Chevy & GMC Vans

Thanks for Reading my story....
I Just wanted to introduce myself here. Finally got my account activated. I am in a suburb outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am a customer service engineer for a LED sign company and travel from time to time. I also do auto fabrication and have several projects that I am working on.

Back in the 90's I had a 85 Astro AWD as my first AWD van, and loved it. It lived a short life as I was not aware of all the issues some of these had. When I bought it and test drove it everything seemed fine (the weather was snowy and rainy). Once the pavement dried, I found all the troubles. Both front and rear diff's needed to be rebuilt as well as the CV's in the front and the front driveshaft. I had all that work done, and it drove like a dream. About 5 months later, I come out from work and it looks like the drivers side front tire is flat. Upon closer inspection, the torsion bar broke. I took it to a friends place and put a set of "used" torsion bars in (1st mistake). Well a month later the passengers side broke. At that point I had had it. I sold the van and took a huge loss on it just to get rid of the "headaches".

Fast forward to 2012. I had a full size 1995 GMC Vandura 2500 Conversion van and loved it. However it was useless in the Wisconsin Winters. I decided to sell it over the summer and eventually replace it with "something". I wasn't sure what that was, but after much thought, I decided on another Astro van. But this time, being more educated in their "issues", I knew what to look for. Well later I found what I wanted. I located a 1995 Astro AWD High Top Explorer Conversion van. It was in really decent shape and the owner told me all the stuff he repaired and replaced. I went out to New London, WI where the van was located (about 120mi from me) and picked it up. I drove it home and wouldn't you know it, 1/2 way back the trans was slipping. The owner gave me the receipt for the rebuild on the trans, but was out of the 2 year warranty. So I get it home, call my transmission guy and get it rebuilt for $850.00. He gives me the warranty with it, and other than a plugged Catalytic converter, I have to say I am pretty happy with it.

Doing auto fabrication, I have plans for this vehicle. I will be using this mostly as my daily driver, for swap meets, car shows, and long leisurely trips. I have already located a Xenon body kit for it, and some other goodies. Plans are to fix all the "little things" over the winter, drive it and then in summer, body and paint. Also possibly removing the air shocks in the rear (has the fiberglass springs) and installing some air bags for the rear.

I will add some photos as soon as I get a chance. Here are some photos of my other "projects"... (as I have read, you guys really like the photos...)

69 VW Beetle IRS Pan with Air Ride for a 65-67 Beetle Body. Pan and body will be the same color....


Numbers Matching 1973 454 Big Block El Camino



1950 Chevy 3100 Pickup on a 1993 Chevy S10 4x4 Chassis these are all the "leftover parts" from the build below.


There's another 1950 Chevy Pickup that's in the works. Custom IFS front suspension w/air ride, rack and pinion, nascar truck arm rear suspension with bags, disc brakes. Running an old inline 6 motor painted the color of the body of the truck.


If you want to check out the other builds, here are some links below.... I will also put pics of the Astro on here...

http://www.rust2rods.com - My Personal Website
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewto ... =rust2rods - My Beetle Project
http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/journal ... ction=view - 50 Pickups, 73 El Camino, and various other projects....

Very very nice stuff you have, you do excellent work for sure. Welcome to the forum

okie1 - Thanks, but I am just a backyard hack...You can do wonders with a little elbow grease...

Before:

After:


Before:

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Before:

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I really enjoy doing this kind of stuff, and really looking forward into doing some work on the Astro.... Chances are there will be a build journal on here. I do all my own powder coating, painting, fabrication in my shop. I have a 250a MIG welder, 40A TIG welder, 40A Plasma Cutter, 60 Ton Press, Industrial drill press and some other goodies. If anyone in the area needs a hand or heck even within a state or two of me, shoot me a message.... I'd be glad to help.

Nice pics and cool projects, great intro thread, welcome aboard ASV r2r...

Ok, as promised...on topic photos. Here are some photos of the van in it's current state. Sorry, it's a bit dirty from the weather....


It's got some bumps and bruises, but I will take care of that in the summer....


Hatch has some rust on it. I will probably try to locate another one, or repair this one.


Passengers side running board broken off and missing from PO (previous owner). I will be putting a xenon body kit on most likely.


Basic old wood grained conversion van interior...might change up the wood and go with a carbon fiber wrap over all the wood stuff. Not sure yet...


Power rear sunroof/moonroof with leather seats front and rear heat and air...


Another shot of the seats and conversion controls.


I am thinking about hanging an LCD TV on here and perhaps changing up this area as well. Might be useful for more storage.


Center area of roof lights, up, more aux lighting, another shot of the power sunroof/moon roof, and rear speakers. There's also a Bazooka 8" Subwoofer stuffed behind the rear power leather seat that goes down into a bed.


A shot of the most important thing in the van, the stereo. With 2 2-way speakers in the dash and the 4 2-way speakers in the rear along with the Bazooka Bass tube, it rocks nicely down the road.


