Owners Review: Is The Ford Bronco Really Better Than A Jeep Wrangler? | Ep. 323

Now this is an exciting moment because Case, what are we up to?

We're starting an off-road podcast and this is something that you notice, it's not really

much of any off-road podcast out there on the air and off-roading is something that

we love doing here at TFL and living in Colorado so we figured why not talk about it.

So you guys are part of our pilot program and if you like this podcast please leave

us a rating, please leave us a comment if you want to see more of these but basically

how this is going to work is my idea is every other week we take an off-road vehicle, sometimes

extreme, sometimes fairly mild, we run them through our off-road test course here live

on the podcast and then we go back to the studio and talk about all the things that

you want to hear.

We're going to be talking about modifications, things in the off-road community, a Case's

garage segment where we talk about some of the projects that we've got going on so

it's going to be kind of a fun little thing and if you guys are interested drop us a comment,

if you hate it drop us a comment and we'll never do it again but let's give it a go.

We're starting off pretty strong talking about this Bronco which is arguably the best Bronco

that you can get out there especially because these are all at this point used which means

they should be a little bit less expensive.

Yeah and I want to kind of discuss the pros and the cons of Ford Bronco ownership, what

they're like off-road and then talk about this trim in specific a little bit later which

is the Everglades version of the Bronco but Case, the Bronco has been out now for five,

six years depending on when some customers got their first ones.

What do you think of the Bronco as a platform in general?

Well we've spent quite a bit of time with it.

We had a Bronco right when they first were reintroduced onto the market several years

ago.

We held on to that Bronco for at least two years, really did a lot with it and this is

now the second Bronco we've actually owned as a company vehicle.

They are right up there at the tip top of factory rock crawling 4x4s you can buy, turn

key ready to go, hands down.

It's essentially this and a Wrangler are at the very pinnacle.

I mean it's so funny for 25 years Jeep kind of owned the off-road specifically the crawling

space.

I know there were four owners and other kind of four-wheel drive vehicles but if you wanted

the ultimate in terms of capability you bought a Wrangler from the mid 90s through 2020 and

you can tell what Ford did is they basically went with the Wrangler platform and then

they just kind of like one up them in pretty much every category.

They're like oh you offer this power we're going to one up you.

You're this size we're going to make it just a little bit bigger and the result is a vehicle

that I think takes a lot of the goodness that the Jeep fans have loved over the years and

improved upon it.

And again we're specifically talking about rock crawling.

There's a lot of other types of off-roading that other vehicles could be good for overlanding,

mudding, sand dunes, things like that but I would argue that those are maybe more specialized

types of off-roading.

Sure.

A lot of the off-roading that most people go out and do in my experience anyway is rock

crawling so if we're talking about all-out capability we're talking about rock crawling

capability specifically and yeah the Bronco took basically everything that you can throw

at a 4x4 and threw it at this vehicle to make it as capable as possible but there's

definitely there's a few fundamental differences between the Bronco and a Wrangler.

One of the primary differences is the front suspension.

Yeah I mean and this is what the Jeep people keep returning to time and time again is of

course the Bronco uses an independent front suspension instead of a solid axle so instead

of having a beam underneath the front end that links both front wheels together you've

got a set of control arms and the left and the right side aren't connected by any means

and what the hardcore off-road rock crawling guys will tell you well limits the potential

wheel travel also limits the potential modifiability of the Bronco platform and what do you think

of those those discussions?

Ultimately there are independent suspension designs that can flex articulate really well

that have a lot of wheel travel so it's not impossible to design an independent suspension

that articulates really well does it articulate as well as a solid axle is it as easy to do

suspension modifications all these things that's maybe another topic but out of the

box they can be really good and we'll test momentarily how this one in particular flexes

and articulates because we can look at that in real time but it does certainly make this

Bronco more refined on the street where even the hardest core off-roaders are still probably

driving a majority of the time as compared to the solid front axle on a Wrangler and

