1964 Sears van

Most of the California cement is still under mine, no one can see it.
I'm hoping if I drive it around enough it will just fall off?
All that rain we have been having must have washed some of it away!

I have been scrapping away. I had been working mainly on the passenger side because it had the most crap on it. The crud on the drivers side was mainly dirt and mud. I hosed most of it off and a little touchup with a wire brush is all that's needed. Just received my disc brake brackets, thank you Michel, so now I am really motivated to work on it and get it on the road by late summer.

Hope you get your van back on the road soon Rich

Thanks to Robert (Turtle13) who lent me his power washer I spent 2 weekends and 6 cans of spray gunk washing away, what a mess it makes but it did a pretty good job on the loose stuff. I still have a lot of scrapping to do on the front drivers side where its really the heaviest. At least I can paint the rear undercarriage and start putting the leaf springs, shocks and rear end back on. Now, where do I get shocks with the bolt hardware from is the next question? I can take them off the 66 if I have to.

Vanners helping vanners...love this site!

Rock Auto

Vanny, thats what life is all about.

Thanks Tom, I'll check Rock Auto out.

Vanny, Bruce Springsteen has a song called "We Take Care of Our Own" and its so true about the people here. Anyway, I worked on the van a little this weekend. I just have to pull the gas and brake lines off the frame so I can clean that area better, prep everything and she's ready for primer and paint. What a PITA it was and hope the the fruits of my labor were worth it. I now know how Michelangelo felt while painting the Sistine Chapel on his back, ouch!

Richie, I Love Springsteen, you're speaking my language brother! Your hard work will pay off...it's part of the journey that makes the end product worth all the trouble.

Still scrapping away. I did get some parts cleaned and painted. It's been a hard task. Axles look OK but I will get the wider replacement bearings. The parts guy gave me an old school tip for removing them. You have to take the spider gears out, I think thats what there called? Use a piece of conduit 3 or 4 inches longer than the axle so it goes all the way thru then tap out the opposite bearing with a hammer then repeat for the other side, it worked like a charm with no damage to the axle. I don't know why the pictures came out so small I used 640 pixels?

















I used 640 Pixels also but I chose the middle version of the 3 results...
Vanny

Like this...

Thanks. Much better now.

You’re welcome

After years of scraping and grinding on my back without making much progress I gave up, went another route and built a rotisserie out of wood so I could have it dustless blasted. After it's blasted I'll post the results and hopefully it will be worth it.

Wow. Can’t believe it. That’s some strong wood. Pretty cool to see. Are you hiring someone to come and do dustless blasting or you doing it? Can’t wait to see.

I'm using California Dustless Blasting. The guys says he will use anywhere from 400-600lbs of blasting material.

They are coming Tuesday do blast my van. Have a lot of work still to enclose the resto patio in plastic so sand doesn't get everywhere. Pictures to follow.

That's awesome - I think you'll be so glad you did that. I'm jealous. I tried to get a mobile blaster over here (90 miles away) to do the interior of the cab and bed floor of my pickup. Said minimum of $2500 for the trip + work.

They are doing it for around $600. I have to do all the cleanup. I'll take some before and after pictures of the real bad areas.

Blasting is done but was far from dustless. I enclosed the area pretty tight so it did't get everywhere. He spent about 1 1/2 hours blasting 300lbs of crushed glass dry, what a mess it made, the clean up took longer than he did. A little more work and it's ready for primer. Well worth the cost.

Wow, that looks Fantastic!!! Money well spent brother!