by dhuglife Wed Feb 01, 2017 4:35 pmfirst post about my van I'm constantly looking and admiring others builds thought its about time i share a little of what I've been working on 
this is the van that i picked up a little over a year ago, picked it up late summer early fall had to rebuild carb, replace exhaust gasket because the leak and fumes made it hard to drive had to graft in a turn signal switch out of a 60's gmc truck that i found and rewire quite a few things along with brake rebuilds and new bearings and seals around all corners then drove it daily till about the second snow storm and decided time to pull it into the garage and start the real build
found quite of few spots of old damage just filled with bondo
couldn't afford to have it soda blasted at the time so brought out the ole sand paper and started striping the old paint off i counted 9 layers a little much for my liking
i also found the rockers just had tin riveted on top of rust and the bondo over the top
the multi colors are whatever rattle cans i could find just to have some sort of protecting coat on the metal so it doesn't keep rusting and the rattle can strips easy with chemical stripper so once i finish rust repair ill chemical strip it and then spray it in epoxy, this quarter panel was folded in on itself at some point in its life and was fixed kinda roughly and then once again just covered in a lot of bondo
top of windshield had some rust issues so cut that out and with the help of some eastwood shrinker stretcher rebuilt that
cut out the quarter panel and rocker to find all supports plus floor had rust so rebuilt from inside out
could only find quarter panel from 2nd gen but got it on
smoothed the parking lamp off quarter as well as gas cap because i will be moving the gas filler to behind the rear tail light
also i have been welding all seems on the van completely smooth
so i sucked in rear of frame to mount bumper closer to body had to shorten width by two inches and then built a cutout area for license plate
got doghouse pulled out, radiator and transmission out motor will come out soon just don't have room to store it so it will stay there until i get room or find someone that wants it because i will be putting a 350 in instead of the straight six
this is the next project seems like it got hit so hard in the back it crumple lower rear panel and may have split the frame rail which later rusted through or something happened where the frame rail has rust that needs to be repaired and if you notice the leaf spring mount has definitely seen some better days I'm surprised it held up while i was driving it the other side leaf mount isn't as bad but also will require a lot of repair since this picture i have pulled out dents but now its time to drop rear end out so i can start cutting out all that rust and building more inner structure pieces
sorry for super long post and some missing pictures of steps but should be all caught up now and will try and update as i keep moving forward on this build
this is the van that i picked up a little over a year ago, picked it up late summer early fall had to rebuild carb, replace exhaust gasket because the leak and fumes made it hard to drive had to graft in a turn signal switch out of a 60's gmc truck that i found and rewire quite a few things along with brake rebuilds and new bearings and seals around all corners then drove it daily till about the second snow storm and decided time to pull it into the garage and start the real build
found quite of few spots of old damage just filled with bondo
couldn't afford to have it soda blasted at the time so brought out the ole sand paper and started striping the old paint off i counted 9 layers a little much for my liking
i also found the rockers just had tin riveted on top of rust and the bondo over the top
the multi colors are whatever rattle cans i could find just to have some sort of protecting coat on the metal so it doesn't keep rusting and the rattle can strips easy with chemical stripper so once i finish rust repair ill chemical strip it and then spray it in epoxy, this quarter panel was folded in on itself at some point in its life and was fixed kinda roughly and then once again just covered in a lot of bondo
top of windshield had some rust issues so cut that out and with the help of some eastwood shrinker stretcher rebuilt that
cut out the quarter panel and rocker to find all supports plus floor had rust so rebuilt from inside out
could only find quarter panel from 2nd gen but got it on
smoothed the parking lamp off quarter as well as gas cap because i will be moving the gas filler to behind the rear tail light
also i have been welding all seems on the van completely smooth
so i sucked in rear of frame to mount bumper closer to body had to shorten width by two inches and then built a cutout area for license plate
got doghouse pulled out, radiator and transmission out motor will come out soon just don't have room to store it so it will stay there until i get room or find someone that wants it because i will be putting a 350 in instead of the straight six
this is the next project seems like it got hit so hard in the back it crumple lower rear panel and may have split the frame rail which later rusted through or something happened where the frame rail has rust that needs to be repaired and if you notice the leaf spring mount has definitely seen some better days I'm surprised it held up while i was driving it the other side leaf mount isn't as bad but also will require a lot of repair since this picture i have pulled out dents but now its time to drop rear end out so i can start cutting out all that rust and building more inner structure pieces
sorry for super long post and some missing pictures of steps but should be all caught up now and will try and update as i keep moving forward on this build
I, for one, can't wait to see the transformation completed!
