getting another astro ..

[crash]

just thought i'd post this and see if anyone had any needs ..

i talked to a guy that has a 93 with over 300k on it .. we haven't confirmed a price yet (other than cheap), i also don't know what condition the thing is really in but, his AC works. I'm going to be stripping the AC out to replace some parts in my 94. and I'll probably take a couple of other small items that may be of use to me.

just wondering if I part this 93 out ... anyone need anything? please shoot me a pm and we can work something out if what i get is useable.

I'm not sure when I'm getting it yet.. hopefully in the next week or two.

I do know that it has a new fuel tank and sending unit ... and it's blue .. LOL

Rob

[Someone]

If it has 3.73 gears I may be intrested in the rear end (RPO code GT4)

[crash]

This one has fallen through Tristan. Figured that I'd let you know.

Turns out the van is a Z and next to nothing is compatible with my W... not even the AC line I needed will work.

[SafariRob]

Hey, why start a new thread when an old on-topic one can be resurrected, especially when it was started by a guy named Rob and, what the hey, that's my name, too!

A friend has sold me his 88 Astro. It's a bit rusty on the rocker panels (okay, it's a lot rusty there and many other places like the unibody frame over the rear axle. Spooky, in fact.) but the engine runs pretty good, even if it lets the world know that it started because of the blue smoke.
Minor technicalities in the bigger scheme of things.
Actually, I foresee a merging of parts between this van and my 89, with the 89 being the VIN retained. For example, the 88 has a 3.42 rear end, my 89 is a 3.23; I like the idea of having the 3.42 in my 89, after I convert it to a posi of some type.
Other things:
The 89 has a creased passenger front fender, the 88's is in fine shape.
The 88 seats are the right color and are in much better shape than the 89's.
The 88 has an overhead console that really wants to be transplanted to the 89 when the headliner is replaced.
The 88 rear doors have windows that open, the 89 rear windows do not. I do believe that I'll shortly find out about the headache of door pin removal.
The 88 carpets are better than the ones in the 89.
The 88 has the hockey stick speedometer and analog gauges, the 89 has the digital dash and I'm very tired of it.
I'm hoping that the front subframe is the same between an 88 and an 89; I'd like to remove, sandblast, paint, and rebuild the subframe from the 88 for use in the 89.
And so on...

It's an operation that the 88 won't survive, but its parts will live on in the 89.

[LiftedAWDAstro]

Well, since it is getting very rusted, you might as well salvage as many parts as you can before the big crusher in the sky gets her!

[astrozam]

I've never heard of any changes in the subframe for those yrs,if you've got the time and place then your idea to sandblast ,repaint,rebuild is a great idea,give another 20yrs of life to er

[SafariRob]

That's my plan, Zammer. I'm even thinking of putting in a steering box with a quicker ratio; could be kinda scary for winter driving, though.

[ihatemybike]

This past year, I installed a FE2 quick-ratio steering box in my '99. The handling isn't so much quicker as to make snow driving scary, but it is more fun to thread your way through traffic.

[SafariRob]

Aaron that sounds like a great modification. I'm leaning heavily towards installing a faster gear ratio steering box in my Astro.

I went over to my friend's place today and checked out the 88 further. I haven't had the time to pick it up yet, but there's no rush on that. I had the time today and wanted to get the van ready.
I jumped the van to start it; the battery was low and the temperature was 10F while I was there. I just hooked up the jumper cables and let the 88's battery have a "drink" from my 89. Must've left the jumpers on for about 10 minutes or so, then tried the starter. The engine spun over freely and caught--ya just gotta love fuel injection. But does the engine ever smoke; it's burning oil in a big way and leaves a huge blue cloud when moving down the road. But it does go down the road. I figure I'll add some STP and drive the van the 30 miles to my place when it's dark. I like to think that it'll make it.
But, like I said, there's no rush to move it.

[crash]

and being that mine didn't pan out.. great to here yours did (wow that was a long time ago)


all hail the Rob's!

[SafariRob]