I think like in my opinion what shut up a lot of the solid axle guys is like for years

all of the most hardcore buggies were all solid axle yeah right and then with the emergence

of side by sides and then especially with the explosion of King of the Hammers in the

last couple of years which is kind of the pinnacle of the off-road space in terms of

torture testing I think you know what but but but the solid axles guys need to realize

and what a lot of people have is like some of those rock buggies and some of those bashers

and especially all those super capable side by sides they're all independent suspension

everywhere and granted it's long arm stuff which gives you huge amounts of wheel travel

up and down but it is proof that like well the technology is there it's capable you

know and maybe it'll start trickling down in the consumer products as well yeah there's

a big difference between the independent suspension that you get on on a pilot right

and the independent suspension that you have even on this Bronco or on a specific purpose

built tube chassis off-road or something absolutely insane that doesn't mean that there isn't

a place or a use case for solid axles they still are very dependable perform really well

right but if you're trying to also balance driving on the street you could definitely

make an argument for the independent front suspension on this Bronco another interesting

point of comparison with this is this is a very wide vehicle yeah for sure and I think

that this is something that Ford absolutely nailed I mean if you look at the form factor

too you know jeeps have a really narrow engine bay and and they've got these fenders that

are are very separate from the actual body and wide of the vehicle Ford in you know kind

of with that retro throwback design as well has extended the fenders all the way to the

wheels then just see small flares and the result of this is that on the inside it's

particularly better for road tripping because you're not nearly as tight and close to the

person next to you and I think that once again it does limit where this thing can go when

you're in tight areas with a lot of trees but as as a livable daily drivable vehicle

it's a big improvement it is and the outermost points on this Bronco and the majority of

Broncos you're actually going to take off road they aren't painted surfaces you've got

matte fenders that are a little better equipped to handle some scuffs here and there so still

majority of trails you can squeeze this through and it's not a huge problem but I would actually

argue that either something like the severglades or a typical Bronco the Sasquatch package

for most people most places is going to be the better off-roader than even a Bronco Raptor

yeah how wide that is definitely on in a lot of parts of the country parts of the country

that have trees yeah it's too wide for sure yeah and and even this I think is pushing it in some

cases but you know it does it does a really good job of making the vehicle very stable as well

right that's true when you're out on on the trail running up some some some tilted obstacles

or articulated sections of vehicle feels very planted yeah you can side hill no problem you

can get pitched and rock back and forth a little bit really not a big issue then of course another

huge advantage of this Bronco over a lot of other 4x4s but one area where it's similar

to a Jeep Wrangler is removable top yeah for sure right and I think you know another thing that

Ford is underly well is instead of just having this monstrously heavy rear panel with the rear

passenger cover and then the two freedom panels that Wrangler does there's actually a lot more

modularity in this so you can break it up into smaller bites makes it a lot easier to manage

this one is the Everglades which we'll talk about here in a sec so you get the roof rack so maybe

this one is less easy to go convertible than your typical option but one thing that I think

Ford should look into and I don't think they really have Jeep has the one touch power top

right and that's a really nice option because as lazy as it sounds I mean it's nice just being

anywhere at any time with an any number of people and things in the trunk and pushing that button

you're going to use it more often if it's that much easier to use for sure yeah this is really

cool too I love that Ford pioneered what you know they call we've got a nail in that tire shoot

what uh what uh Ford pioneered the the Sasquatch package so can you kind of explain what that was

or is what's cool about the Sasquatch package is it kind of shook things up a little bit because for

a long time with the Jeep Wrangler if you wanted all of the all out capability if you wanted to have

lockers have a disconnecting sway bar have bigger more aggressive tires you had to go for a Rubicon

and Rubicon's came with a lot of other things like nicer seats and more electronics and maybe a

better set of headlights although not necessarily and so you were buying a much more expensive

model just to get the off-road features the cool thing about the Sasquatch package on the Bronco

is the way that Ford shook it up was to offer that package even on some very base level Broncos

so if you wanted off-road capability you could spec off-road capability and nothing else if you

so chose which is such a good idea right and then like 35s out of the box like you said

you know you got the front of your locking discs and it turns what would essentially be in some

cases like you're mentioning a rental car spec barbie Bronco and it's something that you could do

pretty much any trail realistically you'd ever want to do straight out of the box so that was a

really great pioneering feature and then of course you know like they put a huge trunk in it so it's

