New guy w/Travelwagon

This is an odd place for rust to form, but with all the tree debris in there I’m not surprised. Just had to cut out the bad and replace with the good. The funny thing is that there was perfectly preserved factory paint right next to the rust. Once all this was straightened up, the roof got its coat of paint.




While taking one last look at the van for the night, I noticed a stink bug taking a stroll through my fresh paint! I carefully plucked him out but the tracks are there- guess it’ll make a good story.

That little Stinker! Can those be wet-sanded out? Nice work Otto!

vanny wrote:That little Stinker! Can those be wet-sanded out? Nice work Otto!

Yeah, they could  be wet sanded out and polished. But no one can really see them and I think it's a funny story.

2 of 3 done

3 of 3

I felt the van was finally ready for the third phase of painting after much prep and final sanding. I loaded up my old Binks model 7 and started spraying enamel. I’m a bit out of practice, but got it done without major screw ups. My goal was to be done with painting by June 2020 and just made it under the wire by the end of the month.

Looks Great! Nice work!

What color is that? Very nice.

Russell wrote:What color is that? Very nice.

Thanks, the color is called "Sterling Beige", it's a Ford color but not the exact shade for the code K the van was out of the factory. The paint store couldn't supply the K code color. It's pretty close.

Ta-Da! One freshly painted Travelwagon.

During the unmasking I thought the color combo resembled a Palomino.

Nice!

Otto wrote:

Ta-Da! One freshly painted Travelwagon.

During the unmasking I thought the color combo resembled a Palomino.

Like they say, any Palimino is a Pal-Of-Mine-O!!!

Fortunately the nameplates weren’t lost much like other parts and were in good shape; just cleaned ‘em up with some steel wool. These were the most satisfying parts to put back on.

Just a teaser shot for a future update.

And here’s how it sits as of Summer 2020; one of the few good things that happened in this miserable year.



I struggled with the grille color; it had a few different colors under the primer and it looked like body color was the base. It seems a body color grille is standard for Econos but I wanted to try  something different. The bumpers got straightened and painted a GM silver w/clear coat and a silver grille seemed like too much of the same color in one place. So I tried the Wimbleton White from the two-tone and that’s where it sits now. Still pondering.

I love all of your choices in finishes! Looks Classy and the Rims are the cherry on top!!!

vanny wrote:I love all of your choices in finishes! Looks Classy and the Rims are the cherry on top!!!

Thanks, Vanny
It's been a fun journey getting the van this far, but it's not done- there's more to do!

I love it. You've done a helluva job on the van! It looks great, I like the color combo.

Very nice, Your inspiring Me !

This is looking amazing! I am in Portland as well, just bought my first vintage van, I’m generally an Italian car guy, Fiats mainly and now a Lancia Fulvia as well. Maybe when folks are meeting up again we can do a van drive. I’d love to see yours in person. There was a camper econo parked at NE 66th and Sandy Blvd forever. I spoke to the guy several times, super cool old rock and roller dude even gave me one of his old rock cds. Said it belonged to his brother and I could probably buy it for a few hundred but every time I went by to follow up he wasn’t around and now it’s gone...I know it’s not yours cause it wasn’t tan...

Pdxgeo wrote:This is looking amazing!  I am in Portland as well, just bought my first vintage van, I’m generally an Italian car guy, Fiats mainly and now a Lancia Fulvia as well.  Maybe when folks are meeting up again we can do a van drive. I’d love to see yours in person. There was a camper econo parked at NE 66th and Sandy Blvd forever.  I spoke to the guy several times, super cool old rock and roller dude even gave me one of his old rock cds. Said it belonged to his brother and I could probably buy it for a few hundred but every time I went by to follow up he wasn’t around and now it’s gone...I know it’s not yours cause it wasn’t tan...

Thanks Pdxgeo,
There is a local vintage van event here in Portland, it's called Econo- NW and held at a Les Schwab. It's usually in June and this year I found out about it two weeks after the event.   Hopefully, next year I can attend with the Travelwagon. There are You Tube videos of past events online; after I saw those I was really bummed out!

If it happens I'll be there. Next year! Don't let me forget

Seth G wrote:If it happens I'll be there. Next year! Don't let me forget

There is a local group on the facebook, that's how the event is announced. I don't do social media so the promoter has my phone number on a list of Luddites that he has to call. When/if he does that, I'll mention it here.

When I first got the van and was going through the parts, there were a couple of aluminum framed windows along with the rest of the parts. I almost threw these away and thought someone was just using the van to stash some junk. Later after seeing some other Travelwagons on the intergoogles, it dawned on me that those windows may have been installed in the van after all. Comparing the holes in the cargo door window openings with the mounting holes for the windows was a perfect match!


So I cleaned these up (an SOS pad makes the aluminum frames look like new), repaired the screens, applied some window tint and replaced the crank mechanisms.



Vintage Trailer Supply sells a spot-on replacement for the HEHR windows.

This sticker is in one of the camper style windows and I asked a bi-lingual co-worker what it said: she said it was a temporary tourist registration for travel within Mexico. So my little van has done some traveling!

Those windows cleaned up Nicely!!!