Name's Eric, I'm 25 from Northern Chicagoland area in IL. Currently driving a 2003 Buick Park Avenue Ultra with a handful of bolt ons and a blown transmission..and more recently, a 1999 Astro LS.
Story behind the van is my parents ordered it from the factory and we picked it up with two miles on the odometer in April of 1999, we originally bought it to tow a 25' camper and kept it when we sold the camper. Was my mom's originally and was the family car. I was 10 when we got it.. so it's like a family member honestly. Like that faithful old Labrador that's always happy to see you when you come home, tail wagging. Stepdad took ownership in 08 when she got a new car and in 2012 he got a newer car and this became our 'spare' and has mostly sat since then with exception of a few drives a month.. when my transmission on the Buick took a dump in May , I started driving this. I've been fixing everything that's wrong and begun to take ownership of it. Currently has 152K and change. Saving now for a built trans to handle the mods on that.
In the last few months, I have put 4 new BFG A/T KO tires on to help it in the upcoming snow, two idler arms, steering connecting rod, hydroboost pump (Autozone units are junk. Went with two bad ones out of the box until I finally said hell with this and went with a NAPA pump. First time, no issues, still going strong) and more recently the harmonic balancer failed.. taking out the timing chain cover and crank position sensor. I did a new balancer, cover, gaskets, crank position sensor as that was damaged, and also a new GM AC Genuine cap and rotor as well as put on some new plug wires that I found in my parts stash in the back of the garage along with new plugs. The distributor cap mounting tabs broke and I found a pretty nifty bracket that Dorman makes (P/N 94099 for anyone interested) to help hold the cap to the distributor assembly when the tabs are broken beyond repair. I am still chasing a P1345 which is a crank/cam discrepancy code. No idea what it could be, I installed everything perfectly and had a friend do a crank relearn on his snap-on scanner. Have rear drums, shoes and wheel cylinders that need installing as well as some good ATE german brake fluid that I run in all of my other cars that seems to give a little bit better longevity compared to average off the shelf stuff.
Mods are plastidipped grille (Is that even a mod?) since the silver was faded in places and looked outdated, DDM HIDs 4300K lamps, trans cooler that we installed within the first 100 miles of ownership, and poly bushings out front on anything we could get them for.
Would like to get some 4pot D52 replacements out front to motivate it to stop a little better and a locker in the rear for the snow but those are down the road a ways. Here's a few photos. Took these the day before yesterday.
So basically, I'm here to post a little, read a lot. Always thought vans were cool and I'm in the ideal situation on how I got this.
