New Member building a 64 G modified...comments? suggestions?

HI! We are building this G van for a customer who is going to sell it when finished, and we would like some feedback from the people who know best! Any questions, comments, suggestions or interest in buying would be appreciated! Cheers, Rochelle, owner- Blue Star Garage

Restoration will include-
Lowered, modified dash, instrument cluster& dog box, 350ci engine bored with 4bbl intake, headers, 700R4 Trans.......

Here's some photos so far-
When we got it.. it was this....
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Stripped it....
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Me finished after too much paint stripper!
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metal fabrication begins on the engine bay....
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engine fitting.....
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transmission crossmember assembly start...
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crossmember finished.....
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and lowered...
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modifying dog box...
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Thanks for looking!

welcome to the site and keep up the great work on that ven!

Hey!! When you get done with the Chevy, think you might want to tackle my A-100??



Just kiddin, Welcome and nice work on the G-10

Duane in Tennessee

Blue Star,
Welcome to the site!! Looks like you really have a good start and a great plan! Thank you for sharing your pic's with us and look forward to seeing your van as is progresses.

Again welcome,
Dan

Lookin' good!
Ditto what the others said, 'ceptin Duane!

econopoor wrote:Hey!! When you get done with the Chevy, think you might want to tackle my A-100??



Just kiddin, Welcome and nice work on the G-10

Duane in Tennessee

Ha ha Duane! sure we will do it, might need a few new panels though! will look mean when its done, with a big V8.....
Thanks for all the positive feeds guys, i will keep the photos coming as we go along, the boys are working full time on it at the moment now that we have a new plasma cutter (fun!) so should be done with dog box stuff next week.
Here is a mock up of how the dash is going to look, we are a bit amateur on photoshop but you will get thew idea....
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Wow!!! Looks great!!! Welcome to the site!!!

Sure does look good !! Dont know what yer doing for the DH but make sure ya leave room for the seats to mount okay ,,lol ,,

yeah, the DH is the seat, its a single seater.....center drive.... trying to fit it all in there lol! Here is some of the metal work the boys did tonight.....
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Well I would recomend firstly a duel circuit brake system is a must.
Add to that front disc brakes with that V8.
rear drum brakes are good.
Power brakes are another idea.

M1D

Well I think it would take more than just a few panels to fix my A 100, Like all of them!! Fraid it might be a little over budget to fix this one. LOL.

Sweet job on the sheet metal work. Looking great!

Duane in Tennessee.

Disk Brakes are on already, will post pics soon, thanks for the suggestion though M1D!

Dog house coming along, and the seats fit!!!! this is from 2 days ago, more later today..,.....
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very nice!!

How did you lower the front?

Welcome! Nice work, glad the economy is good enough in your area that your shop is able to get work for a spec sale, rather than just us poor folk that are upside down in our beloved vans!

we lowered the front with pile of parts we had laying around the shop from another project. The springs are monoleaf lowering springs from a 1955 pro-street chevy panel truck. we put a mustang 2 style IFS on it and he gave us all the old parts. Once the doghouse is more complete, I'll jack it up and take some pics.

Kevin, BSG shop mgr.

More progress on the DH, Yes it is hard in the economic downturn, and i cant promise that the customer wont be upside down in the thing when its done! we are doing a lot of the work for mates' Rates and the experience (I'm Australian sorry)... and they're pretty hard to get your money out of from what i can tell....do y'all think it will be hard to sell?
Rochelle
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Rochelle,
Our vans are not what the motor world considers "Muscle cars". The are vans, plain and simple... The only true way to pull a profit on them is to find a way to do exactly what your doing while keeping the cost to a bare minimum. Generally getting over 5K for a project is rare unless it is do flawlessly and has all the desired mod's ( V8, Auto trans, POSI rear, show quality interior as well as body and paint). You look like your on your way to doing just that. Keep up the good work...

Dan

That is some sweet metal fab! It looks like you have all the big parts and a pretty decent skin to start with. Labor on these things is probably the biggest item you can run into, I know alot of us working by ourselves for the most part and even with some help can take a couple years or more to get them on the road with the mods your doing ! Im sure opinions on what ya get out of them is going to vary, but IMO a decent body and good design on the mechanicals should sell okay. I see I am echoing what Dan has said for the most part...lol

Great work! There is a first gen G van in my future, but I won't be able to afford yours heck, I can hardly afford what I've got, but that's what happens when you get bit by the VintAGE-Vanning bug! Cheers!

"Mate's Rates"... clever! Welcome!

Blue Star Garage wrote:we lowered the front with pile of parts we had laying around the shop from another project. The springs are monoleaf lowering springs from a 1955 pro-street chevy panel truck. we put a mustang 2 style IFS on it and he gave us all the old parts. Once the doghouse is more complete, I'll jack it up and take some pics.

Kevin, BSG shop mgr.

Do the front springs from a '55 chevy truck directly interchange with 1st gen chevy van springs????

What did you use for shackles? Did you have to modify anything to make the front spring eyes fit???

Please be as detailed as possible, alot of members would love to know if this is a good interchange source that we can use!!!

don't worry, we will have details up soon. it was fairly easy to make the springs work, we had to relocate the front spring hangers. right now we are furiously working to finish the DH. It would have been done sooner but we got sidetracked on a couple other projects. I will post lots of pics of what we did to the front suspension and answer any questions so other people can try it themselves.

later, kevin

Wow an early Handi-Van! I got one of those......REALLY interested in the build now!

this guy need to make these dog houses in sections so you can ship
them flat and sell them to those who need a home for the v8.
that is some fantastic sheetmetal work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have been working on lots of other stuff at the moment so progrsss has been a little less speedy, but wanted to post some pics of the nearly finished dog box, and by request some photos of the lowered spring mounts we made. I will take some pics of the brake conversion soon too. Hope you like it as much as i do! Panelmanrd, would be great to ship the dogboxes out flat but then we might as well just sell a pattern, which could work. Cheers! Rochelle
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And the new spring mounts for front-
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