Chevy & GMC Vans

Astrophysics wrote:Very professional!
Today I installed acrylic AVS Vent Visors on 2003 Chevy Astro.
Got em at Pep Boys.
I loosened bolts holding side mirrors and the end of acrylic fits under the flange. Nice.
The vent visors have adhesive strip that bonds and sticks to rubber weatherstrip. First clean rubber with IPA, isopropyl alcohol.

AP

These are still on my van, survived my trip down south and all. No issues with the adhesive, a great little addition to the van.

Here's the "most recent" thing I've done "with" my vans...
Attended and worked the "44th Van Nationals 2016" in Lakeland, Fl.

Took BOTH vans...
Van#1: My 92 was the "sound van" loaded with and towing sound equipment..
Van#2: My 2000 was our "camping van"..

Quick stop... headed to event, Northbound on the Florida Turnpike:


Van #2: Our van campsite (near the front gate):


Van #1: Setup in airplane hanger... providing daily announcements and sound for the evening bands:


Van #1: stayed indoors all week (hooked to the sound and stage):


Providing music, trophies, giveaways, sound, and announcements all week (my view looking out):


Mixer #2: Mixin da bands (different band every night):


A sampling of some of the nightlife entertainment:


Van #2: Our outdoor campsite (just outside the hanger) view looking the other direction...
complete with electric, A/C, water, tables, grill, coolers, shade, and pool:


Just over 300 AWESOME vans in attendance from all over the country!
We partied... and drank a LOT of beer too!
Life-long memories and a good time was had by all!!!
2%

Been a while since I've posted anything, but yesterday I replaced the starter on Great A'Tuin.
Took all of 20 minutes start to finish.

Well, I think I figured out my intermittant power issue. MAF sensor! I replaced it, last night and now the critter is running perfect again!

Great A'Tuin wrote:Well, I think I figured out my intermittant power issue. MAF sensor! I replaced it, last night and now the critter is running perfect again!

That's fantastic news.

Just a new fuel filter today. Not much to do.

emptied van and pickup up two server racks. i miss driving my van......

I gave the van a good going over a few weekends back and decided I am going to hang on to the old girl another year.
Nothing really mechanically wrong that I cant fix. But even with undercoating it every second year for the last 10 years I have rust in the most common areas. Hatch, front fenders where it meets the bumper, and the dog leg in front of the PS rear wheel.
The dog leg rust in front of the PS rear wheel had a good nickle sized bubble. I opened it up it and all the foam behind was wet. Had to cut from 4" above the cladding ( which I removed ) almost down to the rocker to clean it all out. What a stupid design to have all that metal meet there and to add foam to it so the moisture is trapped. Rotted it from the inside out ! I cleaned it up best I could reach. Rust convertor and then panel bonded most of the metal I took out back in. Couple small patches to hold it together then glassed over the patch to keep it water tight.

The ps fender has the common rust at the bumper but also a hairline crack right in the body line. Removed that fender to deal with the rust I couldn't reach on the backside. Once cleaned it up I laid down some fiberglass mat on the backside to keep it from flexing and cracking again. Its really strong now

Hatch wasn't too bad as I have been touching it up every spring and fall. Just some surface rust on either side of the sweep of the wiper. And some surface rust around the license plate.

Working on a bad crack in the bumper today. All the cracks were opened up and grooved. I roughed up the abs on the backside a good 6" past the repair. Gaffers tape on the topside to hold it solid and 2x coats of resin and mat on the backside to reinforce. This morning I will peel back the tape and see what I am working with. Hope to duraglass the topside cracks, smooth and paint today.

The paint I figured would be expensive but it wasn't too bad. I was figuring that I would get a couple $40 rattle cans mixed up but talking to the counter guy at CARQUEST and he talked me into BC/CC. It was about $150.00cdn out the door in for a quart of paint & clear plus reducer and hardener.
Sprayed it outside with my $20.00 hlpv princess auto / harbor freight gun. For good measure I bought 3 air driers ( on sale for $1.99 ea ) that you screw into the bottom of the gun. So far I have painted the hatch and dog leg. Its far from perfect but the paint blends fairly well and not much crap in the Clear coat.

Once the paint is done I still have rear caliper sliders, and brakes to do. Then on with the winter tires and another undercoating before the snow flies.

paint and bodywork are all done. Its not 100% but definitely 100% better than what was there. However I lost all the pics from my camera and the ones one my phone are all blurry

Rear calipers, pins, pads n rotors were done but I still have a slight "shimmy" pulling the trailer when I apply the brakes. Like its pushing or pulling the rear to one side.

