Chevy & GMC Vans

It's nice to see this project getting done in a timely fashion.

You see Matt........it can be done in a persons lifetime.

Smiliesafari wrote:
You see Matt........it can be done in a persons lifetime.

Now that isn't fair! First of all, I haven't died yet. Granted, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, but until then...

And secondly, it is much easier stuffing an engine into a 2wd subframe vs. an AWD subframe. I have no doubt Coyote X could do this in an AWD, I'm just saying the front diff would have slowed him slightly!

And thirdly... well, uhmm... (I guess I'm out of excuses....)

Nothing worth taking pics of today...

Just got the fuel lines ran and the tank filled with diesel and removed the astro computer wiring. I only had to keep the stuff to work the oil pressure and water temp gauges so there isn't much left of the engine harness. I started sorting out the G30 harness and will get it stripped down to the needed parts and get it put in tomorrow probably as well as getting the batteries mounted.

The G30 radiator will not fit in the astro front end. So I will be stuck with the stock radiator for now. Anyone got any ideas for what kind of radiator I can get that will fit and give me enough cooling capacity? If it comes down to it I will just have to get the G30 radiator re sized but that is hard to do since the nearest shop to me is several hours away.

I believe SoCalli V8 fit a full size PU rad in his 89. I don't know much about diesel engine cooling but I assume they get hotter, quicker than gas engines with all that compression. I don't see the stock radiator pulling off the job. They barely cool down a 350. I mean barely. If I'm wrong and they run cooler than gas you might get away with it.

If you use the stock rad I suggest using a Taurus 3.8 electric fan. I have used them in two V8 conversions now and they cool the radiator MUCH better and quicker than the stock steel fan.

I have a 4700cfm flexalite fan setup for whatever I put on there. I figure for normal driving the stock radiator should be fine. A diesel puts out heat pretty much equal to the power output. Since it has no throttle and is pumping maximum air at all times at low throttle it runs pretty cool compared to a gas engine of the same size.

Under load I figure there is no chance that little stock radiator will be able to handle it. But I might be able to get something figured out hopefully before I need to haul anything. Either way the stocker will let me get it back on the road to get the bugs worked out of the rest of the setup. I will try and find a full size radiator. But being a holiday week it might be hard to dig something up quickly.

if you need any measurements i have radiators from 73-87 fullsize trucks and my daily work rig is a 90 c3500 pickup so i could measure that one too.

It would be cool to post all of those dimensions for future reference.

I got a few more things done today. Mostly just getting the electrical stuff together. I also had to make a battery tray for the second starter battery.


There is enough room to fit one battery under the hood but not enough for both of them so I had to mount one battery up under the body. I ended up fitting it right beside the transmission. I used the battery tray from the G30 and cut it to fit in the opening I had available. I had to add a few more brackets to make it solid. It is now mounted and the heavy wires are ran back to it. I still need to make a cover for it to keep it from getting soaked every time it rains but that is easy and I think I already have something here that will work for it. I am not worried about it for now though I just want to get it running to make sure it is not going to be in the way before I bother with it.

With the batteries sorted out I turned to the wiring. I have already cleaned out the astro engine harness and removed the gas engine’s computer. So the only parts left of the astro wiring were to the dashboard gauges. I cleaned up the G30 harness of the non engine wiring and put it in the van and started combining the wiring and getting everything hooked up. I have the factory service manuals for both vans so it was pretty easy just tracing each wire and joining them up. Since they were both 94 models all the wire colors matched up as well so that made it even easier.



With the wiring done it is getting near complete. Still to do are the exhaust and all the engine accessories as well as the radiator. After that it should be real close to driving.

That looks like a TIGHT fit even the wiring is sticking out. What's the plan on the crossmember it's sort of sitting there by the looks of it.

It is a pretty tight fit but there is enough room in the dog house for everything. The wiring is together and just pulled away from the motor right now. Once I get it running and everything else done I will put the plastic clips back on it that hold it to the engine. That will make it not look quite as crammed in there. The crossmember is bolted down where it is at. I figure being at the end of the frame isn't the strongest but I don't have any metal right now to build a better setup so it will do for now.

I can't really haul anything to load it down with anyway since I will have the stock Astro radiator in it for a little while. I figure I need to pick up a good bit of steel to start reinforcing the frame anyway so I can just do all that at once.

I sooo can't wait to see this thing running. Like said before, you HAVE to get a good audio\video clip of it running. This will be one of the coolest things I've seen yet. If I'm not mistaken, that engine is one of those loud, let's you know it's a deisel. People will be thinking they got a bus pulling up next to them only to find a little Astro that could.

No pics today. Ended up only spending a bit of time on it, I had other stuff to do. I did manage to cobble together a y pipe and enough straight pipe to get the exhaust away from anything important. I also had to fight with the starter. One edge was right up against the crossmember so I had to cut a 1 inch hole around it so it would not hit when the engine moved.

The abs module is just in a bad place and there is really no good way to deal with it other than unbolt it and zip tie it to what is left of the bracket after I cut the side off it for clearance. I really need to run new brake lines this spring so I will just move it somewhere else when I run new lines. Probably near where the second battery is.

I did hook up one of the batteries and turned the key to on. The glow plug light came on and went off like it was supposed to and the check engine light worked so I think it should start on the first try if there is still enough diesel in the injection pump to fire it.

Tomorrow I will try and get the front end accessories bolted together and if I don't find anything else needing done I might be able to post a video of trying to start it for the first time. And yes it is one of those big loud rattling diesel engines that makes it sound like a school bus. The 6.2 and 6.5 engines have the best sounding idle of any diesel I can think of.

well, a good old 12valve cummins always sounds good at idle. but yes my friends 6.2 sounds way cooler than my duramax does at idle. by the way i posted a link to this on the dieselplace.com forum that i belong to hope you dont mind. there is a category called frankenstein i thought it was fitting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMn5k9SopLQ

Totally awesome! Congrats!

Don't forget the second one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hppmfgpZ ... er&list=UL