Air ride on sad pimped 92 Astro!!

[mattblackratbus]

Off to be galvanised on monday

Hi Andy, be sure to put a bolt in the anchor hole or its gonna get filled up with galv metal....Johnny

[andyfanshawe]

Will do mattblackratbus. Thanks for the advice.

Managed to fab together a hood catch plate that bolts to existing holes in the old core support. Worked well and very strong. Here are a few views before it gets painted









Next is rounding off the corners so I can lower the front gfx......So far, before I ran out of oxygen :



Andy.

[mattblackratbus]

Nice work Andy, takes me all day making fidley little brackets like that, good stuff......Johnny

[andyfanshawe]

Here's a picture story of the rounding off of the corners











Media blasting in the corner.



Just needs the cavity filling with dinitrol 3125 for a thorough spot of rustproofing.

Onto the front gfx lowering now, so mock the van up, put some string along the lowest points and mock the front bumper at that level.









Now it's making lower brackets up and extending the front fenders down by 1.7mm!

Here's an interesting scenario. The pole (clothes line!) you can see lies along the lowest point of the gfx at the rear. Notice it just touches the fuel tank



Not at all good

Andy.

[andyfanshawe]

Thanks guys.

I now need a lower support for the front bumper/gfx, then extend the fenders down to meet the top of it, then lower the original chrome bumper down to provide a support for the top surface of the gfx. Finally decide how much space I need for all the lights and then fab a panel that connects the top of the bumper up to the lights.

The right hand hole here is 1 of 2 I need welding up and threading for the lower support brackets.


Here are the 2 plugs with M8 nuts welded on.


Now turned down to fit the hole


Here it is in the hole ready to weld, and the way i used to hold it there!!





Both brackets (made earlier!) bolted up.



That takes care of the lower brackets until powder coating or galvanising.

Extending fenders down next.

Andy.

[andyfanshawe]

Here you can see the extension I have made to reach down the the front gfx.



And the rear view



And the etch primed view



Lowering original bumper next.

Andy.

[nitropyro]

looking good andy!!!!
Danny

[andyfanshawe]

Thanks Danny. Praise indeed coming from yourself!!

Lowering bumper down time.
Took about 4 hours to weld extensions onto the bumper to subframe mounts and redrill the holes and weld on the nuts in the new place.
In this photo you can see the original holes.

up and

While the bumper was off I decided to clean it up a bit even though it won't be seen

Here is it at the start


After cleaning up all the chrome (came up well after 16 years!) it looked like this



The back of it was stripped of it's brackets (all bolts came out easily, which is really unusual for bolts going through chrome plated steel. They are usually rusted up) and this is the view I got. I have scraped a lot of rust off the nearest half in this photo



Fully scraped off all loose stuff and degreased.



Lets see if smoothrite enamel does what it says on the tin (do you have it in the states?). I poured it in the back of the bumper and liberally brushed it around.



I love that red!!

Andy.

[s10-den]

Andy, coming g,we have POR15, ever heard of that?Suppose to cure/fix/stop/prevent rust!..lol
Alot of my s10 guys do that on their frame.

[andyfanshawe]

Hi s-10den. Yes we have POR 15. Smoothrite was just lying around handy and does the same job, and its in that gorgeous red


At each end of the bumper is a heavy bracket that connects the bumper to the subframe. Because I have lowered the bumper, the bracket needs to be modified.
Interestingly, when I put the bracket in place to see what needed to be done, out of the 2 holes one fitted exactly! That means the factory design was slightly out. Good news for me, meaning less work

Here are some photos to show what was needed to be done

First, here is the bracket as from the factory


All I had to do was re-angle the right hand hole. With one hacksaw cut and a bit of bending, this now lines up perfectly



Welded up and media blasted waiting for paint




I don't know if even I can tell the difference here, but lets have a shot.
First photo before the bumper was lowered, and second one after




Hmmm, don't know.

Andy.

[Rebel]

Nice work Andy. Very nice.

Curious,, I may have missed a portion here but what's different than other swaps that you had to add the extension on the lower fender ?

[s10-den]

On the 5th page Rebel.....

[andyfanshawe]

My good matey SoCaliV8 has located me some 95 Camaro headlights and are on their way in to the UK.
With a bit of luck they should look okay. If not, it's back to the drawing board!!



Thanks Darren.
Andy.

[GEJ]

Andy,
Please excuse this dumb question.What season are you in the UK??.(spring summer,fall,etc)Does your seasons run the same as ours??.

[andyfanshawe]

Andy,
Please excuse this dumb question.What season are you in the UK??.(spring summer,fall,etc)Does your seasons run the same as ours??.

Hi.
We are heading into fall. Same as you guys! In fact we never actually had a summer-like last year.

Andy.