V8-powered Jeep Wrangler crashes Ford Bronco's party

[billiebob]

This has a lot of detail....

An Extremely Detailed Look Into The Ford Bronco's Engineering Designed To Take On Jeep - Jalopnik

To get an understanding of how the 2021 Ford Bronco will stack up against the undefeated Jeep Wrangler off-road, I had to get nerdy. I interviewed the Bronco’s Chief Program Engineer and Vehicle Engineering manager, reached out to other engineering experts in the auto industry, visited a Jeep...

jalopnik.com

 

[billiebob]

Not to nit pick at your reply...buuuut you've never worked on a Bronco. To me they appear no more difficult than a 1/2 ton truck to work on.

Absolutely. The Bronco is 100% the same as any new F150.... or Ranger.
Point is neither of those are as simple to work on on a trail as a Wrangler......... after dark.

There are exceptions to the norm everywhere, and an idiot can break anything..... me included.... age and wisdom have made me a much better owner.
Anyone on engine #3, tranny #2, and rebuilt axles obviously loves and uses his Rubicon well. The fact he still owns it speaks volumes to why he still owns it. Obviously he feels it is worth rebuilding. He is the best Wrangler spokesperson ever !!

I'm curious, how many miles are on his Rubi. I'm on engine #2 too with 250K miles on mine.

 

[Deleted member 9101]

Absolutely. The Bronco is 100% the same as any new F150.... or Ranger.
Point is neither of those are as simple to work on on a trail as a Wrangler......... after dark.

They are not that hard man. Hell, I put on two new half shafts, two coil overs, and new tie rod ends on my brother in laws truck in like 2.5 hours (in an apartment parking lot)...and that includes a pizza break...haha.

You sound like the guys my dadsold gear head buddies that he use to hang out with in the late 80's: "fuel injection is crap... Can't fix it yourself... Can't fix it on the side of the road... Etc." You know what's never once left me stranded.... Fuel injection....lol.

 

[billiebob]

They are not that hard man. Hell, I put on two new half shafts, two coil overs, and new tie rod ends on my brother in laws truck in like 2.5 hours (in an apartment parking lot)...and that includes a pizza break...haha.

You sound like the guys my dadsold gear head buddies that he use to hang out with in the late 80's: "fuel injection is crap... Can't fix it yourself... Can't fix it on the side of the road... Etc." You know what's never once left me stranded.... Fuel injection....lol.

Not meaning to argue and this is my last post on the topic, I love this.....



And hate this....



I'd never do the work in a driveway when a shop is close by.
But on a powerline trail at dusk, it is just soo much easier to work on anything with fewer parts and room for yer hands.

You know whats never left me stranded... a clutch and a carb. Anything with a computer, especially the newest diesels which go into limp mode when a sensor fails is retarded. Yer Dad was right. His gear head buddies, on the money, experience counts.

Now if you had a carbureted solid axle F250, you'd have been done in an hour, 2 hours in the dark.

But the point about the coil over things is the price to replace or upgrade the shocks. The Wrangler, springs, shocks individual items gives way more selection for less money.

I hope Jeep keeps that simplicity.

I'm not saying the Bronco sucks, I've made several comments that Ford NAILED it. Just saying there are reasons to prefer the Wrangler.

 

[Buliwyf]

But I have to carry a spare carb with the old Ford. I'll never buy a carb'd bike ever again. While simple and easy to work on, they get wrecked by bad fuel quickly. A fuel injector has enough pressure to spray through gunk. It might run like crap, but it'll run well enough to get me home where I can swap injectors easy.

Even with the Jeep, or my Super Duty, you have to steer on the trail with your fingertips. Break any tie rod, and It's a flatbed ride home. If you can even get it off of the trail. Welding those joints, like in that article, never works. They always fail some where you can't weld, like at the joint, never in the center of the bar. You just have to be careful with steering, or end up like the Tahoe, Burb, H2 guys.

I won't dispute that a solid axle is tougher. There's no doubt to that. That's why I'm tent camping from an F250, not a 150 that might almost suit me better.

The 4cyl manual version looks simple enough.

New rides bring new problems. But old rides weren't ever reliable anyways. Reliability was never a major design criteria for old American consumer grade cars.
-gummed carbs
-carbs that can't go uphill
-oil pumps that can't go uphill (Toyota still has problems with this one)
-spindly weak axles (all those cool 80's CK2500 trucks that we love so much, ALL had custom axles swapped in)
-unreliable xfer cases and transmissions
-no cargo capacity at all
-poor quality steering box mounts, and/or poor quality frames
-rust, rust, and more rust. What's left of my 98 dodge, fits in a mason jar.

New or old? It's a wash. Most of the best reliable old rigs, have very little of the old drivetrain left.

 

[Smileyshaun]

I love a good solid axle but ifs is just as easy to work on , jack it up , pull the tire , take the 4 bolts out of the strut and you can then take the rest apart in a couple min , cv shafts are what 6 bolts on the diff end and 1 nut ... 15-20 min job . You want a pain to repair replace a axle shaft on a old Dana 44 or 60 with locking hubs talk about a ordeal on the trail .

 

[Deleted member 9101]

Not meaning to argue and this is my last post on the topic, I love this.....

View attachment 599224

And hate this....

View attachment 599225

I'd never do the work in a driveway when a shop is close by.
But on a powerline trail at dusk, it is just soo much easier to work on anything with fewer parts and room for yer hands.

