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Black Sunshine *It's Alive- Again!

72K views 584 replies 92 participants last post by  jbsjunk 
#1 · (Edited)
Yup- just like the song from White Zombie.

1978 Ford Bronco Production date: 7/78

A little history on this one. My friend was the 2nd owner of this and it has never seen snow. It has right around 120,000 origional miles on it and the origional paint is on most of it. He had the old yellow/orange/red stripes painted over as soon as he took posession of it.

It was a Chattanuga Choo Choo Custom truck when bought new at the dealership (RE Barber Ford in Holland, MI) so that explains the red shag carpeting and diamond-cut vinyl everywhere.

He installed the 4" Rugged Trail lift and a 3" body lift to fit up to 38's under it. Currently it's sporting some 35/12.5/15 Goodyear MTRs. The 1st generation with the white letters.

In 1992 he bought the 460 that came out of the Cajun Night show truck and in '95, he and I completely went through it and added a nice cam, D0VE heads, Ford Motorsports performance intake, Holley 750, JE 10:1 pistons, and a few other goodies. The heads, intake, and exhaust manifolds have all been hogged out and gasket-matched. It was a good soild build and it ended up somewhere around the 500 HP mark.

After all that he did a little cruising around town and raced it at the Silver Lake sand drags a few times, but never drove it much after that.

It might have 1000 miles on it since everything was gone through.

He moved up north and it never moved once parked in his pole barn. It just collected dust and he would start it from time to time just to keep the motor healthy.

I have wanted this thing ever since I 1st saw it when I started working at the same shop he was at and about a month ago he told me that he was finally ready to part with it. I had to promise to stay away from trees, rocks, and mud and keep it for weekend cruises, the dunes, and sand drags only.

I'll be giving it a little love and fixing up some of the little bits of rusting that occured over the last 10 years it sat. By next spring, it will be show-quality again and I'll have a fun little runner to play in the sand with.

I'll be posting up some of the repairs and updates in this thread. 1st off will be just some basic repairs- new fuel lines, brake lines, full synthetic fluids change over, and some custom anti-wrap bars for the rear axle. I'm working on getting a set of paddles for playing in the dunes the rest of this season once it's back to runable condition.

Here's the pics so far....











yes- that's a ZZ-Top top-gun sticker on the roof. His girlfriend at the time stuck it there after the concert at Val-Du-Lakes. :sonicjay:
 
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#3 ·
Yep!

Um-no. Not at the estimated 6 mpg that thing gets.... But by that time I might have the new DD you can check out.....
 
#7 ·
Exactly! :thumb:

I intend to keep this one around for at least the next 10 years or so and I had to promise to sell it back to him when I was ready to move on.
 
#8 ·
Nice!! I had a black (WITH the stripes) '78F 150 that went through a couple 351M's before I got smart and bought my 2nd Chevy truck! The 460 will be nice! Can't wait to see it run. When's the next trip? Jaden and I are headed to SL the 2nd week in Sept.
 
#9 ·
Is should be ready for the dunes on Labor Day weekend. I'll be on vacation the weekend of the 9th.... Hopefully we don't miss each other again!
 
#20 ·
I might take you up on that! I'm going to need a hand with a couple of things on the top of the motor that I can't quite reach- just some easy stuf...

The cajun night show truck was it a white mid 80's f250? Only reason I ask is my buddys wife has a show truck named cajun night.
Yes- that's the one. The next owner painted it black and sold this motor to Todd so he could stick some really radical custom block in it for mud racing..

Why did someone paint aluminum heads and intake?
Sorry- I was building a lot of motors back then. Memory has gotten a little foggy. I looked at the motor a little closer last night and noticed they were not what I remembered. They are the cast DUV heads and a Ford Motorsports performance intake. I'll update the above info. :thumb:


As for this "build" on this, there won't be that many visual changes that happen to this thing. Just a lot of replacements of worn out pieces- like shocks, maybe some softer riding coils for the front, and a bunch of bodywork over the winter to bring it back to it's former glory.


Note: There may be another 460 in the works for this one as well- big HP motor for the dragway..... :naughty:
 
#26 ·
OK OK OK. I'm not a Ford guy through and through.... But I am getting there!

Thanks for the compliments!

I spent the weekend dropping the fuel tank, running new lines, and rebuilding the carb.

New sending unit/pick-up assy on the way from Jeff's Bronco Graveyard. Tank and skid were also repainted and under coated while it was apart.

It's now sporting some new 6" KC rounds on the front and I'm in process of getting the new Smittybuilt double tube rear bumper mounted up on the rear to match the front. I'm about 1/2 way done fabbing up the new mounts.

If everything goes together like I hope, I'll have it up at the dunes for a shake-down run this weekend!!!!
 
#27 ·
OK- it was a rather busy weekend dropping the gas tank, cleaning it out, running new rubber lines and cleaning out the stainless ones. The tank has been re-undercoated and the skid plate repainted and undercoated. I didn't bother with pics of any of that because it's just boring.

Now for the visable stuff.
I got the lights mounted on the front end:

Modified the stock rear bumper mounts and got the matching rear bumper installed last night:

I don't think that I'm going to use this filler plate- at least until I pull everything apart this winter for a little bodywork and some fresh paint:

and the carb has been gone through and all the setiment cleaned out of everything. Hopefully we get it fired up tonight after bolting it back on and getting the new fuel pick-up /sending unit installed.


After we get it fired up tonight, we'll warm it up good, take her out for a little spin down the country roads and drop the oil, tranny fluid, and gear lube out of it.

That will just leave Wed and Thursday nights to give it a bath,, put some quieter mufflers on it, get some type of handle on the inside of the door to help me get in it, and load it up for the dunes for the weekend.

There will be more updates as we add a cage, take care of the bodywork and paint, and a few suspention upgrades which I'll update throughout the winter.
 
#30 ·
I had 1 thrush sitting on the shelf and I ordered up it's mate this morning. I'll get those on tomorrow night and see how they sound. Over the winter I'm planning on something in the 3" variety with some flowies on it. I've never been a big fan of the 2.5" pipes.
 
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