After Covering Every Booth At Overland Expo PNW Over Three Days, These Are The New Bronco Mods That Stood Out The Most
If you haven’t been to an Overland Expo, it’s an Overlander’s Mecca. It is a place where Overland enthusiasts, lovers of adventure, and industry leaders get to spend three days absolutely nerding out over everything Overland. This year was the second year for Overland Expo Pacific Northwest out of Central Oregon. The size of the event had almost doubled from its debut year with hundreds of exhibitors in attendance. I had to be there to look at the latest Bronco mods available.
I spent three days at the expo looking at what everyone had to offer, focusing on what was new for the Bronco. Below is a list of Bronco mods that stood out to me and that I am stoked about!
This article is intended to be an introduction to these products, not a full review of them. For more information, please visit the manufactures website.
Top Bronco Mods From Overland Expo PNW
Table of Contents
1. TrailRax Heavy Duty Tent Mount
Find it online:
- TrailRax Heavy-Duty Tent Mounts: Coming Soon
Pictured above is the raw aluminum version of the new TrailRax Heavy-Duty Tent Mounts.
Regardless of how lite or heavy your tent is, distributing that weight across a larger area is always the best way to mount your tent. TrailRax offers an easy way to do that with their heavy-duty tent mounts.
Typically, a tent will have four mounting points on it. Those four mounting points will be on just two of the cross bars on the rack. While the racks are plenty capable of holding that weight, weight distribution (for anything we mount, not just tents) is how you ensure the longevity of your rack system.
The heavy-duty tent mounts from TrailRax allow you to distribute the weight of your tent as well as anything that may be mounted on it, across four crossbars instead of two. They’re made from billet aluminum and powder-coated black. These mounts look great and are strong enough to take whatever you throw at them.
These are going to be available with a .75″ rise and a 1.25″ rise.
These are not quite on the market yet, but be sure to head over to TrailRax.com and sign up for their newsletter to be notified when they drop!
2. TrailRax 270 Awning
Find it online:
- TrailRax 270 awning mounting brackets: Coming Soon
The new 270 awning mounting brackets from TrailRax allows you to mount a 270-degree awning safely on your roof rack.
270-degree awnings are one of the best modifications for an overland rig and are useful in almost every condition. However, they also put a lot of strain on some modular racks and can cause breakage in some cases. TrailRax has addressed the issue with this mounting bracket.
A standard awning is lightweight and only puts pressure on the rack or mounting surface in one direction. A 270-degree awning, however, can get really heavy. They also add torsional forces in multiple directions to the rack, which is where failure occurs. Typical failure happens when the mounting hardware, which can sometimes be the same bolts that hold the crossbars, snaps at the head due to the added force.
With TrailRax’s new 270 awning mounting brackets, that weight and force are distributed across a larger area, including the cross bars. They also include hardware solely dedicated to the job of holding the awning.
These are not quite on the market yet, but be sure to head over to TrailRax and sign up for their newsletter to be notified when they drop!
3. 74 Weld Portal Axles
Pictured above are the new 74 Weld Portal Axles in all their beauty
Find it online:
- 74 Weld Portal Axles: Check Out Their Website
Just look at them for a minute; what an absolutely gorgeous piece of American engineering. The billet aluminum case is not just for looks, these things are strong. In fact, Ford turns to 74 Weld to use this exact portal setup in their race program.
If you don’t know what portal axles do, here it is in the simplest of terms. They lift your vehicle without changing any of the factory suspension or steering components. More importantly, the geometry is largely unchanged. They also typically provide gear reduction for the wheel (1.22 reduction in this application), meaning you can run 37”-39” tires without having to regear. Finally, they eliminate the additional stress on drive train components that typically comes with larger tires.
While a traditional suspension lift lifts the body of the vehicle, the axle height of the vehicle remains unchanged. The lift from portal axles happens at the wheels, which means the 3.88″ of lift that you get from the 74 Weld portals lifts the axles and the body together for a true increase in ground clearance.
The 74 Weld portal axle kit also comes with a 35-spline final drive, is fully compatible with factory ABS, converts the rear axle from semi-float to full float, and includes a big brake conversion kit that fits the factory wheels.
4. 74 Weld Steering Rack
Find it online:
- 74 Weld Steering Stages: Check Out Their Website
We have all heard that the tie rods are the weak point in the Bronco’s steering. I was shocked to learn that the steering rack itself leaves a lot to be desired if you are a serious off-roader and overlander. 74 Weld is very upfront about the fact that this upgrade is not necessary for everyone. However, this steering rack is recommended for anyone running a lift with larger tires and who likes to wheel their Bronco hard.
There are two main points of failure that have been observed on these racks. One occurs at the end cap, and one occurs on the housing where the tensioning plain bearing is retained. The chance of these failures occurring increases when you change the geometry of the steering components with a lift. That, in turn, increases the pressure on the internals of the steering rack.
Pictured above is a crack in the housing where the tensioning plain bearing is retained
This steering rack end cap shattered with the forces of off-roading!
The internal steering rack components themselves are extremely robust and can take abuse. The housing, however, is a thin aluminum cast and is not up for abuse. 74 Weld addresses this by taking the stock internals out of the factory steering rack housing and placing them in their own.
The steering rack upgrade is offered in three stages. You can replace just the end cap for added strength and stability or upgrade to a full-on, fully billet rack compatible with both the HOSS 2.0 and 3.0 internals.
5. ARB Base Rack
Find it online:
- ARB Base Rack: Check Price
The brand-new ARB base rack for the Bronco has a unique mounting solution for additional weight capacity.
ARB is a name that everyone knows and trusts. This system has been on the market for a little while now for other vehicles, but we now have one for the Bronco! With a dynamic weight capacity of 285 lbs., it might be the perfect solution for getting some of your cargo out of the cab.
I can hear you asking, “But wait! Ford says limits the weight capacity on the roof at 110 lbs.!” Right, you are. When the ARB Base Rack is mounted on the roof, the roof is not actually taking the load of anything mounted to the rack.
ARB mounts this rack to the interior roll bar of the Bronco like they have been doing with jeeps. So, the roll bar takes the load of the weight, NOT the roof.
Pictured above are the Base Rack’s roll bar supports. This is how the ARB base rack can support weights that exceed what the Bronco’s roof is rated for.
Final Thoughts
The Bronco platform is still pretty new and new products are continually coming to market. It is so great to see so much enthusiasm for the platform across multiple interest groups. This fuels the incredible innovation in Bronco mods.
If you haven’t made it out to one of the Overland Expo events, I would highly recommend getting out there! There are still two more happening this year (Mountain West and East). If you are able to attend one of them, you will not be disappointed. There is plenty to see, and almost everyone there has an event-specific sale. So, you can walk away with some awesome deals as well!
I hope you found this article useful and are finding a way to get to the Overland Expo nearest you. Until the next expo, I will be dreaming of these Bronco mods, especially the 74 Portal axles!