You know whats never left me stranded... a clutch and a carb. Anything with a computer, especially the newest diesels which go into limp mode when a sensor fails is retarded. Yer Dad was right. His gear head buddies, on the money, experience counts.

Now if you had a carbureted solid axle F250, you'd have been done in an hour, 2 hours in the dark.

But the point about the coil over things is the price to replace or upgrade the shocks. The Wrangler, springs, shocks individual items gives way more selection for less money.

I hope Jeep keeps that simplicity.

I'm not saying the Bronco sucks, I've made several comments that Ford NAILED it. Just saying there are reasons to prefer the Wrangler.

Here's the thing...if the carb went out on any of my previous vehicles, it's dead in the water. The direct injection on my EcoBoost doesn't have that problem. It has numerous failsafe, redundancy, and is zero maintaince.

Back to my dad and his buddies: they were constantly tuning, repairing, and rebuilding carbs. Do you know how many times I've had to do any of that in my 24 years of owning fuel injected vehicles...the answer is zero...lol. Whats funny is my dad now has a 2015 Navigator and looooves not having to swap jets because he has gone up 8k in altitude while pulling a travel trailer... Or screw with timing... Or let it warm up on a cold morning... Or dealing with constant oil leakes..

You'll spend hours changing jets, sniffing exhaust, and checking spark plugs in a carburetor equipped vehicle to get it to run perferct after swapping the cam and heads... With fuel injection I can do it in seconds...lol.

I get the point of simplicity, really I do...but modern vehicles are exponentially more reliable and robust than their antique counterparts. ;-)

Also, I didn't take your comments as argumentative... Rather just two guys that have different preferences in vehicles.

 

[Twistnshout]

Jeep never kicked Broncos ass. It was the other way around.

View attachment 599202

jeep aint about baja then as it is now. The same is true now, with IFS it's a baja machine that will do to moderate wheeling. Bronco got it's ******** kicked in the market place where it really counts.

 

[Twistnshout]

I love a good solid axle but ifs is just as easy to work on , jack it up , pull the tire , take the 4 bolts out of the strut and you can then take the rest apart in a couple min , cv shafts are what 6 bolts on the diff end and 1 nut ... 15-20 min job . You want a pain to repair replace a axle shaft on a old Dana 44 or 60 with locking hubs talk about a ordeal on the trail .

lol, well than its obvious you've had a lot of practice with the cv shafts breaking and we all get fast with experience A real four wheeler wants strength and while a ifs has some pluses, strength isnt typically one of them compared to sfa

 

[Buliwyf]

Dana 60 is cake once you're used to it. Dana 44 can be a pita because of tighter quarters to work in.

Bronco front end looks clean and easy. An IFS improvement most likely.

 

[Smileyshaun]

lol, well than its obvious you've had a lot of practice with the cv shafts breaking and we all get fast with experience A real four wheeler wants strength and while a ifs has some pluses, strength isnt typically one of them compared to sfa

No I’ve actually had more breaks with a sfa because I push it harder than ifs . It also depends a lot on the sfa . Everything has its plus and minuses .

 

[Twistnshout]

This has a lot of detail....

An Extremely Detailed Look Into The Ford Bronco's Engineering Designed To Take On Jeep - Jalopnik

To get an understanding of how the 2021 Ford Bronco will stack up against the undefeated Jeep Wrangler off-road, I had to get nerdy. I interviewed the Bronco’s Chief Program Engineer and Vehicle Engineering manager, reached out to other engineering experts in the auto industry, visited a Jeep...

jalopnik.com

yeah this reaffirms what I already know about IFS. They basically had the same platform and went with it instead of going SFA. They also admit it wont flex as good as jeep which we all should already know as well.

Hey there are a lot of things I like about the bronco. 2.7 for one, looks not so much on the lower end models. I'll bet they are a hoot to go fast in baja (handling with ifs ) but as a 4wd enthusiast not cranking through MX they missed it with the ifs. Will the bronco be able to do enough with ifs for most who dont care about strength, and flex. Probably. But it's a shame it has to be dumbed down for the masses. Maybe the Rapter will be a real 4wd rig and get SFA.

 

[Twistnshout]

No I’ve actually had more breaks with a sfa because I push it harder than ifs . It also depends a lot on the sfa . Everything has its plus and minuses .

makes sense cause you can push them harder. Time for better axle shafts if your breaking them all the time.

 

[Buliwyf]

A gas Super Duty is no larger than a Raptor, and has the axles you want. Actually narrower. Fox and King 2.5 kits are available everywhere.

Jeep needs 35's, a real engine and transmission, F/R lockers available on all models, and more gear (4.56+).

The only place Ford has messed up, options not available for all models, in all combinations. Manual trans should be available for any engine combo, any wheelbase, any model. Same for Sasquatch. Jeeps the same way. It needs to stop. I don't want to have to build some kind of decoder Rubics Cube to spec a vehicle.

Seems obvious that Ford chose to go after 90% of Jeeps customers, not the 10% that really need or want solid front axles. The fact that the Bronco already comes lifted for 35's echos that. Because easy breezy Jeep lifts for 35's, are the #1 advantage of solid front axle. There's no point in building an exact Jeep replica, when we can just continue buying Jeeps.

 

[Smileyshaun]

makes sense cause you can push them harder. Time for better axle shafts if your breaking them all the time.

Well that was a different time in my life before lockers and low gearing where skinny petal is what got you up a trail not careful lines and smart uses of momentum only when needed To get over a tough spot .