it's really easy to carry a lot of things so I think that Ford has done a really good job of

um benchmarking Jeep and then improving a lot of things but let's talk about some of the downsides

of the Bronco and we're actually going to do that driving through our off-road course here yeah so

let's jump in the seats and get it moving do you like this interior case I do yeah I wouldn't say

it's maybe I wouldn't say it's necessarily better than the Jeep interior I still like the Wrangler

interior a lot love the way it looks but the Bronco does a good job it's comfortable enough all of

these vehicles are very compromised when it comes to on-road comfort and drivability so you're

talking about this independent front suspension maybe well almost certainly being better than a

solid axle yeah but that doesn't mean that this drives the same as other vehicles that are designed

specifically to be road going cars it's not a pilot like you said earlier right uh it still is

very tall and has a pretty high center of gravity um but one another cool thing that you know Ford

has done here is they've given us a lot of options in terms of four-wheel drive systems right so so

Jeep forever you had a manual manual six double four-wheel driver you had two high and four high

and then they introduced rock track on a very limited number of trims but on forward it's really

easy to get too high and a four-auto setting which is huge for for like us in Colorado in the winter

time you just leave it in four-auto and then regardless of whether it snows or rains you never

have to actually think about it which sounds like a dumb thing but like the number of times in the

winter where like it's wet but is it wet enough to the four-wheel drive oh but it's drying out in

places and then you hit a patch of ice so just being able to stick it in the auto setting and

forget about it it's really really nice that's really nice and then the other thing that Ford

did incredibly well is the locker engagement which we can look at too one thing this everglades in

particular is missing is a disconnecting front sway bar yeah so the articulation we're about

to demonstrate on the front end of this Bronco is not going to be as good as a Sasquatch package

Bronco with the sway bar disconnect so this is our trenches course and basically we dug out these

pits in the earth to test stuff like four-wheel drive systems and articulation and right now

I'm just running it in four-wheel drive auto high-range we're going to see if it can do it

so we're picking up two wheels yeah and some people might be saying Tommy why aren't you

using some momentum to get up this hill when we're doing testing like this it's actually

our explicit goal not to use momentum to make this test as challenging as it can be yeah and

we'll try it again with lockers here so you can see even in the four-auto setting

you know the traction control is able to figure it out you're right though in that

it would be cool if this did have that disconnect because it does seem to make a really big

difference wouldn't you say as a whole yeah definitely Broncos that have the front sway

bar disconnect articulate noticeably better than ones without you could turn to the aftermarket

you could do a manual disconnect but the ease of the factory sway bar disconnect you just can't

compete with so we'll stick it in the low-range here do you like the buttons or do you prefer the

lever uh you know I'm not that particular to be honest you don't care you don't tie your manhood

to the no I think there's other things to base your personality on so we also have these goat

mows which stands for goes over any terrain and you can see we've got you know eco we got sport

we got slippery we got mud and ruts sand and rock crawl we'll probably go to mud and ruts

kind of where we're at right now now when you think about these moses are very particular so like

mud and ruts to exit for low shift to end be like well what if I want to stay in for low

when it button ruts and then if I go to rock crawl that well that'll let me use for low

but also automatically kicks on your rear locker which maybe you don't want if you're

going to go through a lot of tight turns yeah so I I kind of just like leave it in normal mode and

then lock and unlock but I do want to show this because in case you mentioned this earlier

the engagement for the locking diffs in the Bronco is the best in the industry yeah it really is

I mean the moment you hit that switch it works so we're gonna articulate here so that's full

articulated all right we're slipping right obviously but watch this switch go yeah and what's funny is

like I've talked about this before in the channel people are like well that's just fake right the

light comes on but the lock is not actually on no it kicked right on like that locker is on and

same thing with the front end switch on now we're fully locked up because if you're and if you're

paying attention you you can see that in the footage the moment you hit that switch and went to

the throttle yeah the locker was working there was no more spin on the rear end so yeah no it

really does work that well it's pretty impressive especially when you look at some other manufacturers

lockers things like any else the grenadier those lockers take some trial and error well yeah and

look if you guys like this podcast format we'll try to do a whole bunch of videos and we'll talk

about little things like this because like I'd love to get a Tacoma out here like a 30 pro and then

you can see what the frustration is like with some of the Toyota lockers where it's just like mind

numbing and how long it takes for the lock up all right now we're we're going down our Boulder

