October 2002

The first part of the restoration I have tackled is cleaning 25+ years of crud from the underside of Taz. This has involved many long hours underneath the Bronco on a creeper with a wire brush, lots of laquer thinner, and a water hose. After all the scubbing, it turned out to be pretty clean and straight, only a little surface rust here and there. I have dropped the rear fuel tank, and will replace it with a new 14 gallon polyurethane unit. Once that one is in place, I'll do the same for the auxiliary tank under the drivers seat.

Once the crud and rust was removed, I painted and detailed both the front and rear axles and susupension, and put a chrome differential cover on the front axle. Everything is now a nice, shiny gloss black. Same goes for the frame and rear suspension. I primed the underside of the body and inner fenders, and then re-painted it the original Hot Ginger Metallic. It looks like it just rolled off the assembly line.

Now that I have a good working surface, the next major undertaking will be to replace both gas tanks and the tie rod assembly. Apparently Taz took one on the chin years ago, and severely bent the driver's side tie rod so that the front end is out of whack. After that, all of the suspension components will be replaced with a 3.5" suspension lift from James Duff Enterprises (check it out!), including shocks, front coils and rear leaf springs, steering damper, and a polyurethane bushing set. Oh yeah, a new set of BF Goodrich All-Terrain 33x12.50-15's on a set of Eagle 589 alloys is right behind...