600-HP 1972 Ford Bronco: Shane Harness’s 17-Year Restomod Build

Shane Harness’s 1972 Ford Bronco is the result of a 17-year build that repeatedly had to be corrected before it could become the truck he wanted. It now pairs a fuel-injected 600-hp 351W with custom Dana axles, 37-inch tires and a carefully finished two-tone body. The path there is as much a story about inspecting work and choosing specialists as it is about adding power.

Harness, a retired Emmy Award-winning cinematographer, producer and writer, bought the Bronco in Southern California in 2000. He’d wanted one since seeing a 1970 model in the sports movie American Anthem. Years of searching had turned up trucks that cost too much or needed more work than he could take on. His target was a usable vintage Bronco with enough of a head start to let him improve it over time.

The green truck looked like a promising fit. It had little visible body damage, California origins and about $30,000 in documented work. Its previous owner, a grandson of actor Dick Van Dyke, had left it with a shop during a restoration. Harness negotiated a price and brought it home with a 302 V8, AOD transmission and nine-inch rear axle. It ran well enough to drive, and the body appeared largely free of rust.

A serious fault surfaced early

Closer inspection changed the picture. The brake system worked inconsistently, and the problem became impossible to ignore on a trail. Harness recalls reaching a steep descent that ended in a sharp turn. When he pressed the brake pedal, the truck didn’t slow. He managed to stop by steering into a ditch on the uphill side.

The incident prompted him to get the Bronco repaired before taking his family in it. A friend’s shop found the rear brake calipers installed upside down and uncovered rust hidden in the body tub. What had seemed like a nearly finished project now needed substantial corrective work.

Painting the truck while it was apart seemed like a sensible next step. Instead, the first paint shop dismantled it without labeling or bagging the hardware. After nearly six months, Harness learned the painter had been arrested. The Bronco came back in pieces, with no primer or paint applied.

A second shop fared little better. Harness says it primed the body without the usual preparation, then painted over the surface. The primer and paint began peeling soon after the truck returned home. His work in film and production took priority, and the Bronco sat in that condition for a couple of years.

Removing a failed coating took years

Harness retired and moved with his family to Washington state, towing the disassembled Bronco along. After sandblasting the body to bare metal, he took it to a Portland-area shop. The owner offered to apply a spray-on liner to the underside of the tub. Harness agreed, expecting a high-grade product such as Rhino Linings.

Instead, he says, the shop applied an unspecified liner inside and outside without first priming the metal. The coating looked muddy, was porous and peeled away in places. Harness spent about two years trying different ways to remove it. The episode added another long delay, and it reinforced how much the preparation beneath a finish matters.

For the next stage, Harness trailered the truck back to Southern California, to a shop known for custom cars and vintage vehicles. Two employees spent a week using blowtorches to strip off the liner. The shop then powder-coated the body and frame. Harness describes the work as an expensive, multiyear lesson, but says he was finally confident the surface had been treated properly.

Power and chassis built for the trail

Back in his garage, Harness spent nearly two years reassembling the Bronco as time allowed. The centerpiece is a fuel-injected 351W producing 600 hp, built by his friend Tom Paulson in Torrance, California. It’s paired with a built AOD transmission from a mid-1980s Super Duty. The drivetrain is a major departure from the original 302 and AOD combination, with power suited to a heavily modified truck.

The chassis setup includes custom Dana 44 front and Dana 60 rear axles, 4.88 gears and ARB Air Lockers. A 5.5-inch BC Broncos suspension lift gives the truck room for its 37-inch Yokohama Geolandar X-MT tires, mounted on 17-inch Raceline Monster beadlock wheels. The source also describes the truck as having seven inches of lift, so the reported lift figures differ across the build details.

Braking hardware includes Hydro-Boost and four-wheel discs. The body and frame are boxed and powder-coated, and the build adds a full roll cage, custom interior and shaved door window frames. A ProtoFab RockSolid prerunner bumper carries a Warn winch and 150-watt Bricologht combination LED lights. At the rear, a tubular ProtoFab setup holds the spare, cooler and backup lighting.

Paint changed the brief

One major job remained after the garage reassembly: paint. Harness and his wife hauled the Bronco through winter weather to Maxlider Brothers Custom in Bloomington, Illinois. He asked for a trail rig with decent paint rather than a showpiece, and told the shop to fit the work in when it could. Two and a half years later, the truck came back with striking silver-and-blue two-tone paint.

The finish was far more polished than Harness had planned. He jokes that it changed his idea of the Bronco as a trail truck. After the body shop completed its work, he spent about another year putting everything back together, including the Tom’s Off Road custom interior and roll cage. The final result has deep bucket seats, power windows and digital climate control, alongside the protective and utility equipment.

Harness belongs to the NW Vintage Broncos club in Washington state. His advice to other owners comes directly from the repeated setbacks: allow more time and money than expected, research the work and scrutinize body and paint shops. In his case, a truck that seemed partly restored needed major mechanical, corrosion and finish work before it met his standards.

That long process produced a high-powered, heavily equipped Bronco with a finish that outstripped its owner’s original plan. Harness says a future Bronco, intended as a true trail rig, should come together faster because he now knows where the first build went wrong. For buyers considering a vintage 4x4 project, his experience makes the condition and quality of prior work as important as the parts list.