Boulevard here which is kind of a little rock crawling section we built this is more for crossover

so nothing here is going to even remotely test the ground clearance of this brocco because we've

got something like 10 or 11 inches yeah absolutely tons of clearance and we can go ahead and talk about

one of the perks with this being in Everglades is that we've got some good underbody protection

we have sliders yeah Everglades is obviously Florida so we've also got a snorkel even though

there's no water almost anywhere in Colorado so I'm not sure or the raised intake is manufacturers

like to call them I'm not sure that's going to do us a ton of good here I just had a really fun

conversation we cool thing to do in this podcast to the interview engineers with the head of the

Ford off-road program and we were talking about water forwarding and like you know so much engineering

now especially with the modern-day models yeah right can be done in the computer I'm like well

you can probably just do water depth in the computer right he's like water depth is one

of the hardest things to account for in a computer because water goes everywhere right and especially

when you factor in air inlets cooling fans right it's really hard to actually rate a vehicle for

water forwarding and until you see how everything actually fits together maybe what kind of gaps

you might be dealing with yeah I could see that yeah a lot of manufacturers don't seem to try and

push the water forwarding too far because ultimately if you're drowning your fuse box are they going

to guarantee that that's going to be sealed and one of the things with the Everglades the reason I

love it is because it's very purposeful like it's pretty stripped down in here plastic floors

right the standard audio system but then you get the lockers you get the great tires you get the

cool wheels and snorkel you also get the integrated I'm going to put air quotes around integrated

because it's kind of plaster on the front of it you get a winch which is great that's a great

thing to have from the factory it's not really built into the front of it so much it's it is

kind of copy and pasted onto the front bumper right but because of that you also get the small

engine yeah so this is a 2.3 liter four cylinder and I've had many debates in comment sections

and forums about people saying you're wrong I talked to the head of the offeror program for

Ford he said the reason this had the four cylinder is a weight thing when you account for the weight

difference between the four and the six plus the winch it would be too heavy with the v6 I know

you guys are going to say I'm wrong and there's a million reasons why that's what the the head of

the offeror engineering program told me at Ford so that seems like a pretty credible source yeah

now three engine options available in the Ford lineup right you get the 2.3 you get the the 2.7

right or if you get a raptor the three liter but again there's trade-offs with the raptor not

only in price but the size and the form factor is is different and I've actually learned something

interesting the actual engine block and the bottom end is exactly the same from the 2.7 to the 3.0

so it's all in the the I think it's I think he said it was bore is the difference or maybe the stroke

between the the 2.7 and the 3.0 but are you like really picky about the engines in this thing like

if if you are shopping between two one had the v6 one of the four cylinders that going to be a

deal breaker for the four cylinder in a Jeep Wrangler between a pentastar and a 392 I am very

particular between a four cylinder and a six cylinder I like the 2.7 better

but this 2.3 believe it or not has really no problem motivating this Bronco this Bronco

as a rock crawler especially it doesn't need to be any faster than what this one is yeah I actually

think even with the 35 like it's not blisteringly quick but when you made it to the 10 speed which

is just so many ratios for the engine to kind of work with I think it's plenty plenty plenty

it's what it's around 300 horsepower yeah you got it right exactly how much you need I like your

point it's a bit of a hot take for most people but I think it's especially true actually with

rock crawlers can it go 80 miles an hour yeah then it's fast enough yeah can it go up a hill

you're probably good um but this is where I think as we finish this up um we're going to

have a little bit of a disagreement because I think this is a fantastic vehicle the Everglades

has been discontinued it cost about $55,000 in this trim now Bronco pricing is kind of all over

the board I mean I think they start mid 30s realistically at dealer lots yeah what's a

raptor now 80 90 probably yeah pricey so for me I think that the one to get keep it on the base

and keep it basic keep it 2 3 Sasquatch it would be awesome um where I think we might disagree a

little bit and I want to hear your take when you're looking at the top end of the Bronco lineup I'm

talking Bronco Raptor versus 392 Wrangler yeah are we in agreement that like on a basic one we'd

probably both go forward yeah fair enough I think we probably agree on that yeah I think so if we're

looking at a $40,000 one the Ford I think is is it if you're looking at a Bronco Raptor or a

