The_Mainah

Hello everyone!

I just picked up a 1990 Bronco from a friend and I'm starting to put a plan together on work that I want to do. To begin with, a previous owner messed with the differentials and didn't match them. When I put it in 4-wheel and drive along the truck bucks like a... Bronco... horrible pun. One look at the rear pumpkin told me that I'm going to have to count teeth to find out what was put in. There is red gasket maker all around the rear seal. I haven't tried looking up numbers yet but something tells me that it wont do me much good. This may be my first thing to fix. Note: rear tires are spinning faster than front. Next is the issue with the engine. This Bronco has the 302 with EFI. It has a crane cam installed and headman headers. It has quite a bit of power but I'm kind of scared at how the engine was worked on. When you start it up you can hear that the engine bearings aren't very happy. I would like to put in a 351W with EFI. Next is the transmission. The C6 that was in it somehow got blown up and it was replaced with a manual 4-speed (no idea what it came out of)L-1-2-3-R. I haven't seen a clutch setup like this one before... It has the clutch master cylinder mounted on the firewall and the line feeds to a ram/piston device mounted to the bell housing. This piston pushes against a paddle that comes out of the transmission. When I brought the truck for a test drive I got the hang of double clutching pretty quickly... I'd be up for suggestions on what to do in the transmission department as well... I'd like to stick with a standard. Next in line is the transfer case. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be flat out replaced. There's a pretty continual heavy clunking noise coming from the poor thing... it doesn't always like going from 2-wheel to 4-wheel... aside from these issues it has a solid body and a very solid frame. I paid $650 for the truck realizing that it would be a garage companion to be worked on one part at a time...

I would love to get peoples suggestions on:

Engine: Rebuild the 302 or swap for 351?

Transmission: What should I go with for a good solid standard transmission?

Transfer case: Should I go stock replacement or save my pennies and go aftermarket?


BTW, This is my first project truck. I finally got sick of messing with the 4-cyl tuner toys, especially when they're just about useless in Maine.