Digz's 65 panel

It's going ,,just goin' slow,, work has gotten in the way again.
Need to move it to another work bay to get it up in the air to finish the rocker repairs and drop the springs out of it.Also decided to toss the 230 and go for the V8, I have a tendacy to work on everything at once so it stays cut up longer ,,lol,,
I thought I had found a set of wheels for it the otherday atta yardsale, 16x8s, but they had a full offset and would have hit the shocks on the front , Used to be you could find rims all over the place ,, now I fear they are all in the scrap yards.We got the rear quarters pretty much sewn up ,and a new inner panel on the drivers side rocker . oh and the gas door looks sweet. Randy ,my soninlaw, and I are wondering what the slick way to shave the door hinges might be, anyone got any ideas?
Is it even doable?

You could get a kit to suicide the front doors, not sure it wouldn't work for side or back??? Would be alot of mod ,but think you can do it

Moved to the next bay today.

Lots and lots to do

Ok so now we get pop up ads instead of photos ,,way cool
had a couple pics but they'll have to wait I guess.
Pretty sure I have a 12 bolt posi in the van ,, Im thinkin' thats gonna make driveability an issue, more than likely a 4:10, but i havent gotten exact on that part yet.
Im gonna have to pay more attention at carshows, ran across verticle lift doors searching for shaved ideas, those look cool, but pricey, be nice on a no-door tho.Got the fuel fill mounted and lined up to the hole in the frame today, that didnt go bad , alil' cuttin and tweakin' and some welding. moved it to another bay so I have alot more elbow room to tear into things. Should go a lil faster now

Sounds like your making progress. To bad pics aren't working. Always great to see your project(when you can see pic LOL). Are you talking like lambo doors??? Auto Lock got some hood & trunck hinges that could "maybe" be mod to work. Another way might be box the hinges ??? At least they be more streamline???

Yes ,, those lambo doors,, Im sure its a pipe dream ,, but it would be cool eh?
I saw some on a couple of those lil street screamers kids are building now, but I didnt really pay attention to how they are set up. But there is an advantage to having a "not so perfect"
van to work with, Ya can cut it up some and not feel to guilty
, I'm looking at mine as a ressurection not a restoration.

I think it's going to go forward and backwards at the same time for awhile


It's a 4:10 posi
I'd like it to be done enough for bakers, see how it goes this winter. Borrowed a plasma cutter , that will help speed things up a little, I can see I might want to own one of those!
There was a lot of moisture in the rearend housing, but it looks okay. Was thinking of Sask's Swamp Thing, sittin in that water after I saw what the grease in this looked like just from plain sittin around.

Your not moving backwards ,your still going forward, heck you couldn't drive it much longer up there anyway. Yes a plasma is a quick way to get out bolts. Is a posi normal for a 1st gen???

On the old forum M1Dadio put a posi pulled from a TransAM under his van. He said he kind of regretted it because the van was just wasn’t heavy enough for a posi.

But yours already had it?

I'll track down that old forum entry and post a link.

Found it, but cant link directly to the entry..

If you follow this link and scroll down to the Nov. 18, 2007 @ 9:48pm, you can read what he was saying about posi on a van.

http://vintagevans.forumup.jobs/viewtopic.php?p=17869&highlight=&mforum=vintagevans#17869

I kind of just figured it was ordered that way, It started its life with a fire dept as far as I can tell.
I didnt check any numbers Don ,, I just counted the driveshaft revolutions to the wheel, I will take a closer look as soon as I get all the junk rinsed out of it tho. I know my old gmc had 3:36's in it. Well at least I think it did,, that was awhile ago

Yeah Don, if im reading the right numbers it has 9-37.
The bolt detail in the spring hanger is gonna have to be
sawzall I guess ,, try it monday. they have the bolts in backwards to use the clamp and a 1 1/2 inch chunk of shaft and a 8lb sledge did squat. worse comes to worse maybe a torch and ballooning the hanger a little ,, just hate the idea of
messing that sheetmetal up.

Well, all else failed so I used a torch and a grinder and some good pry bars. It didnt go real bad. After sliding what was left of the bolt back and forth and grinding it as short as possible they pryed out with very little distortion to the mounts.
We have started fitting the rocker repair panels in. they aren't to bad , but they seem a bit on the wide side, was wondering if anybody else has run into this with repro stuff, makes me wonder if they were designed more as a cover up than a replacement. They arent horrible ,but just hard to tweak in right. Or are the 2nd gen parts slightly different?

The rocker I got did seem a little bigger than what was there (or what was left of it??)

I mentioned this to my brother today about the panels, He knows way more about body work than i ever will, He believes there is a difference between what they call a repair panel and a replacement. He has redone a several cars and ran into this on a Cuda quarter, it was made to go over most of the original part and then ya just blend in the edges. The way mine are fitting this sounded right. It just makes the lines not quite right and would be very hard to correct to original, I figure its okay as long as ya dont look at both sides at the same time.

Yes , We are gaining on the rocker detail. the shop furnace broke the week before thanksgiving and luckily I found a new blower motor for that on Ebay. Heat will be important with the temps kickin' down into the 20's. My bro and I kept staring at that spot of missin sheet metal at the front of the rockers, tried something, I ordered repair patches for a 67-70 chevy pickup, lower rear frt fender, the arch sweep is the same, but the upper body line curve is out of place, but my bro massaged them to something that I think will work okay.

The inside radius of the body line is a little less sharp, but I think it wont show up to bad to the "untrained" eye.
the backside of the patch also work for the frt of the rear wheel wells and gives a decent factory looking edge,

I spent today , doing more patches here and there and getting the rocker ends in place so it can be mudded up. I borrowed a small plasma arc cutter from a friend, that makes all those small cut outs a breeze, I'm buying one this coming year, Im calling it a needful thing, man they are slick!
Also I have been trying to find a pair Keystone raiders, 15x7 or 8, used or gently used to match up with these.