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1984 BroncoII

 

 

This was my first 4x4. I bought the car from a friend who lived up our street. I knew the truck well as I had worked on it many times for him in the past.

 

 

 

When I first bought the Bronco, it was in need of electrical help, the ECM was bad or at least messed up because it ran horrible. I decided to swap out the electrical system for the older type of ignition that was on my Bobcat, turns out later I find out this became a popular swap for these trucks because they had so many ignition issues with the factory stuff.

I put this 4x4 through the paces on many trails throughout east Tennessee. In fact I almost wrecked it one day. I was on a trail just off hwy 107 in Unicoi County when I ran upon a rock that made up the side of the trail, on one side there was a hill, the other a sheer drop-off. I made it up and over with little problems, it was around the corner where I got in trouble. I rounded the corner to find a hill straight up with deep ruts. It was very narrow and if you missed, off the mountain you would go, I decided to turn around and go back down. Now here was my problem, on the way up the rock was tilted up and I was climbing it, I was able to do so no problem, the other way was a bit more tricky. Looking at it from above it looked like a narrow wall and dropped off suddenly on the falling side. I told my riders to get out while I went over the rock. I slowly climbed over it watching where I could so I wasn’t going to slide off, it was then that the back of the truck began to lift. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the left rear tire about a foot off the ground, I still had about 10 ft of rock to go and this was rolling up to roll down the hill sideways! I stopped what I was doing, thought about my options, looked all around the truck thinking it was the last time I was going to see it not destroyed, and I let off the brake and just steered. To my delight the rear tire dropped back down and I was over the rock. I promptly took a picture

I know it didn’t look like much in the picture I took but believe me it was steep on that hill, I took about 15 min or so to calm my nerves so we could continue. I found out later in that week from some guys at work that a guy had just died on that same spot in a Jeep by flipping down the mtn. I had no idea. That trail was closed off by the next week when I was back over in that area.

ANYWAYS, now back to the truck, I did drive it for a few years, I even decided to change up the color of the truck. I went for a favorite of mine, “Plum Crazy Purple” a color off of an early 70s Dodge. I then fabricated a tube grill to go from side to side of the front grill area. This paint job really stood out.

 Well after getting a few different cars, I let the truck sit, and it sat for about 5 years before I knew it. I was just in a job that required so much attention I dropped out of working on my stuff for many years.

After getting laid off and trading off a few cars, I got back to the old Bronco. I decided to paint the truck again, this time I stayed with the purple, but I added a factory stripe of white down the center, it really set it off and made the truck unique at the same time. I drove it to work everyday until I saw this black Jeep at a lot off the road home, I stopped in and asked about the Jeep and we haggled a bit on price. In the end I got $1700 for my old Bronco on trade for the Jeep. My son was upset because he was so young he didn’t understand a trade. He really liked the old Bronco and so did I, but the Jeep was my new 4x4 and we were in for many great rides in that.