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Ben Branch

@ben.branch

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Founder of @silodrome. Follow me to see some unusual adventures, vintage machines, and the occasional mishap.

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I’m going through GoPro footage from this year and found this clip of me getting stuck in the deep sand dunes in Lancelin, Western Australia mere moments before a tour group on quad bikes all rolled by to witness my shame.

There must have been 150 people on quads that day I swear 😆

#lancelin #bmwgs #adv #bmwr100gs #adventurebike by @ben.branch

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2 months ago

Filling the bike up before storing it in my friend’s garage until the next trip.

It’s basically all ready for the next big adventure now, all the major servicing is done and it has the lucky duck still holding on for dear life on that left front indicator (you can see it if you zoom in).

I rode it from Sydney to Perth solo a couple of winters ago, a distance of around 4,000 kms (2,500 miles). My plan is to ride it back to Sydney, solo again, over the top end of Australia, but that’s a much longer journey - around 9,100 kms (6,100 miles).

That’s going to take me around three weeks with stops, and internet access will be patchy at best. I’m considering doing Perth to Darwin and then leaving the bike there in storage, then doing Darwin to Queensland and down to Sydney.

If you’ve done the trip on a bike or in a car, shoot me a DM if you don’t mind! I’d love to ask some questions.

#bmwgs #motorrad #bmwr100 #adv #adventurebike taken in Perth, Western Australia by @ben.branch

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2 months ago

I’ve been in Perth having some adventures and absolutely loving the cold weather. After the heat of Phoenix and Singapore it feels like walking around in an air conditioned city 😆

#perth #westernaustralia #roadtrip by @ben.branch

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3 months ago

Some days it’s just nice to be a long way away from the rest of the people.

Still with an espresso machine of course. I’m not a savage. taken in Perth, Western Australia by @ben.branch

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3 months ago

I spent most of June in the US, my plan was to get the Bronco finished and ready for road trips. But as they say, if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plans.

With the help of some good friends I fitted new front wheel bearings as well as front brake rotors and new Warn locking hubs.

I did a fluid change, the engine oil as well as the diffs, and fixed a few other items - I also added a missing XLT badge that had been annoying me with its absence.

There’s been a persistent issue with the Bronco that I still haven’t been able to solve, but I THINK I now know what it is.

In warmer weather, after it’s been running for a while, say 30-50 mins in the heat, the engine slowly begins to misfire and surge/jerk, it soon becomes undriveable and cuts out completely.

After leaving it parked in the shade with the hood open for an hour or so it starts up and runs fine, until it gets hot again.

I replaced (both) fuel pumps, the fuel filter, fuel pressure regulator, fuel injectors, fuel injector wiring harness, spark plugs, plug leads, distributor cap and rotor, and coil.

Still didn’t fix it. After some further reading I learned about the TFI module issue that affects the 5.0 EFI Ford V8 from this era. It’s a well-documented issue that eventually led to a class action lawsuit against Ford.

I replaced the TFI module and thought I’d fixed it. I felt great driving it around Phoenix on the test run, imagining all the road trips I was about to have. Then it happened again. The same surging/jerking engine issue, it had come back after about 30 mins of driving in the summer heat of 44C (110+F).

I pulled over and let the engine cool down for an hour, and it worked, the engine ran fine after. I took the Bronco right to my storage unit and parked it up, feeling kind of deflated and beaten by whatever this persistent issue is.

After plenty of further research it really does seem like it’s still either the TFI module or the PIP sensor, both are linked and have the same failure symptoms.

My plan of action now is to have an all-new distributor fitted (MSD) and then to use a kit to relocate the TFI module to a cooler location in the engine bay with its own heat sink. taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @ben.branch

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3 months ago

Back at it!

I’m back in Phoenix taking up lift space at @bogisgarage this week. Yesterday we fitted new front wheel bearings and hubs/rotors, new Warn locking hubs, and got it all back together.

