Finally back in action!!

Ok, here we go!!

So I've done a whole lot and I may forget to mention small features, we'll see.

I installed a two way communication remote start and alarm system which has been pretty darn good. I hooked it up myself...wasnt' too hard, you just have to be sure that you use the right wires ;)

The front area of the van is completely different now....behold it!!!(refer to pic. below)

As you can see, the dash went from grey to brown, the cd player was relocated from the centre and the glove box hub is gone. Since this van is supposed to look old school, I opted to go with the custom drink tray and no big bulky glove box hub covering my red velvet. BTW, all of the red velvet was pulled from the interior of the black van is being reused which means I spend no money, yay!!

Those grey things on the drink tray and LED clips: I glued them down. They are very handy when you have directions or a grocery list of a sort and the lights are bright and they swivel around...I got them at the dollar shop.

One of the things that I really missed from the older model vans is the gauge cluster. I really like the look of the single circular gauge clusters instead of one big one. I treid the one from the black van but it didn't quite fit.......so I had to get custom!! Basically I had to take off about an inch from the back of the circular holes as they were too deep to fit properly. I used a belt sander and sanded it away until it fit and I was very happy when it did. This gave me back my old school gauge cluster which I missed terribly.

The ceiling in the front seat is velvet. I put a varanthaned piece of wood as a trim piece which seperates teh material from the front to the back. The back is done with industrial carpet. I did the engine hub with velvet.

The horn button was relocated to the left side of the wheel.

I got some pedal covers from the scrap yard for $4 The 'foot' gas peddle I removed from the black van which I had originally purchased new.

The door panels are now velvet just like the engine hub. I mounted some pioneer speakers in the doors as well. The arm rest was painted brown and varathaned for durability.

You may have noticed a small van mounted in the dash that looks astonishingly like the real van. Well, no word of a lie, it is an exact mini me model.

By using two model kits I re-created all of the accessories of the 'real' van including the side windows, the windshield visor, the spoiler on teh back, the back side corner windows and even the chrome tips of the dual exaust system. Here's the cherry on the sunday: the headlights of the mini me model van flash when you are the alarm system. I did this by using those dollar shop LED lights that I mentioned earlier...I took them apart and removed the lights and then I soldered wires to them and ran them to the led outputs from the alarm system...ie: that red blinking light that tells you the car is armed, I just cut it out and wired the led's to it.

There is a circular purple light underneath the model as well as a green LED 4" tube light that lights the whole area up at night.

The plastic window that protects the van will be changed to galss eventually.

Other new features include new seats and seat covers. Originally I had two different sets of seats and they didn't match...I couldn't have that so a day at the scrap yard gve me two new/used seats. Then I found the seat covers on super duper sale so I got all 4 for $20 brand new.

The whole interior, (other than the front cockpit section) is done with industrial carpet. I used one piece as a whole and just rolled it up and over; this was very difficult..luckily I had cymbal stands to use as jacks ;) The carpet cost me $25

I also put in some custom light fixtures which I purchased at Value Village for 99cents. I used my dremmel tool and cut a larger section out of the under side of the new fixture and glued on some velcro so that if you need to change the bulb, all you have to do is pull it off as it is simply stuck to the carpet on teh ceiling. I also painted the bases black.

Today I did the back doors...they too were covered in red velvet. I will have to take more pics as these were taken two weeks ago.

Here's a shot of the van from the outside. You can see the back windows that I installed; they were given to me free and spent a couple bucks on the window sealer. Other than that, a jig saw and a few hours of my time was all that it took.

You can also see the spoiler, the backs of the 12v horns and the tip of the left side of the dual exaust system that I pulled off my black van. I originally had it installed new on the black van..it's a dual system that runs to two cats and the then two dyno max turbos.

From the front you can see the LED signal lights; one is a parking light and the other is the signal light.

I grabbed the old school wiper arms off of the black van and snapped them on.

The hood scoop is just for looks. I may leave it off when I do all of thd body work and primer...any thoughts on that out there?

The grille is going to get replaced with the old school 70's style grille, complete with round headlights. It just came yesterday; I won it off ebay. I've been trying to find one of these for a while. Yeah, sure, they're easy to find if they're white but I had to get the all chrome one.

This means that the headlights will be replaced with round ones becasue that's how they came for the old grilles. Still in their box, I have two round diamond cut headlights just waiting to be hooked up. These are those lights that look almost blue-ish/white-ish that you see on nicer cars; they're going to look deadly!!

Here's a shot of the grille

And here are the headlights

So what's next you ask......?

