65 Sportsman

Hey all, new to the forum and glad to see there is a spot for A body vanners. You guys have some great looking machines on here. I'm currently rebuilding a very rusted out 65 Sportsman; hoping to resurrect it and put it back on the road.

I tried to attach some pictures from my computer but all I see are links to show hosted images. Any way to just attach a jpeg file?

There's a row of buttons in the post/comment editor, one to upload an image file, one to link to a hosted image and one to insert a link. Its the three that look like polaroid pictures just left of the "youtube" button.

Here you go

Nice pictures of your work, I'm no body man, always been apprehensive about cutting and novice ability to achieve good welds but I do have a Lincoln Pro Core 100 mig welder, just need to get some body work tools and start with some small rust area repairs on my 67 panel. Doing all repair, filling, and paint yourself?

Thanks; there’s a lot of metal work to do on this thing. Someone did some really lame body work with a ton of filler and fiberglass cloth at one point so it turned out to be in much worse shape than I thought when I bought it.. But you just tackle one area at a time and take your time. I usually do everything myself but I’ve also got a friend who paints for a GM dealership so sometimes I’ll have him shoot the final color if he’s available.
That’s a good welder you’ve got. Don’t be afraid to give it a shot. Just take an old fender or hood and do a little practicing before you cut into your van.

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s on. Next I’m going to work on the back corners and the tail pan which is the worst rusted area. Luckily one of the top Mopar salvage yards in the country is about 40 minutes from me and he’s got about 10 of these vans. I went out last weekend and got four rust free doors and some solid patch sections for a pretty decent price.

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eally ugly; might as well get the worst over with. Heading to Florida to see my grandkids for a few days so no more car work until next week.

yeah thats some nice bodywork your doing (I can stick weld but not wire/body) and that van is definitely a challenge, where did you get the fender well parts?

Thanks, I found two places that have those. One is Mill Supply and the other is Auto Body Specialties. Not a whole lot of new sheetmetal available; just the wheel arches and the side rockers. They both show the replacement rear corners but when I tried to order them, they said they were out of production.

Your van is really nice looking, I like the slots and sidepipes. makes for a great 70's vibe.

thanks, my rear corners are rusted as well just slightly, each side has about a 4" square area that's brittle, some day I'll get to fixing them.

my next major effort will be a hot rod 318 engine to go in it

Cool; that’ll make a great engine. I’m going to stick with the 225 and three on the tree; I scored a low mileage engine for a decent price.

Back from Florida so I started the surgery. The heavier structural pieces are salvageable so it might not be as bad as I first thought.

Is the van originally from Missouri, or??

I bought it in Decatur, Illinois. Not sure where it came from before that. I found some stuff in it that looks like it was A plumbing service van years ago. It had a #2 tag screwed to the dash and several old service receipts from the 1970s for truck #2.

The piece that supported the back of the leaf spring was pretty thin on this side. Luckily the frame rail is solid. So I needed some heavy sheet metal to rebuild this piece and I had just had some VFDs for some 75hp chilled water pumps changed at work. The old VFD cabinets are really heavy gauge steel so I saved one from the dumpster and am using pieces of it to rebuild the spring support. Can’t beat the price and it’s twice as thick as the original bracket.

Closing in on finishing this corner, just need to rebuild the structure for the lower door hinge. I cut this corner out of another van; it’ll need a little massaging but it’s workable.

Moving right along; patching all done, just grinding all the welds to get ready for bodywork.

Man you've done a Fantastic job with the much needed metal work on that van. You saved another van from the crusher. Congrats and I can't wait to see the finished product! Have you picked a color for it yet?

Also, I have to give you major Props for recycling the steel cabinet to make it better than new!

Yes, congrats. Most would have scraped it.

Thanks! I’m going with a medium blue with a grayish tint; pretty close to a color off the 1965 Ford color chart.

She’s back on all four feet; I just finished stripping and the old seam sealer out of the drip rails and painting them with some POR-15. As soon as I finish stripping the old paint out it the door jambs I’m going to start on the doors.

I love seeing people with metal skills take these rusty old vans and make them look like new again. Keep up the Great work and please keep posting pics of your progress. I love watching this kind of transformation. It's reassuring to see that this type of work can be done with the time and efforts of someone with the skills to take it on.

Thanks! I’m pretty proud of my cheap little Clarke MIG welder. I bought it for a “temporary” when my Lincoln burned up. I figured for $250; if I got a year or two out of it I’d be doing good. That was about 15 years and many miles of weld joints ago. She just keeps going; I guess those Italians build welders as good as they make pasta.

Got the first pass of filler on and started on door #1. Pretty straight on the outside but I’ll have to patch a section on the bottom.

That's some really nice work, damn fine work! What are your plans for drivetrain etc?