Dan's '68 Bronco Project

Back in the Spring of 2002—I'd guess it was about May—the body was sitting on the chassis and almost ready for its first coat of primer. Though all of the body parts appeared to fit well at this point, we weren't finished jockeying panels around. This is the curse of fiberglass, which sometimes is made worse when you include some steel pieces. For example, although the grille fit flawlessly by nature of its position on the body—in other words, the fenders had to bolt up exactly at the ends of the grille—there were issues with the tailgate as well as the hood.

I purchased this Kentrol body back in '92, so I'm hoping their quality control has gotten better, especially given today's prices! The key with fiberglass is that it generates LOTS of heat while curing due to the chemical reaction of the resin and hardener. The more chemicals, the more heat. Thus, you cannot remove a part from the mold too soon or you will end up with warped panels.

Though the tub was essentially flawless, it is also a big piece that is seriously reinforced: double-wall construction, with wood (floor) and lots of steel (everywhere else). Although the outer fenders were also really nice, the hood was warped in two places and the inner fenders were unusable. I ended up doing the right thing and purchasing steel inner fenders, but my friend Gary had to apply more of his hot rod building magic to tweak these for use with the fiberglass body. They ended up fitting perfectly.

Now to my credit (I've learned lots from Gary!), I came up with the idea to reinforce the hood with flat steel stock and fiberglass to not only bring it back into shape, but to add strength as well. Interestingly enough, the hood now weighs about the same as a steel hood and even sounds like one when it closes! We're using the same latching system as stock, but due to the design of the fiberglass hood, we had to have machined a longer plunger—the piece that fits into the hood latch assembly. Gary also shortened the way-too-long stock latch lever so that it now fits flush with the grille instead of protruding from it. Another cool hot rod trick!

I'm using a new OEM grille on the truck, along with a '74 tailgate, and the original '68 dash and windshield frame. I appropriated the electric windshield wiper assembly from a '77 parts truck I bought from a used car lot. The body was falling off of it, and once I drove it off the lot, its lack of road worthiness scared me to death. The wander from the worn C-bushings and the rest of the front end was horrendous. (You'd be amazed at the crap you can buy legally and drive on the road in Ohio.) Needless to say, that 20-or-so mile, white-knuckle drive home was the last time that heap saw the road as an entity. Trust me: I did everyone a favor.

By the way, these pics were also the first ones taken after mounting the new BFG All Terrain TA/KOs. At this point I was getting very optimistic about being done by July 2002.

But we all know about those best-laid plans, don't we?

-Dan

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