Blaino's '67 A100 Custom Sportsman

Before:



Picking her up:

Trailered home:


What do yall think? No rust, only surface rust. She's a driver! Original 318 V8, 116,000 miles, amazing interior. I love her!

I like that a lot well done.

great score................................

Definately a nice looking ride !

Have fun with your new baby

That one is CLEAN!
That's a better start than most cars I've owned.
Congrats on the ride.

GREAT!! SCORE!! Lucky to get that one -so clean.

nice ride, looks real clean, thats some big pipes out the back what motor's in it

That is great to find a van in that kind of shape ! Bill

Hey! Thanks for all the comments! This van is the shiz. Has every feature they offered in 67. It has the 318 with an auto transmission. It has great patina for now, but my plans are to lower it, paint it, fix the interior up a little (its all so nice already though) and do a couple things to the engine and just have a fun driver to drive around town and around to shows. She has troubles starting after sitting overnight, but once she ready she will drive til no end it seems like.
I'll get some photos of the interior soon!

Are you using the manual choke on cold starts????

The choke is messed up, so i guess not? I start it, it take a little while to crank it, once ot starts i gotta hold down the gas to keep it going, theb ill throw it on reverse to get out the driveway, stop in the street, it'll kill, start, kill at tge stop sigb and i'll be good. And i give it 10 minutes to warm up in the driveway. We'll get it figured out. It idles real low. Te guy before us "tuned" it. Well.. Haha.

Replacing parts and maybe checking the timing and idle is okay for an average tune. You will need to check and adjust the choke, fast idle, choke pull-off and get it happy for cold starts. Don't be suprised if you need to do minor adjustments in the spring and fall to get it really dialed in.

I see you got it picked up while I was in Texas. Wish I could have been here when you picked it up. I really hope it was everything I said it was. I know it's by far the nicest original one I've seen around here. It would be in my driveway if my money would have been just a little better. I still gave it a lot of thought anyway. LOL. Something is definitely up with the tune. It should do a lot better than the 10.5 MPG that it gets. Sounds like it might have a vacuum leak. I'd go back to square one and double check everything. Good luck with it. Keep us posted on your progress.

Duane in Tennessee

Well, today we found out the problem. Brought it to a friends shop to check and fix and exuast leak, and found out the exuast manifold doesnt even have a gasket. ITs half caulked on and leaky. So, we are going to fix that soon, and while doing that probably do some other things like headers and going through the whole engine and fixing everything. We are going to put a 4 barrel carb on it, that should also help with gas and other problems. I guess some things are too good to be true. But to leave on a positive note, I'd rather mechanical troubles that can be easily fixed than rust. This van is RUST FREE. Freakin' awesome.

Duane-Labor day weekend there is a show in Tennessee my brothers are going to. I'll probably be there, and I want to take the van if we get these problems fixed and everything smoothed out. Maybe we can meet then? Or next time you take a trip down south.

I'll be at Petit Jean Mountian Arkansas on Laborday weekend for the Midsouth Old Econolines meet. You are welcome to come to that as well. It's an Econoline meet but there always seems to be a Chevy in the crowd. Can't see why a Dodge wouldn't be welcome. I'd love to see it there.

Duane in Tennessee

If it didn't have heat shields, they were put together from the factory without gaskets.
Just two nice, smooth machined surfaces held together with good fasteners.
Of course, over the years, things change....

The guy at the shop said it looked like somebody shoved some stuff in there. But We're going to go over it all whether it was there or not. Thanks!

Duane- I'll probably in a caravan of old cars, so detouring isnt much of an option. We'll meet with the vans! Haha, one day.

Where are you going in Tennessee??

Dunae in Tennessee

Memphis. Its called Relaxed All-Star event. Its a club run thing for Relaxed Atmosphere.

Congrats! I was real close to making a move on that one, but I was concerned about the cost of painting and the gas mileage. Not being a tinkerer, I would have had to pay someone to investigate. Josh, the seller, is a great guy. He loves that van and wanted it to go to a good home. I had many great conversations about the van and might have still gotten it if not for my business partner (wife) thinking we need solid walls for loading large items. Glad it's as good as advertised. Rumor has it that it is going to be a van for your son's band gear...If so, lucky boy. Jealously is creeping in...

Welll, yeah. I'm the son, me and my dad went in on it. Thanks man! I knew you wanted it too. You were planning to have it as a buissiness van? If you got it, you'd be spending money not only for paint, were about to put about 1500-2500 in engine parts to make it the true "daily driver" as advetised. But i cant complain, for a 44 year old vehicle, this thing is very solid and very fun. I knew Josh loved the van, i could tell. He said to email pictures to him when i paint it.

Well, me and my dad took apart the engine. Seems that ou exhaust guy was wrong. The exhaust manifolds were cracked, the carburator wasnt getting hot at all, and things missing/leaking. We ordered things to fix all te problems we found. Hopefully i get it back running this week!

So, haven't updated this in a while. I went to Cruise n' The Coast in Mississippi, its about a 2-2 1/2 drive from our house to Biloxi. The van made it like a champ! Remember, It is all original. We were super nervous especially since the gas gauge is broken, but I filled up every morning and we did okay. We had one "adventure", we were stuck in traffic at idle for a while, and apparently the battery doesnt charge while at idle, so we parked at the hotel, and went to start up to go to eat, and the battery was dead. We had jumper cables, so it wasnt that big of a deal, but thats the only thing that went wrong.

We ordered a new fuel sending unit when we got back to try to fix the gauge, but it still does not work. We are still trying to fix that,we are thinking it may be in the wiring. It looks like a rat's nest under the dash.

Recently, I've been trying to order a dropped axle for the front and lower the van down for maybe the next year or two before we tear it apart to bag. Hopefully updates on that in the next few months once i order. This is what I am aiming for, I'd probably have different wheels on it then. I just photoshopped the picture.

This:



To this:


What do yall think?


We've also been looking to do an engine swap, but this will commence when my dads new garage gets finished being built, and we have somewhere to work at home. We aren't sure if we will or not, though. Does anyone on here have an Intake for the 318 to fit a 4 barrel carb? We have a 1 barrel right now, and we think that might add to it running like crap.