Welcome back Peter

[Mr_Roboto]

Been a long time, too long I dare say. I wouldn't be surprised if this some how draws people outa the wood works. In regards to the ZZ I don't think that she'll disappear on us forever. Vehicles of that nature don't just vanish. Far too unique. Glad to hear that the business is doing you well, sorry to hear about the brother. It sucks that money separates us the way it does. If you ever hit Chicagoland for some crazy ass reason shoot me PM.

[ihatemybike]

Welcome back Peter!! When do the mods start on the soon to be retired work van?

Does ZZ still cruise about your area? The last two vehicles that we sold locally we would keep seeing for a couple years.

[Logan]

Welcome back.... think I'll start hanging around more again. lol
Sounds like the same situation you had, I've having. We put dad in a nursing home and in turn I bought out the business. Been going really well, except, it's hard to find people that want to work. Moved out of my house too. Trying the whole seperation/divorce thing again. All in time I guess. Sorry to hear about ZZ. You'll have that......

[peter]

Again, thanks to all for the "welcome back".

Nope, ZZ's been stripped of her parts, according to the guy who bought her. She's prolly driving around as a Kia now

Hey Logan, sorry to hear about your dad being in long-term care. I remember meeting him in '05 and he sure didn't seem like he was close to being that old.

Also sorry to hear about you going thru a separation/divorce again with Mandy. Sometimes you gotta just give up and move on. No amount of will on your part'll be enuf if the significant other isn't ready to clean up. Trust me, I know.

Congrats on taking over the business. Having an established customer base from the get-go is a godsend and makes you a shoe-in to succeed.

[Kabey's Van]

So...what are you going to do with the old shop van?

Peter

[peter]

I have absolutely no idea. Whatever it is, it'll need to be smog-legal. I've been kicking around the following ideas;

#1 Hybrid electric, redneck style
#2 Diesel, though I hate the damned things and diesel fuel isn't cheap enuf to warrant it
#3 Small-block conversion, but unfortunately it'd have to be the latest Gen of engines so as to pass smog-check stations (which still don't exist in this tree-hugger province for some reason)

I'm leaning towards #1. A strong electric motor driving the oem tranny with mebbe a locked converter? An on-board 7-10k generator for recharging "on the fly" and exhausting thru a cat converter so as to appease my newly found (and weak-efforted) concerns on global warming

I haven't really done much research, so I dunno if the above is even close to being plausible. I'll know more after she's sitting in my driveway. One thing fer sure, she's purdy with her rear barn doors with no windows.

[1Gary]

Peter,don't think electric is going to pull the Tramper.

[LiftedAWDAstro]

Apparently you haven't seen big electric DC motors. We have some small 8,000 HP ones at work. The problem is having enough battery capacity.

[Cobra]

Peter: if you do the hybrid electric tell me before you start i'm so coming down there i want to see it.

Dean: .... did you put too many zeros in there or did you get the small part wrong.... wth kind of power consumption produces 8000hp

[LiftedAWDAstro]

Well...relatively, 8,000 hp is small compared to the 20,000 hp in one of the other plant areas. We use 13.8 KV down to 700 DC for the motors. These are in our rolling mills taking aluminum sheet from 24" thick down to 10.3 mils (beer can thickness) in our department. We have 115 KV supplying our plant so capacity is not an issue.

[Cobra]

hmm i can see 14KV in a van could be a little bit complicated

[LiftedAWDAstro]

Yeah, not to mention slightly dangerous...it is Peter we're talking about after all.

[1Gary]

Well if history where to repeat it's self.........don't think anyone wants to tell Petey he can't do something.

Dean when I said electric couldn't tow,I was thinking of a Chevy Volt.

[Cobra]

well i must say that an astro is bigger, badder and better then a chevy volt

[Kabey's Van]

A hybrid or electric van could be done, but what a lot of work. Lightening everything so as to compensate for the weight of the batteries would take a lot of forethought, or a lot of vans. Maybe a small reactor would work.
Out here on the Island we don't have AirCare so we can still build what we want.
Myself I prefer something with a bbc, and next weekend I am going to the L/M to pick up my next project.






It's a "complete" 1950 Thames van. It's in amazing shape, even the wood ribs and floor are still intacked. It comes with a 10 hp engine.
It's a done deal just have to go get it.