392 Wrangler I'm getting the Wrangler you're getting the Wrangler I knew you were going to say that

um and actually I'm not going to disagree I think I would get the Wrangler too because

this vehicle is leapfrogged the Wrangler in so many ways but the V8 makes up for so much of the

of the magic the V8's a V8 it's two better than a V6 yeah that's right and that's all there is to

say about them apples all right guys well that was just our quick first drive off-road in our

Bronco um the idea with this format is like in a couple weeks we tried to come on a Land Cruiser

and a power wagon all these things but now we're going to cut back to the studio and talk about

some news of the week so now we are no longer in the dirt we're in the studio we're in the studio

and I thought what would be cool for this podcast is kind of transition to talking about some of the

news in the off-road space of the week and then we can also talk about some other things going on

within our garages and that kind of thing um now pretty slow news week I did want to show you this

case the biggest news is happening right now in the off-road world is King of the Hammers yeah

which is the ultramarathoning of of of car driving ultramarathon slash burning man for spectators

exactly right and there is this guy scroll up uh Cole I forgot the name of his channel here

bomber fabrication who had a buggy and I want to show you just a hint of how extreme this race is

all right Cole quit play this clip so this man ran into probably a four foot tall boulder and he

said it felt like being hit in the chest with a sledgehammer but the insane part is he hit this

boulder at probably 25 30 miles an hour and then keeps driving yeah some so his page is a fabrication

page obviously there's got to be some good welds going on in there what an ad can we see one more

time Cole this is on his instagram in case you want to check it out himself but here he goes

bam immovable object 30 miles an hour and he just drives away from it yeah I'm I'm shocked not only

that the car made it but that he was okay enough to keep driving this is a hell of an ad too for king

shocks I know to say free free posted this on there yeah on their page the car was not totally okay

like apparently it um needs an alignment no apparently it sprung a leak in the cooling system

I could see why which is not unsurprising yeah um but uh yeah I mean crazy crazy stuff that's

doing over at king of the hammers yeah absolutely and there's crazy footage coming out of it it

really is almost a sturgis like event do you have any interest people go pretty wild and doing that

it'd be interesting to see I don't know if I would want to be in the uh in the mosh pit where

people are punching each other and shoving each other off of cliffs yes exactly right it looks uh

it looks exciting nice yeah I think it's um I think driving it looks crazy it's so hard to relate

to you've driven this area I have actually yeah I did one of the big hills actually in a bronco

raptor but we're doing it at like two miles an hour instead of 40 yeah which is the crazy part

is like difference not only rock crawling but you're like rock crawling with speed yeah yeah

it's next level it's crazy unreal um so piece of news this week though which is interesting this is

over on car bus uh apparently nissan dealers saw some behind the scene images it's a sneak peek

preview of the new exterra the image we're looking at is not it no that is a a build that somebody

made for sima that is maybe an idea of some of what the exterra will be like obviously heavily

modified so somebody for sima put basically a newer frontier front end on an older

exterra modified the body a lot it's got a raised intake it's got a roof rack it's got

steel bumpers it's heavily heavily lifted so it's a cool build this it is cool it's cool it's not

very much like what an actual factory exterra would be like yeah but apparently uh this is

according to car bus nissan showed its dealers understandably desperate for anything resembling

a new and exciting product ouch that's a harsh car bus there um a preview of the new exterra

one dealer told automotive news the new scv is quote radical looking and described it as quote a

beefy full-size truck with big tires a muscular grille and a no frilled rugged focus another

dealer told told automotive news there's an aggression to the new exterra style which

curious the dna of the original but has a modern twist we're kind of expecting that they're going

to keep this new exterra a body on frame vehicle like it was in the past my hope and i would be

perfectly fine with this personally is if they just suv eyes the frontier right yeah little

shorter wheelbase make it an suv but it could have the same front end have the same powertrain