I am getting a vibration in the wheel when braking now as well. I figure with 240 thousand kms plus on the vans original front calipers and slider pins I will replace the whole setup up front too.

Yup, 3 of the pins in the front calipers were sticky and 1 completely seized. Then the cat failed and popped a code ( catalytic convertor performing below efficiency.......

So I priced a new cat from GM. LOLOLOL its over $1000.00. Comes complete with the crossover though.
So I pulled the crossover and had the local shop weld in 2x universal cats from Walker and mount it back up for me. Light is gone now.

Todays problem is the trailer hitch. Its was an original factory install with what I believe to be aftermarket hitch. Even though my van has been undercoated every second year since new I discovered last week when knocking the rust off the side of the hitch where it mounts to the body that my hammer went thru.

I have a new hitch here now but it lacks the bumper support mounts that the old hitch had. I salvaged what I could off the old hitch and will have to cut and paste the mounts from the old hitch to the new one so there is something holding my bumper up.

Nothing simple with these old rigs.

Oh and it just turned over 280000 kms / 175000 miles on the orig drivetrain.

i'm pretty sure i saw the old bumper mounts from my 97 RWD on the shelf last week if those are what you're looking for you can have them.

thx for the offer. I ended up using some spare 2x2 tubing and my stick welder to graft the back half of the old hitch on to the new one so its all sound. Even bought new bolts to hold it all together !!
Damn van seems to have a target on it of late. Been hit-n-run sideswiped twice this spring at the grocery store with damage now to the DS cladding in front of the rear wheel and a broken mirror housing on the same side.

Today on "Why I love my van":

Hauled a bunch of 10-foot sticks of steel tubing for my next project*, with the doors closed. Needed a tarp to keep things clean and the tubing came right up to the front seats, but they fit!

(*finally building a new bench seat/bed to replace the $100 craigslist find from six years ago!)

Herbie wrote:Today on "Why I love my van":

Hauled a bunch of 10-foot sticks of steel tubing for my next project*, with the doors closed. Needed a tarp to keep things clean and the tubing came right up to the front seats, but they fit!

(*finally building a new bench seat/bed to replace the $100 craigslist find from six years ago!)

Have several sticks of tubing I need hauled for my Safari roof reinforcement. Too bad my van is still on jack stands. LOL
I did manage to get the spider gears back in place. That was fun.

Who's ready to Rock-n-Roll?



I'm nearing completion on my project to replace my $100 craigslist conversion van bench/bed (that was never flat) with a Westfalia-style Rock-n-Roll bed.



I used reproduction Westy bed hinges, but since my little girl rides strapped into the back seat, I didn't feel comfortable building the box/bed system out of plywood. (Especially since we don't have a rear firewall to tie into like the VW vans.) Instead, I fabricated (mostly from scratch) a frame from steel tube. Since safety was a concern, I harvested the top of the seat-back from my conversion van seat, since it had all the punched holes and hardware necessary for a full (removable) headrest system. It took a lot of fiddling with the box dimensions to get things tall enough to fit my 12gallon water tank underneath, but to sit low enough for the Astro's relatively low overhead clearance.



Seating surfaces are 1/2 birch ply (same as my cabinet), and I trimmed the back of the seat (covering the headrest system/innards) with a nice 5mm (Poplar?) surfaced ply. All the wood just got 2 coats of wipe-on polyurethane. Since we don't have a rear firewall/bulk-head for the bed fold back onto, and since having a perfectly flat sleeping surface is one of the driving forces of this build, I designed adjustable supports into the frame. The black piece with the two bolts catches the seat back, and is slotted so it can be raised/lowered to make sure the back portion of the seat levels out perfectly. The rear extension platform (instead of the VW engine decklid) rests on the same black bracket at the forward edge, and on adjustable legs at the rear. The angle of the seat "bottom" can be adjusted by shimming the support brackets.



With a Rock-n-Roll type bed, it's necessary to keep the frame "locked" into seat mode so that things don't fold back in an accident. I used a hotrod "bear claw" trunk latch that works perfectly.

Still left to do:
I've rebuilt my "water pump" box to fit against the new seat, but I need to finish re-plumbing to the (reoriented) water tank. I've got an Ikea foam mattress I'll be cutting for the seat/bed cushions. I'm still deciding how I want to upholster the cushions, but I may stray from the "All DIY" approach and just order zippered slip covers from one of the many inexpensive internet retailers that will make them to order. (I don't mind sewing, but that's a lot of work that needs to be done accurately and I'm running out of time/energy for this particular project.)