1964 G10 Panel in Alabama

I didn't spend a lot of time on the van today. I put together the parts and the plan for the lift and will start welding it together tomorrow.

I spent a few hours finishing up my CNC table and cut out the 6 parts for G-man's lights. I will try to get the spacers for his lights cut tomorrow and get them tacked together so I can get them polished and ready for the LEDs.

Ahhh the beauty of CNC

hey mat glad to see the van is finally in your garage.. pretty kool van..enjoyed looking at your thread..

Lovin the CNC and the missus' workboots!

sasktrini wrote:Lovin the CNC and the missus' workboots!

When we were coming in from working on the van the USPS lady pulled up and dropped off the package with those heals. I was standing on the deck finishing my smoke and she asked me what i thought. Lol we got a good laugh from it.

I don't get to go to the steel yard for the 2 pieces of tubing I need to finish my lift or work on the van yesterday. Instead I got to watch my new Mini loaded on a flatbed for a 120 mile tow to the dealership.

Since I got the carin september it has been running rich, I am talk diesel rich, when i start it there is a cloud of black smoke. I am 70 miles from the dealership the opposite direction from work so can't just run it by there. I have called their techs to find if there is a way to adjust the A/F mixture outside of computer tuning and the tech had the balls to ask me what A/F was, I told his supervisor that guy wasn't allowed to touch my car! Sup told me there wasn't, that "Typically" it is the fuel pressure regulator has gone bad?? I got a bit wild at this comment! If there is something that "Typically" goes wrong than why did I bring this $40,000 car home without it being changed!

Yesterday it took 15 minutes to get it started before work and then at lunch it would start at all. I called RSA to tow it to the dealership. I called dealership and told the manager there if the car wasn't fixed and back to me in 2 days I would take vacation and spend my entire day on the showroom floor telling their customers all about the issues I have had since buying the car. They were very accommodating to say the least.

My buddy bought one of these new and said it will be the only one he will buy . He's a car guy and say it's near impossible to work on. Kind of funny he had the same deal with the stealership. He calls and gets one qoute and gets there the price has doubled . They used to dealing with people that don't have a clue. The geek that was running the phine says "well the car has had none of it's routine maintance and needs this, this , this. Funny part is the mechanic say it needs plugs. My buddy had changed them 2 weeks before it goes there. All said and done the third stealership had a real tech , the car needed a timing chain Bob

Damn auto stealerships rob us now days more than the government does!!!!

Tonight I got down to business on the lift I am making for the van. I am taking pictures of each step and tell how to put it together if anyone wants to build an inexpensive means of working under their van. Mine will only lift 48 inches or so off the ground but that is more than enough for what I need it for.

Wish I had 20 foot ceilings so i could build a lift to store my Fiat above the van. Maybe someday.

mbasaraba wrote:I don't get to go to the steel yard for the 2 pieces of tubing I need to finish my lift or work on the van yesterday. Instead I got to watch my new Mini loaded on a flatbed for a 120 mile tow to the dealership.

Since I got the carin september it has been running rich, I am talk diesel rich, when i start it there is a cloud of black smoke. I am 70 miles from the dealership the opposite direction from work so can't just run it by there. I have called their techs to find if there is a way to adjust the A/F mixture outside of computer tuning and the tech had the balls to ask me what A/F was, I told his supervisor that guy wasn't allowed to touch my car! Sup told me there wasn't, that "Typically" it is the fuel pressure regulator has gone bad?? I got a bit wild at this comment! If there is something that "Typically" goes wrong than why did I bring this $40,000 car home without it being changed!

Yesterday it took 15 minutes to get it started before work and then at lunch it would start at all. I called RSA to tow it to the dealership. I called dealership and told the manager there if the car wasn't fixed and back to me in 2 days I would take vacation and spend my entire day on the showroom floor telling their customers all about the issues I have had since buying the car. They were very accommodating to say the least.

Matt, it could be the FPR. We just dealt with two months of a running rich problem on my wife's '87 560sl. We bought it in essentially non-running shape due to a known, running rich problem. It ended up having to have the tank re-lined which fixed the problem after two months of trying.

The FPR likely was bad from lack of driving and possibly from being fouled by the crap from the tank or both. Make sure if that is the problem that they flush all the lines to make sure everything is clear. Wouldn't think you'd have a problem with trash on a new car. Hope they pay for the repair. A new FPR for the 560 would have been over $2K if they hadn't found a remaned one for $250, and that was the repair shop begging for a deal from the seller. Good luck.

I got a call earlier and they said they think it is a bad high pressure fuel pump or a leaking injector. Hopefully I find out tomorrow.

Ok so a lot has been going on.

1. Getting ramped up for my polished Aluminum bow tie dome lights.

2. Get the body lift for the van so under body can be redone.

3. Helping my folks find some property here in the south to relocate, they are sick of freezing in North Dakota.

I got my lift done last night. I have another thread where I was showing the actual building of the lift so am not reposting all of that. Here however is the result.





This was only done as a test. The van will get let back down so the wheels are just off the ground to drop all the components. The van will lift another 24 inches in the air, total of 42 inches from the floor of the van.

Hoping this weekend to get started dropping the rear end and all the suspension, lines etc and start scraping the bottom.