Another shot of the In-dash touchscreen DVD player, CD, USB, SD, Bluetooth speakerphone, Bluetooth Music (pandora radio/slacker radio), AV inputs and outputs. And of course AM/FM radio. Along with the controls for the rear sunroof/moonroof and direct/indirect lighting controls below.


Digital Dash that actually works.


And another shot of the back of the van...

Let me know what you guys think...

Lastly, here's a shot of the body kit I am supposed to go and pick up over the holiday weekend....
Supposed to get it for $200.00 - Front and rear bumper covers and the side covers...

Welcome to the site, R2. Looks like you have your hands full.

Nice intro with some awesome projects. Can't wait to see the build on the Astro. You really should throw a 4-5" lift on it first. Then it'll be even more unstoppable in the snow.

astrozam - Thanks! Glad to be here...
Smiliesafari - Yep, keeps me out of trouble.
LiftedAWDAstro - I thought about lifting it, but to be honest, I'd rather go lower than higher. I have other vehicles for that...

Nice toys you got there, you do pretty work, welcome.

Welcome along

Wow, How did I miss this post?!?!

Very Cool projects, and you have pix !
Welcome along for the ride.... Its a scenic one eh?

I can hardly wait to see the body kit. Get it yet R2R?
If you keep the 4.3, Have you considered a turbo?
You seem like the sort that could pull that off.
On a low AWD Twould be Typhoon/Cyclone ish dont ya think?

Alright guys, I owe you an update.....

So, I picked up the ground effects kit several weeks ago. Right before I had to go to Florida for a week with work. I drove out there to pick them up. Was about 8 hours round trip for me and about 150 bucks in gas + food expenses. I get out there, meet the guy and find out that he had them packed to ship to someone before me. Yet his ad said that he would not ship them.... Oh well. I was there... They were all wrapped up nice and in a box. I made him take them out to check them over. Well... here's where it takes a turn for the worse. They were painted as he said...but... all the primer and paint were coming off. The black is HORRIBLY orange peeled and looks like it was rolled on or sprayed on with a wagner home electric sprayer. On top of that, POOR POOR prep was done on them. There are HUGE gouge marks from someone taking a DA to them and not sanding them by hand. It's more prevalent on one of the side pieces than the other. I confront him on these issues and ask "you said in the ad that these were done by a professional paint shop" I said "if you paid to have this done, you were severely ripped off" I go on to say "almost looks like this was done by a couple kids who had no idea of what they were doing." The seller goes on to tell me that he had his son do it and paid his son and his son's friend that worked at a body shop or something to do it. I asked if his job was sweeping the floors there. He shrugged his shoulders and I explained that these were pretty trashed and will require a lot of work to get them looking good once again. We haggled on the price and I got them for a fraction of what he was selling them for. I was okay with it knowing they are going to require a lot more work than expected. But they are still 1200 bucks new. I paid much less than that for them.

Since one side of the OEM running boards were broke, I took the last piece off and hung one of the side pane's to check the fit and see what they look like on the vehicle. And for you guys.... I took some pictures.. Not sure if I plan on running them now. Guess I will have to pull the bumper covers and put those on first then see what the rest looks like on there.



















What do you guys think?

So, now that I have owned the van for several months and been using it as a daily driver, I recently drove it in some severely windy weather. All I can say is WOW....I couldn't keep the thing straight... Plus something felt a miss in the steering... It tracked straight...but heavy breaking it would pull left or right... Also noticing that over bumps it shoots wherever it wants...
Now, when I bought it the previous owner claimed that he had replaced them already along with the torsion bars. When I bought it I checked that and they all looked new as he said. So, couple thousand miles later and this thing drifts like a sail boat...

I jack up the front end, grab the wheel and there's about 6" of movement I check the other side and it's just as bad... Watching the idler arms, there's about 2" of movement up and down. That's bad...

I also noticed that the ball joints have tears in the boots, but they are still tight. And then inspecting the sway bar, one of the links are broken and I noticed that the ends are split where they are cast together.

So the repair parts are going to be, 2 idler arms, sway bar, sway bar link pins, front shocks, and then later....upper and lower ball joints. And since I am in there, I will rebush the front end... Oh well.. I plan on keeping it anyways.

Well, here is a late welcome from another Milwaukee resident. I don't get on here that often. I like your projects, might have to stop over and check them out. Wish I had the space, time, & money to be working a several projects like that! Right now I am slowly looking to convert my '91 Astro into a V-8 with a 5-speed, donated from a '91 Silverado. Maybe we could meet up someday.

On another note, I don't know if you frequent junkyards, but there is one on the south side of Milwaukee (13th & College) that I hit for those special parts to keep my van running. If you'd want to check it out, let me know, I'm always up for some scrounging.

Again, welcome. More pics of those projects as they move along would be cool.

-Andrew