make a pro forex trim with a rear locker same basic suspension layout that would be great right

yeah i mean what i know about this vehicle is i was at a nissan program a while back and they

took our cameras dang it um and they actually put them in these little like zip lock unsealable bags

yeah um anyway but they showed us like a little behind the sneak peek teaser of the exterra which

hopefully is uh less than what the dealers saw because you couldn't see much but one thing i did

see is it did appear to have like you know a 33 or even larger offer tire and perhaps even a solid

axle so i hope that they they they keep going down that route and and they do it right because

you know they do this rock creek thing like with the rogue and with the pathfinder yeah but that's

not really what enthusiasts are looking for no it's more tires and cosmetics i think everyone's

first question when the exterra is coming out is going to be is it body on frame does it have

a solid rear axle does it have any lockers that have a low range if the answer is no to just about

any of those it doesn't necessarily have to have a solid rear axle it'd be nice if it did

but if the answer is no to basically any of those things then i think a lot of people are going to

be disappointed yeah right right i think you're i think you're on the right track there i mean i

think that likely is going to be like you mentioned frontier based which makes sense because the

broncos more or less ranger based right yeah so the forerunner in the Tacoma yeah that's a good one

especially the new gen are very very closely related yeah so if they just do that same thing

then that i think that would be great be a big hit yeah so really excited for nissan to come out

with this i mean they killed the exterra right before like the offer at stv's blew up in popularity

and we've been asking well not just us everybody's been asking for the exterra to come back for a

long time ever since it was announced that it was going away this was time yeah bring it back nissan

please um case another thing i want to talk about um oh my gosh so the next segment is going to be

called what's in the garage and it's going to be time about our little wrenching projects that we

got going on a little project a little projects uh we've got we've got some maybe bigger than

little projects in there so case of course has a super cool land over discovery two that he ls

swapped and it's got a big lift on it and it's bright blue and it's super rad and the last time

it was on the channel we were cruising over the rocks in moab utah and and now it's not doing that

as much oh yeah there's the video of it in moab if you're watching this as a video rather than

just listening you can see some images related to what we're talking about so yeah drove it through

hell's revenge headed out in moab for the land rover national rally which was a lot of fun we

got to meet some really cool people and i finally got to test it out on some more interesting trails

i'd taken it on some local trails here in colorado before going out to moab but this was really kind

of my initial shakedown and i had had quite a few issues with the 6l80 gm transmission that i swapped

into this vehicle it's a computer controlled transmission a lot of electronics very complicated

most of it is over my head so i'm not a software guy the programming is is out of my league by far

so i'm happy to bolt up an engine bolt up a transmission all of that kind of stuff that

i was comfortable with doing in my own garage but when it came to getting the program programming

actually done on the transmission i kind of had to export that to uh to other people and the transmission

initially stopped going into reverse and then stopped transmissioning uh entirely so transmitting

the power to the rear wheels or all four wheels yes so it was basically all all neutral so

yeah it's it's back under investigation the motor is great the ls is just unstoppable it's an awesome

engine gm automatic transmission not as great not as good no i mean the crazy thing is like

it's been to now what two or three shops that you know are specialists in this kind of thing

yeah transmission i've had it in and out quite a few times and it's just kind of wild to me that like

you have a gm engine and you have a gm transmission and it's it's not some one of 450

you know automated single clutch manual ferrari crazy transmission from 28 years ago it's

it's a Chevy suburban transmission yes there are hundreds of thousands of these very same

transmissions out there shifting through gear sometimes so occasionally i don't i don't know

i'm i'm amazed that it's been so difficult um we're coming up on the one year anniversary of the

first time i had any issues with that transmission so really uh putting swapping an ls into it the

motor that was it was a project but that wasn't that hard yeah i got that figured out in a few months

transmission has been a huge pain honestly in a lot of ways it would have been better if

i stuck with the original four speed but we live up here in the mountains four speed

automatic transmissions just don't drive that well on i-70 so ideally i'd like to have a functional

six speed and i think it's possible for a six l 80 to work it's just been a challenge yes

you're gonna get there it's gonna happen i believe it i believe you you're gonna be at the next