Great looking job Matt!! Looks like it will work great!!

Thanks!

It does appear it will work as intended and considering I only have $162 invested, that makes it even better. This included all my steel, hardware and jacks.

$162 is a far cry less than all shrink bills brought on by the hassle it would have been trying to redo the under body while laying down. Lol

Excellent! Loving it!

Been a long time since an update.

I have been trying to get some parts for sale off of my plasma but havent been having a whole lot of luck with people wanting nice looking dashes and lights. Money is a bit tight paying on the CNC investment with personal funds since I have had only a couple sales.

This weekend I dropped both the front and rear ends out of the van while on the lift. I got my disc brake brackets from M1D but havent looked at the parts list for the conversion yet.

I am thinking I am going to need an impacter to get the boot off from around the steering sector. Screw drivers just are not getting the screws out. Also fought with getting the clutch pedal off for a long time before walking away from that spot frustrated also, I think the Plasma will get fired up for that bugger!

I did take out the passenger side head light housing to see how the Jeep Liberty lights would look. Having my 16 year old hold it in place from the inside while I stood in front of it, looked amazing! Problem will be actually getting the housing into the hole. It has mounting tabs so putting them in from the outside of the van is out and the A support pillar under the dash is in the way in the inside so... not sure what I am going to do yet.

The front of the van was bent up pretty bad around the signal light area so actually though about making a nice cut out of the front "fender" type area, mounting the light, and straightening the dents, then putting it back on. I am a bit worried about this however since I have never done it and worry about what it will do to the inside firewall. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Hopefully this weekend Tammy and I can get out there to get the tank dropped and start cleaning the gunk off the bottom.

Matt , have you tried using 2 hammers on the clutch pedal? Use one as a backer and the other to smack the arm where the round pedal arm goes into it. It is a beveled spline and that will "Usually" knock things loose. Worse case on the boot screws is to drill the heads off and remove the plate that it is screwed to so you can work with it on the bench.

Thanks for the advice, I will look at trying that.

As far as the leaf springs go, do people take the pack apart and clean/repaint them? I have never taken them apart and wonder if they are going to fly apart and bust my head open, the wife would say Yay, I would say Nay... LoL

I am going to try getting as much just cleaned and repainted as I can without buying new parts. The things that can be replaced, ball joints and such, I want to, but like the sway bar and all the stuff I will be putting back in I just want to clean and repaint.

I have seen other talking about using a 2nd Gen sway? Is there a difference between 1st and 2nd Gen sway bars in the front?

Yes,there is.Hope this helps ya.I knew I saw a pic somewhere.
https://vintage-vans.forumotion.com/t2638-is-this-the-sway-bar?highlight=sway+bar

I would recomend sticking with the 1st gen bar and putting the 2" blocks in at the mounts to clear the MC. If you are using M1s brackets thats the best way to go and keep clearance for everything. I tried figuring out how to use a 2nd gen bar because at 1st glance it looks like a good idea but it ain't.

I was just curious why people would switch to a 2nd Gen when I first already has one.

So my progress on the van has been a bit slow since I have been trying to make some funds by making parts, which has been slow. I have a lot invested in my CNC and not many people in the vanning community, earlies anyways, that want or ask for custom cut panels. I am thinking of trying Vannin.com to see if I can get some interest there and also going to be looking at making some stuff for the Fiat community to see if I can spark some interest there.

Moving beyond that point... I got the van up and the front end dropped and the rear end taken loose from the van. (I just need to lower my floor jack and it will be down) I looked at the rear end and it is a 12 bolt, not sure what gears it has since I have never done a vehicle this in depth before. We are putting in the 350 with auto from the 3rd gen we bought, so here are a few questions I hope to get some answers to.

1. Do I need to crack the case to see what the gearing is?
2. What gearing would be ideal with this auto with OD?
3. What kind of wear should I look for and what parts are good to replace to make sure I get optimum use from the rear end? (bearings, seals etc)

I got some pictures of the rear end. I read another post about being cautious of rear covers that dont have channels that funnel the lube to the axle feed areas. So is this one of those universal covers?



I pulled the cover. It was VERY low on lube, hopefully that hasnt ruined anything. What do I look for here to see what my gearing is? Count the teeth on 2 of the gears? I put the cover back on since I dont want to stick a ton of time into this unit till after I get the bottom cleaned and coated again.





Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

that looks good from what i see look on the largest gear behind the teeth for the gear size, like 3.23 3.53 3.91 . turn the tire and look ifthe gears are touching each other near the middle of each other, that a good thing,

look on the large (ring) gear - should be a id # and possibly even a ratio #. You can also =count the teeth on the large ring gear & then count the teeth on the drive pinion gear ( gear the driveshaft connecs to) and then divide the larger # teeth by the smaller teeth # for ratio.The one u have pictured is not a posi rear end .

Thanks guys for all the input. I knew it wasnt supposed to be a posi rearend, was more looking for gearing to know if it would be a good match for my auto or not. Dont want to stick a bunch of time into a rear end if isnt going to be a good driver for the wife.

I will check the gear tomorrow to see if I can find the ratio on it. I dont want to pull it all apart and have yet more parts all over my shop when I am pretty tight on space as it is.

One step of this project at a time.