I still have all of the body work to do and then priming and painting.

I've pulled the chrome bumpers from the black van and they will eventually get on to the yellow van.

I have to pull off all of the brakes from thd black van...lost of stuff to reclaim from it..then I can have it towed away.

Pull the purple underlight kit from the black van and eventually put them on the yellow van..man I miss those things...I know, they're cheesy but they look cool on a fly ride.

Change the front suspension springs back to the original ones, bringing it back to proper height which will let me put the proper sized tires up front again. The smaller tires always look saggy as they carry a lot of weight: people and engine.

It's going in to the shop next monday to hopefully fix a wire problem somewhere that has been giving me a lot of grief when the weather gets cool.....having to wiggle wires to get the engine to start is not cool and not being able to find the wire is even worse. I checked a bunch of wires out and after soldering the suspicious looking ones, still no luck.

You know that song: 'when something is wrong with my baby"? and it continues on to say 'something is wrong with me'? Well, that' s how I feel when something is wrong with the van.

Fixed camera

Well folks, good news: the camera is fixed. There have been lots of additions and changes from nearly finished interior to all new dash to custom in-dash mini- me model with flashing to the 'armed status' headlights on it.

stay tuned............

Some thoughts......

Sad to say the camera is broken but happy to say that there is a re-call on it. This means that I have no new pics to show you. Here are a few plans for the van that are in the works.

I'm thinking for the interior, ie: ceiling and walls, I am going to do something new. My black van was all red velvet....pretty classic, nice but it's been done. My first van I did with carpet and padded vynel walls which is nice but has been done.

I'm thinking I will go with my current green shag, (well, modern shag which is half the length), and black and white chess board ceiling and walls. I think this will match the carpet, the yellow color of the van and just the overall image of the van.

I'm planning on re-using all of the wall boards from the black van, (I know they will fit and heck, they're already cut for me and everything), and then covering the boards with a huge roll of vynel flooring.....you know......like what you might use in your kitchen. It's durable and bright and has a bit of a shine to it so all in all I think it will work well. I'm either going to install it by covering each piece of board, one at a time and matching the black and white squares to eachother or, I'll buy a super big roll and, starting from the bottom left side of the van, roll it up the wall, across the ceiling and down the other side keeping it all uniform and seamless, I'm not sure which way seems easier yet.

A few weeks ago I picked up and two way remote start and alarm system. It's been too darn cold to install it but I'm hoping to get it done this weekend, wheather permitting. A two way system is where it communicates back to you ie: if you remote start it, on the screen of the key chain switch, it will show me wether or not the vehicle started successfully. If you alarm is tripped, it will immediately beep at me like a pager and it will show me where and how the alarm was tripped; maybe someone hit the van.....or they opened a door. All in all it's a pretty cool system.

Ok, so you know how usually vans like mine have cool little windows in the back upper side corners? These are most commonly called port-hole windows. There are all sorts of shapes like, chevy bow-ties, hearts- tear drops, hexagons, circles, ovals and so on. I managed to get some that are tic tac shaped...like the candy. There will be two on each side a few inches apart in the usual spot. These windows will immediately change the look of the van. Once they're in, any on-looker will know right away that this is no ordinary cargo van....oh no....it's a full rock star van or call it what you will, I've heard: super van, sport van, custom van, shaggn' wagn', boogie van and so on. Oh yeah, the great thing about these windows is that they were free from my neighbour, Spider,(he's cool).

The other thing I've been trying to figure out is what I'm going to do with the front grille. I want all chrome but unless I can find a good price, that won't happen. I've also been finding that it's extremely hard to find chrome grilles for a 95 van.....I can find them for all the other models but not mine!!!!!!????????????!!!!!!!!!!!! It drives me nuts. My other plan is to just get a brand new factory grille, paint it to match the body but put that chrome mesh grille stuff behind it. Or, just have a frame for the grille and fill the hole with chrome mesh.

Hmmm........what else.....random things, here we go:

-The chrome bumpers will come off of the black van go to the yellow van in the warmer weather.

I've seen vans like mine with no rear bumpers and it looks awesome but is it legal?? Anyone know? "Bueler? Bueler? Bueler?" <--------Ferries Bueler's day off

-I put the door straps from the black van to the yellow van. They prevent the back doors from just swingly freely open and wacking the car next to you...nice little things to have.

-New custom LED parking and signal lights are on and look great, pics to come later.

-I bought some 70's van emblems for my model off of ebay. You see, in the 80's they changed them and that's what I have on mine. I want the classic look so they had to go.