Got the 88 Astro home yesterday. I actually went over to where it was at the day before that with the thought of driving it in. But, after I added the STP, I decided to do a several mile test drive first. So after jump starting it again, a friend and I took off. I hit the back roads with it smoking so bad that anyone following would've turned on their fog lights. Hoo boy, did it ever run rough; getting it up to 50 took a very light foot on the pedal and a lot of space. Surprisingly, the smoking stopped after the engine had come up to temp and run at cruise for a while, but it still missed. I figured a bit more of driving it might help out the miss, so I decided to jump on a rather busy 2 lane highway for about a mile until I got to the next county road.
Big mistake. As I went to turn onto the highway, the van died. I hit the starter and the engine cranked with no start. Then the battery died. Darkness descended quickly as my friend and I pushed the van off the road. There was just enough battery left to work the 4 ways, but that was it. Fortunately, my friend had his cellphone and he called his wife to come out with a set of jumper cables. She soon appeared and we tried jumping the Astro to no avail--it flat out wouldn't start. At a lull in the traffic, we pulled the van backwards into the parking lot of a gas station. I was really sweating that pull; at any moment traffic could appear in the dark from around a curve and be on top of us. But the traffic held off long enough to get the Astro off of the highway. After repositioning the tow strap on the front of the Astro, we pulled the van the 3 miles back to my friend's place. About halfway there the battery went completely flat and the 4 ways stopped working, so now I had no tail lights at all, but there was absolutely no traffic on the county roads we were on, so it was okay.
I decided to change the sparkplugs before attempting the 30 mile run, I spent $14 for a new set of Delcos, gapped them, and installed them the next day. I yanked the front tires for the sparkplug R&R--I think this is the easiest way to do it. It didn't take long; the passenger side can be completely done this way, but I had to remove the engine cover to get at the rearmost plug on the drivers side. No big deal there, though. I found that the plug from cylinder #1 had its electrode completely encrusted with carbon--no way that plug was doing the engine any good. The plug in cylinder #4 was dripping with oil; I think I found which cylinder has the oil control problem. After the new plugs were in, I started the engine. It only ran about a thousand times better than the previous day!
I replaced the battery with the one from my Olds because the original one certainly wasn't much good and I drove the van home with my friend following in my 89 Astro. Although we had thrown a tow strap, jumper cables, and tools into the 89, we didn't need to use them--the 88 had no problem getting home although it still wasn't running 100%. It never smoked a bit, either on starting or cruising, but I could almost watch the gas gauge drop. All in all, it did okay though. I must've paid my dues in full with the Astro Gods on the previous day's adventure.


Here's the 88 undergoing the sparkplug change:




Rust has really got this van's number. My foot slipped on the step and did this to the forward part of the rocker panel:


As you can see, there isn't much left in the way of solid metal down there. The undercarriage is in the same shape unfortunately. If the engine were in good running shape, I could see driving this van for at least another year maybe. But a lot of mechanical work needs to be done and I don't think the vehicle is worth it. Hate to see another Astro get junked, but this one is bad off. So, I'm back to my original thought of grabbing what I can from the 88 and using it on my 89.


I think I've finally dialed in what it takes in tools to make sparkplug changes as easy as possible when going in through the wheelwells. Below is what I now use. Probably most important is the sparkplug socket that's mounted to an extension via a universal. Being permanently mounted together, there's never a problem of trying to remove the socket from the sparkplug after the plug is tight in place. I do add another long extension to it, though, as it gets my hands that much farther away from the brake disk and possible blood sacrifices.
The other tool that I find extremely useful for plug changes is a pivoting head ratchet. I never had any use for these ratchets in the past--I only saw them as a good way to bang up and bloody my knuckles. But for getting to that rearmost plug on the drivers side they can't be beat.

[rlsllc]

The 88 has the hockey stick speedometer and analog gauges, the 89 has the digital dash and I'm very tired of it.

I think, and could be wrong, that the '88 has a cable driven speedometer, and I know that the '89 is electric.

I have an '89 with the hockey stick cluster, and have a real hard time reading it. I love the digital dash in my '91.
As long as your cluster is fully functional (mine is), I'll swap you my 'sticks for your 'digits. I think it's doable, as long as you include the sub-harness. We'll need to verify this with someone that's done it.

My '89 is waiting for it's 350, so I can pull the cluster if you're interested. I don't drive it in the winter anyway.

[SafariRob]

Roy, you are absolutely right about the cable speedo in an 88. I wasn't thinking when I wrote about swapping the two dashes.
A friend has the electric analog dash that he will give and I have thought about it. If I do the swap, I'll let you know.
But keep in mind that the digital dash in my 89 has problems--for no apparent reason the entire display, with the exception of the temp gauge, will blank out. To get it back on you have to shut the key off and then turn it back on. The display might then work correctly for a month or maybe just a few minutes, you can't tell.
One other "trait" this dash has--it will be seemingly working fine while you're cruising down the road holding a steady speed. But you'll detect an abrupt change in the display; you look down at it and see that the speedometer is now reading about 10 MPH faster than you are going, but it only does this for a short while before it suddenly switches back to the correct speed.

If I had the money, I'd replace the OEM dash with individual analog gauges (like Larry's done with his 89) from some manufacturer like Stewart Warner, but I don't think there's enough room in the gauge area for all the necessary gauges.

[Rockwerx]

Three of my vans have done the speedo thing you are talking about. You will be cruising down the highway and then the speedo will drop down or go up 10 mph. I started to put my GPS on the dash to use as my speedo. When I run 32s on the van the speedo is off anyway.

[rlsllc]

The cluster in my '91 would go out and stuff when Mic had it, he resoldered everything and it has been good other than the odometer only reads 3 digits once in a great while. If you do plan to launch it, I'd love to have it. Maybe all it needs is the soldering. It would be worth a shot to me, the digital is just easier for me to see.

Keep me in mind.