land over rally um and i'm getting a call right now which i'm not gonna answer but from a gentleman

named rob the jeep guy which is a type of call that you get a lot now i do i am talking to rob

all he's my new best friend and also the reason i'm broke um so a while back i bought this 1948

willy cj2a or willis if your case um and half the world uh but basically the story is i bought

this like little cheap jeep jeep it was pretty awesome um this should be a video over a tfl

classics where we took it off road and it needed a couple little things like it you know i had a

starting issue and and it had some carb work but then can case you know convince me that the best

way to fix it would be to split it in half yeah so that is exactly what i did um and and now i'm like

three or four months into this quote restoration and i don't know what the hell i'm doing

but i've had a really fun time trying to figure it out it's been really really fun it is it's

a fun vehicle to work on because it is dirt simple it's so little going on and this particular one

time i found a great buy yeah yeah figure it out it it's uh on the rougher side yes but what's

cool about what you're doing is cosmetically we're you know you're leaving a lot of the

bumps and bruises on it it's not going to be a trashed tub but it's an original tub that's

got some character to it so the story is you know like about this thing home you know start poking

around it and figure out the the actual body which jeep people call the tub is pretty trashed pretty

rusty uh so that's when case convinced me well i just pulled the whole face off of it so i pulled

the face and all the limbs off of it um and then figured out like it'd probably be easier to replace

the tub than to try to fix the old one so that's where rob the jeep guy comes in he's my jeep guy

and he has like a graveyard of 30 of these things so i found a pretty good tub and did some welding

work on it um and then i attempted i don't know if you know this i attempted some welding work and

it looks like trash but that's okay because i'm learning and it's it's a jeep right that's part

so so right now the way it says is there's there's a bare frame which i have

ground down given myself emphysema i got new brake lines i'd got new my new brake lines

i had a realization i was on grinding that paint that is probably all leaded paint but that's okay

that'll haunt me in 30 years new brake lines um jeez i got a lot of new stuff it's getting the

trans rebuilt it's getting the transfer case resealed on the engine i'm doing all the accessories

pretty much everything yeah exhaust manifold intake manifold distributor

carb rebuild even the manifold studs yes manifold studs that's where i'm currently at

it's getting new gaskets in the engine which is fresh coat of enamel it's very shiny now that's how

i restore it which is important yeah you painted a black getting a new steering box in it probably

front main rear main seal pan gasket yeah a little bit everything you might do head gasket yeah maybe

head gasket because it's my head anyways um so at this point i need to get it running again we're

getting laughed at by our producer are you laughing at me because you don't think i can do it you're

right i can't do it but i'm figuring it out yeah the whole thing what started out of the flywheel

is now the whole damn thing have you seen this jeep recently what what we're gonna do col we're

gonna leave the bottom end of the engine alone for you just for you otherwise yes it will be

completely rebuilt electronic ignition it's getting a new wiring harness whole new wiring harness

yeah the whole thing because it did have cold things that's really funny what the hell col just a

wiring harness tommy got shocked by his fuel gauge do you know it electrocuted him electrocuted me

and then caught on fire that's what it was it was uh it was like simmering no you should have

seen it was a pretty good was it an open flame it was i could see flames coming out of that i

thought it was just a little sizzle no it wasn't so much a sizzle as a flame i i what i did is i

grabbed the wire yanked it out and like the whole wiring harness was black you what why did you do

that because it was on fire i wanted to get the fire out from underneath the dash oh the fire

didn't start because you tugged the wire no no it just started randomly i was driving it along

and then it just caught on fire it started smoking and sizzling the fuel gauge chored it out and then

it took out all the wires next to it all six of them um yeah so which is about half the wires in the

jeep yeah exactly so now it's got a new new wiring harness coming um and then i got to do all the

suspension and the axles it's a small project i'm not saying i'm not saying it'll be fast or easy

but yeah in case it's going to help me paint it here and hopefully in the next few weeks yeah

simple single stage i think we're looking at dark blue yeah so it's going to be really red and what

were you going to do on the wheels uh i don't know i mean so originally the dark blue tubs i think

had orange wheels but that's a little too denver broncosi yeah so thinking i might do white wheels

