Reply to Thread

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Message: <blockquote data-quote="dennishoddy" data-source="post: 4342774" data-attributes="member: 5412">In 1982, decided to go on the bass fishing tour. The Redman tour to be exact, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tx, Missouri, and Louisiana. Bought a brand new 1982 Bronco, went to Arkansas and had a matching paint scheme Ranger bass boat built while I watched it go down the assembly line.Long story, but a weekend tournament fisherman doesn't stand a chance of excelling on the tour where the pro's are full time and I was holding down a full-time job with family. Made enough money to break even, but never enough to stay in it any longer.The 82 Bronco was the worst ever built, engine wise. The engine was fair but gutless with the 351 Windsor, but the carburetor was the variable venturi model that had issues from day one and never recalled.A year later, the kids and I were racing three wheelers. Late one Saturday night, on the way home, the venturi's locked open. Beat on the carb at midnight and got them to close.Took it to the dealership under warranty with them saying nothing wrong. Works great.Every long trip we took, the venturi's locked open at some point. Back to the dealership.Called Ford, called every customer support and so on with no positive results.Everyone owning them was complaining about the same issue.Finally, one night with three kids in the vehicle close to midnight again coming home from a race, they locked open and would not close or modulate like they were supposed to.60 miles from home and mad, just drove it home. Checked the oil the next day and found it to have about a gallon of gasoline in the crankcase from being flooded by the carb.Enough. Took it to a trusted mechanic that built race engines for stock car racers and told him to bore it, work the intake and exhaust ports over to match them to the block, add an Edelbrock and Holly 650 to it, while adding a 3/4 low end horsepower cam to it.Finally got a Bronco! Drove that thing for almost 300,000 miles before buying a pickup. Let both kids use it for a driver until they could buy their own, let wife's relative drive it for a while between jobs until he could get his own, and the transmission started slipping.It got parked for about a year. Tried to drive it a couple times after but it was dangerous getting across an intersection. Put some Lucas trans medic into it and drove it according to the instructions. Nothing changed.Parked it again, and finally put it up for sale. $500 you load and haul off.Two guys called immediately and said they needed something to ferry people from the gate on their ranch to a river.They said they would take it but needed to go get some cash as check was not accepted.While they were gone, I fired it up, put it in gear, and drove across the yard to a place to load it on their trailer. I felt a bump. Transmission quit slipping. Drove it up and down the road just fine.The guys came back, told them what happened and honored our deal. They test drove it, went for some fresh fuel and drove it back to somewhere in SE Oklahoma without issue.Miss it. Turned on a dime, with the 33" gumbo mudder tires getting through just about anything.Edit: I talked to a guy in Michigan this summer with one of the new bronco's. I didn't know they sported a 3-cylinder engine. He was happy with the mileage, but will it have enough guts to get out of a bad situation? Turbo option? I'm still not a turbo believer for longevity. Incredibly high temperatures because of the nature of the beast and bearing failures have been reported.</blockquote>

Verification