Above is the classic look.....below is what I'm replacing minus all of that GMC stuff.

I want to do the minor body work and then re-paint the van. I'm learning as much about painting vehicles yourself as possible. I've ordered this guys DVD,....he seems to be the king.

www.easypaintyourcar.com

-Flares off the old van.....restored and installed on new van.

-purple underlight kit has to come off of the black van and go to the yellow van.

-seat covers..........

-custom drink tray and panel cover.....a must have classic custom van item. Have a look at the pic below for the view. It may not be exactly the same but hey, that's the beauty of it....*custom* what ever you want you can do, oh baby!!

-Front Dash....I'm thinking paint it brown or purple? Thoughts??

Well, I gotta go, I've wasted enough time here making my list of what to do...some may call it a 'to-do' list.

See you later and go to this link and see one of favorite vans....this guy did a great job on his van.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/117130

watch the second and third video and turn your volume up!!!

Later,

Heavy Chevy

PS: This week I stayed up late to win an ebay auction for 32 VAN WORLD mags from the 70's. When I found them they were up to $41 US and in the last 10 min. it was all out war bringing the final price to a whoppn' $285US and I lost and was pretty bummed out and kind of pissed. :(

Fuel pumps pump fuel and money

So my fuel pump quit two weeks ago. But, never fear...$423 later, everything is great!!! All the fun things that go with having a not brand new vehicle. At least it's not an '81 like my old one.

I'm a little behind on my posts as the digital camera here is acting up.

So unfortunately, Pimp my Chevy Van will not be seen today; instead we bring such classic re-runs of 'growing pains' followed by ' who's the boss' followed by 'family matters' and concluded by an all new old re-run of 'full house' where uncle joey and uncle jessie get in to some zanny adventure of a sort involving some kind of radio jingle and will probably feature a brief appearance by the beach boys and oh yeah...little Stephanie will, without a doubt, deliver her awesomely annoying classic line: "How Rude", and we will all want to punch her up side the head.

Good night and take care of eachother.

Cue the music------> *PHAT* bass...'boom'',......'scratch, scratch' ......'boom'....'oh yeah'......'punk!!'

The new baby....

Okay, so after getting the van plated, insured, and paid for I brought it home and began its metamorphasis.
The first thing I did was get the horns transfered over from the black van. These horns are electrical so it's pretty darn easy to do. A quick trip to Canadian Tire for some wire and a push button and, "HONK! HORN!!", I was set up.






Here's the push button mounted on the dash. When I paint the dash later, I am planning on relocating the button to the left side of the steering wheel, on the dash.















The next thing I did was to install the window drip visor on the door. Then, I removed the windshield visor from the black van, cleaned and primed and painted it to match and then installed it. I also switched the mirrors as my old ones were in better shape; I also switched the door lock pins for the same reason. I switched the door handles too because the new van had black thumb buttons and I'm going for as much chrome as I got ;)






Then I swapped my door interiors that I had originally done on the black van, they're tweed.






Next was the hood scoop that I originally installed on the black van. Cleaned, primed and painted, looks pretty boss. The scoop is non-functional but could be made to be functional, ( I won't bother.....it's not a hot rod....it's more like a big 'hot wheels' toy.

*Note: You can't quite see it here but the signal light and parking lights are not the originals and are actually bigger in size. At some point when these were installed, the grill was cut to fit them. These will have to go but that's a story for another day :)







Here' s the inside as it looks right now. I was delighted to see that this van has the same steering wheel that I installed on my old '92.....(I was sad to lose that wheel when I sold that van but now I have it back. It's exactly the same one). This is great because one of the major things I hate about the 90's models are the bubbly looking steering wheels.

Here's the dash from the right...over all shape, not bad but the grey color has to go. I'm thinking brown right now...things can change though. Someone had installed tweeters (that's that round black thing) and they do work.

I will make a solid wood drink tray at some point, (this is a classic van thing to do).

Here's the deck and it's mounting..........ewwwww. I have plans do make a nice solid wood mounting piece for this.

Here's another shot of the inside. The sub will be relocated to the rear. Oh yeah, the van came with the sub, deck and amp. There is a crackle sound from the sub and it seems to respond to my acceleration....I think it's a bad ground but that's from another day, (no harm).

These seats I pulled out of the black van and relocated them to the new van making it a four seater. All seats and belts are bolted down to factory spec. In these shots, the shoulder strap is not yet bolted but they are now.

That back corner will one day have a small window of a sort in it, classic van style, baby!!

