by WYO George Tue May 17, 2016 4:25 pmOK, I'll get some pics posted up later, but for now I thought I'd introduce myself, my project and my goals.
My name is George, I own a small shop in Wyoming (name is irrelevant, don't want this to be construed as advertising) and my work is divided between auto restoration and motorcycle repair, service and restoration work. I've been in the auto restoration business off and on for a couple decades now and worked at a pretty high end shop before moving to WY and eventually starting back up with my own shop. From time to time you may see snippets of customer work and/or other projects, but I'll try to minimize them and focus on the A108 project because that's the point of this forum!
The van is a 1970 A108 although the 318/727 and rear axle came out of my old high top 1969 that I scrapped back in the mid 90's thinking it'd never be worth fixing up. In retrospect it wasn't as bad off then as this one is now and I really should have kept it because a high top would have been really nice for transporting motorcycles to shows! This van will be getting a quick and dirty resto-ish job on it. Basically nothing wild and crazy, but I want it to be presentable as a work vehicle and look nice enough to catch people's attention when I am picking up, delivering, sitting at swap meets and car shows, etc. So far I've rebuilt the brakes all around (stock drums, but all new parts), just put a new gas tank in it yesterday with all new fuel lines and the engine has been freshened up a bit.
The next step for tomorrow is to sandblast some of the rust areas and then sand the other areas, get some primer on it so the rust won't continue and then little at a time fix the bodywork and interior while between projects in my shop. I'll snap some pics tomorrow and update things as I go along. The main reason for the thread is twofold; to contribute what little I can back to the automotive community that has treated me pretty decent over the years and also to keep my inspired to stay on the project. If I'm expected to post updates then it'll motivate me to do something worthy of posting!
More to follow, have a good night all.
George
My name is George, I own a small shop in Wyoming (name is irrelevant, don't want this to be construed as advertising) and my work is divided between auto restoration and motorcycle repair, service and restoration work. I've been in the auto restoration business off and on for a couple decades now and worked at a pretty high end shop before moving to WY and eventually starting back up with my own shop. From time to time you may see snippets of customer work and/or other projects, but I'll try to minimize them and focus on the A108 project because that's the point of this forum!
The van is a 1970 A108 although the 318/727 and rear axle came out of my old high top 1969 that I scrapped back in the mid 90's thinking it'd never be worth fixing up. In retrospect it wasn't as bad off then as this one is now and I really should have kept it because a high top would have been really nice for transporting motorcycles to shows! This van will be getting a quick and dirty resto-ish job on it. Basically nothing wild and crazy, but I want it to be presentable as a work vehicle and look nice enough to catch people's attention when I am picking up, delivering, sitting at swap meets and car shows, etc. So far I've rebuilt the brakes all around (stock drums, but all new parts), just put a new gas tank in it yesterday with all new fuel lines and the engine has been freshened up a bit.
The next step for tomorrow is to sandblast some of the rust areas and then sand the other areas, get some primer on it so the rust won't continue and then little at a time fix the bodywork and interior while between projects in my shop. I'll snap some pics tomorrow and update things as I go along. The main reason for the thread is twofold; to contribute what little I can back to the automotive community that has treated me pretty decent over the years and also to keep my inspired to stay on the project. If I'm expected to post updates then it'll motivate me to do something worthy of posting!
More to follow, have a good night all.
George
)
I didn't get any sandblasting done today, I decided I didn't feel like suiting up so I worked on prepping a Toyota 5spd to swap into my little '83 pickup. 
