Working on the Bronco

A couple of weeks ago I went out to start up the Bronco as it had not been run in a few weeks. I got in, stepped on the brakes and the pedal went almost to the floor. Holy crap Batman, I thought , the brakes were fine the last time. The brakes kind of worked if you stood on them. Guess that I will just idle in place for a while.

I called around and found a reman for the booster and master cylinder and picked them up. After changing these out, I called upon my better half to check if the brake lights were functioning correctly. They were not working at all. I could depress the switch and get them to work so the circuit was fine. Play around and try it again but no change was effected. My sweetie told me that the right rear fixture looked askew. One of the mounting studs had broken off. Oh well, we just figured that could wait as I did not have brake lights yet. A new switch was picked up and it worked exactly the same in that it did not work. The clevis or connection from the booster to the pedal was just a slightly different shape. A 0.016" brass shim folded around the switch contact surface and all was well for both the new and old switch. Now to the light fixture.

Upon removing the offending fixture, it was discovered that the black plastic backing was all warpy if that is a word. The lens side looks fine.

NEW

OLD

I was able to get the backup light socket out after clipping a bit of material out around the area that was already split. The running light removal required the use of a hack saw blade to make an opening, expand that opening and remove the socket. Both sockets were undamaged. The left side fixture was not warped. I am thinking that the old exhaust system did not stick out far enough and the plastic was attacked by the fumes since the other side was fine.

I finally have brakes, lights and a fixture that I could change out a bad bulb on the road. Thank heavens I did not lose a light driving and try this on the roadside!