More intereior.....there's my spare tire, never leave home without it.

Oh yeah, seat belt laws have changed: every last person must have a belt. It used to be that if all belts are used then you could legally pile as many people in as you wanted...as long as they were over 18. I'm very glad they changed this law.

Here are the rear doors, soon to have speakers mounted in them. Usually when you add the interior boards you cut a hole on the back doors to have access to the door handle. This is a big safety issue so I assure you that although the hole is not there in that picture, it is now.

Van from the rear, doors open. Though not in this picture, I've added my door pulls from my other van. These are very handy little things as they prevent the door from swinging wide open like the door on the right.

Here's the van from the back, no windows, nice!! I also added my spoiler from the black van, cleaned, primed and painted.....this is all lots of work ya' know ;)

If you look you can also see the old tailight style on the black van and the new style on the yellow van.

So here are the newest accessories in all their golry.
See how the front is lower....?... This was custom done by someone else but I was told by a mechanic that they did it the proper way and not the 'home in the driveway way'...that's good to know. The problem it posed for me was that when it was time to take off the summer rims and tires, when I swapped on my winters, the fronts didn't fit anymore....they would rub when you turn. So, $300 unexpected dollars later, I had two new front winters. At least when the rears thin out I'll have two more waiting to jump on. I like to have winter tires all the way around, front and back, much safer.

Here's a shot of one of the wheel flares from the black van. I will need to fix and restore, prime and paint all of them but it's worth it. These flares are so hard to find unless you want to buy them new from the states for like $1200 US.......no thanks....I'll use what I have.

You can also see the edge of the running board, (that metal thing that runs along the bottom of the van, it's a step). I'm not going to put these on the new van but I;m trying to think of a use for them. .

Oh man, what a sexy van!! I know, I'm a junkie :)

Stay tuned for the next episode of pimp my chevy van where we will see the carpet installed and custom LED parking and signal front lights, and mounted speakers on the back doors ready to "THWOMP" with 'da beat!!

*Cue the music........phat bass............oh yeah!!

New Van

Well, this is my first blog and I gotta say.......I can't believe I'm blogging!!!

Off the bat, just so everyone knows, this blog is dedicated strictly to my addiction to my van and all of the cool things that I do to it.

Let's see...here' s the rundown: a bunch of years ago, I bought a 1992 g20 chevy, shortbox. It was an old rusty rogers van. This is where my addiction started....I began fixing it up, getting rid of all of the rust and quirks and the more I did, the better it got. When I was finally content with it, it was orange with black flames on the front and teardrop windows in the back corners, had a totally finished interior including padded vynel walls and cushy carpet and neon lights.

Then one day, I had an opportunity to get a 1981 GMC Vandura 1500 which is more or less the same van but old school. It had everything that I wanted my '92 to have ie: flares!! old school dash, flip out rear windows, no windows on the sides, chrome bumpers, running boards, chrome horns on top and a sun roof, red velvet interior, chrome rims, highbeam floor switch and a good looking black paint job....all the bells and whistles.

I bought it for a cheap price of $1000, oh yeah, it had a 350 with a holley carb in it!! It had some serious balls but with serious balls comes serious gas consumption. I switched the holley to a rochester and boy did it make a difference. This van was great other than all the problems of vehicles with carbs. The rainy day stall outs were getting annoying; the sun roof was leaking and then the bloc heater quit and started sending burning coolant in to the cab, fogging up my windshield beyond visibility. Having just moved and really needing a reliable vehicle, I decided that it was time to consider buying something a little newer. Having owned both new school and old school chevy vans, I knew the reliability was much better in the 90's models not to mention the fuel economy. But, this meant letting go of such great things like the old school dash and old school brake lights and the highbeam footswitch.......but, I knew it was worth it.

So here's the criteria that I decided on, if I was to buy another van, it's obviously has to a shorthbox chevy van, it has to have rear windows only or no windows, it has to be a 90's model and the body, frame, engine, and tranny all have to be good shape; I even thought to myslef that a musturd yellow van would be nice. 5 min. later I was on the net, just for fun and the first van that I found fit my criteria and it was only an hour out of town away. Oh yeah, this was the only van that I found that fit my criteria....what the heck are the odds of that???

Here's what I got, "SHAZAM!!!" (now immediately after reading the word 'shazam', look at the new van below and be amazed!!

Tune in next time kids, for the exciting next installment of PIMP MY CHEVY VAN

*cue the cool credits/end of show music* (probably with a 'phat' bass line of a sort)