I have a few more jobs to do before I depart for the 7-8 hour drive to LA. I’m crossing my fingers and toes as that’s the same route (in reverse) that I broke down on last year!

#obs #bronco #bullnoseford #fordbronco #bullnose taken in Girl Gang Garage by @ben.branch

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5 months ago

I just came across this pic of me and my Dad from before Covid when I still had my BMW E30.

It was a rare 325is model that I bought from a pair of sketchy looking Eastern European guys. Maybe that’s why I’m doing a random Slavic squat in the pic.

The car was nothing but trouble the whole time I owned it. Cascading failures, nothing worked right, all manner of electrical problems.

I spent over a year working on it and fixed 90+% of the issues, learned a lot in the process. One day I realised that I’d never actually just gone for a drive in it and had fun. Every time I tried something went wrong or broke.

That’s when I decided I was over it. I put it up for sale for more than I thought it was worth in the vain hopes of getting back some of the thousands I’d spent on it.

Amazingly, my phone was ringing off the hook. E30s had become the hot new thing and everyone wanted one. My car was now worth almost $10,000 more than I had paid for it.

I sold it to the first guy who came to look and explained the few things that still needed to be done on it. As he was driving away I felt that strange mix of happiness and sadness that you get when you sell a car.

It’s funny but it’s the cars you buy that are unreliable shitboxes that teach you the most. Reliable cars teach you nothing. But you can learn a lot by the side of a highway at night with some hand tools and your phone streaming YouTube fix it videos as road trains blast past laughing at you.

This car cured me of my love for E30s, but I tell you what, I’ve been looking at those BMW 2002s in the classifieds recently.

#bmw #bmwe30 #e30 #vintagebmw #shadetreemechanic taken in Singapore by @ben.branch

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5 months ago

It’s not an adventure until things go wrong.

Special thanks to @kp89_ for keeping me company and shooting tons of video and drone shots 🙌🏻

#Bronco #fordbronco #roadtrip #bullnose #ford taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @ben.branch

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6 months ago

It’s amazing to me that wild otters live right in the middle of all this.

#singapore taken in Singapore by @ben.branch

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7 months ago

I get far more DMs from people asking how the Bronco is going than I do about how I’m going 😆

#fordbronco #bronco #bullnose #bullnoseford #4x4 by @ben.branch

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9 months ago

I realised I never posted an update about the Bronco Diaries after my trip over to LA and Phoenix in December!

After I arrived at Bogi’s workshop and got the cover off the Bronco it promptly failed to start, but we suspected it was a stale fuel issue and 5 gallons of fresh gas solved the problem, it fired right up and ran just fine.

After we got it inside I set to work on the main job for this trip - upgrading the old fuel injectors and replacing the fuel pressure regulator. It was a huge job, a lot needs to be removed from the Ford 5.0 V8 to get the fuel rail out and I said some bad words.

Amazingly, once the new and improved four pintle injectors and FPR were on and it was all bolted back together it started first time and ran better that it ever has (for me) before. The more modern fuel injector design made a stark difference in power output over the older (partly clogged) single pintle injectors.

I ended up driving the Bronco around Phoenix quite a bit and put maybe 200 miles on it, essentially a shakedown test to make sure everything was working right.

On the last day I did notice an intermittent grinding noise from the front left when turning right, I think maybe a wheel bearing issue, but I’m going to fix that next time I go over.

All in all it was a successful trip and I’m happy with all the progress I made towards getting the Bronco ready for some proper cross-country road trips.

As a bonus, I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bella Ramsey, and the director John Waters (all separately) when I was in LA.

My next trip over to the US will include some proper cross country journeys in the Bronco and hopefully less time under the hood banging things and yelling cuss words.

#bronco #bullnosebronco #bullnoseford #fordbronco #bullnose taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @ben.branch

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9 months ago

Singapore has a few otter families that live up and down the main river. Sometimes they even have inter-family fights which are documented on the local Facebook groups that track the otters.

#singapore #otter by @ben.branch

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9 months ago