i think that'll look the best maybe the black wheels make it look kind of a steer

and then long term it'd be really cool to do lockers in it and suspension but i just need to

get it back to where it moves again so coles stops laughing at me yeah and then we'll be in a good

spot but it's really rough trying to build stuff with color yeah what the hell man it's not very

over here tell him my my story and he's just coming in and making fun of me

but we got a lot of the in the garage so that's what i'm up to and then last update this is kind

of fun col go to youtube and look up a channel called lost cause ranch yes um so we got a lot of

four by fours that don't run yeah we got a ton of them that's interesting is it because we like

jeeps and land roads that's the problem yeah we're Toyota people we would never have this issue

so there's a really cool dude named Joe who are the really cool channel named lost cause ranch

and he's he's doing this awesome project by the way where he's taking a land over lr4

and turning it into a pickup truck yeah which is pretty impressive it's pretty awesome and like

the results are looking freaking awesome so yeah in between doing that he also has another one of

my cars he's in Iowa so he he he ended up picking up one of my cars in Omaha because i bought this

really cool land over discovery one uh super cheap at auction but of course i needed head gaskets um

and this was before i was maybe a little bit more ambitious than i am now and also he is the land

over guy so he pulled it apart took the heads got a new machine shop it's got nice it's got new uh

valve seals in it it's got a new uh water pump he fixed the oil pumping it you're getting basically

a whole top end rebuild yeah look at that yeah it is a whole top end rebuild yes got new rockers

arp head studs so nice yeah so this is pretty cool it's maybe won't be hard to convince especially

non land rover people but the rest of this disco one is actually in really good shape

paints pretty decent yeah the interior is pretty decent it was bone dry underneath not a speck

of rust on it so overall it's actually in pretty good shape but yeah it needed the head gasket

so once a head gasket is done this is going to be a really nice running and driving disco one yeah

and what's really cool is you can actually follow the build over at joe's channel lost cause ranch

he's got a really cool build series uh you can see my new rockers in there so as as far as i know

it i mean it's done and it's running and it's back together and he just wants to you know make sure

that it's all set up and good for my drive back to colorado which we're going to do at the end of

february but uh yeah dude it's it's it's looking good i'm really stoked about it so i'm going to have

a super nice running and driving d1 um which you know i'm going to wheel a little bit and daily

drive a little bit and just have some fun with but uh i think it's gonna be a cool cool car plan is

not to turn that into some huge tire massive lift steel bumpers kind of thing because it's very

very stock and these in relatively stock form are pretty cool hey he uses the same oil

in those that i put in my truck t4 good man yeah case yeah so this video will be coming shortly to

the channel but um yeah common land over issues going through head gaskets and hopefully mine

will have head gaskets in it in the next few weeks yeah which is a big good stuff right there is

pretty cool um well that's all we've got going on in the garage and guys let us know how you'd

like to see us kind of evolve this podcast because we've got some ideas cooking up about

you know what what to do with some cars and trucks and we could do like a question and answer thing

and we could also talk about maybe some more aftermarket parts and modified parts when we can

always talk too about what our experience has been with different manufacturers as far as

uh four-wheel drive systems regarding traction control locker engagement yeah and we could talk

about different suspension designs pros and cons i mean the sure lucky lucky thing for what we

do is that we get to test out basically everything from every brand and since we live in colorado

we actually get to run some cool trails with them yep so i think we get to compare and contrast

a lot of vehicles on some of the same trails and uh yeah so there's a lot of fun stuff we

could talk about yeah we could also go you know talk about some of our adventures that we're up to

and some of the new press drives we've done and some of the company projects like tomorrow we're

breaking the news here but we're picking up 100 series land cruiser that we're going to do a project

build on and we can you know kind of fill people in on the parts that we're using and the parts that

we like and don't like and uh there's a lot of opportunity here so we'd love your feedback and

your input on what we should do yeah absolutely this is a podcast that i'm looking forward to

for sure guys well if you like this one leave a comment if you don't bunker off don't leave a

you

Owners Review: Is The Ford Bronco Really Better Than A Jeep Wrangler? | Ep. 323

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