see my new Optima battery sitting on the milk crate in the background. We were using it to cycle the new power antenna we were installing.

...and in the last photo you can see what the finished product looks like mounted in the vehicle. Nice! When you open the box lid, it looks as if this modified glovebox configuration was a factory option. And the inside is as flawless as the outside.

Below is a shot of the completed ProtoFab cage and the Bronco as it sat during the Spring of 2003.

NOTE: If you wanna buy a cage from ProtoFab (or thru one of their resellers), my recommendation is this: if you are using a fiberglass body, buy it in pieces as I did and MIG weld it yourself or have someone do it for you. (This latter option might prove to be a hassle if you can't move your truck!)

Less obvious in the photo above, is the 23-gallon fuel tank and recessed tail light assemblies. Wheels and tires are Extreme Alloys 15x10s shod with 33x12.50 BFG TA/KOs.

Although my 10-year old Kentrol body was (as far as Gary & I were concerned) about as close to steel as you can get with fiberglass, it ain't close enough. In fact, as nice as the ProtoFab cage is, you gotta tweak it slightly for a flawless install. We did about a 95% job on mine. To get it perfect would have involved welding up the cage minus the door bars and harness bar, bolting it into place, and then trimming and welding the side and harness bars ever-so-slightly to fit flawlessly before welding. I'm still happy, but when you always strive for perfection, nothing ever makes you REALLY happy! In all fairness, I must extend a tip of the hat to Keith Jones at ProtoFab. This is a nice cage.

Although ProtoFab claims you can install this cage without modifying your handbrake assembly, we didn't find that to be totally true. At first, it seemed the only tweak needed was to turn the handbrake lever 90 degrees so that it is vertical rather than horizontal. Unfortunately—and this MAY be due to my use of a fiberglass body, but I don't think so--we had to angle the assembly ever-so-slightly towards the inside of the truck to make the handbrake truly accessible.

Of course your choice of glovebox mods are pretty much mandatory no matter what sort of cage you run. You wanna open it, you gotta futz with it!

-Dan

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