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)