Thanks to everyone for your greetings yesterday, I figure now it's a good time to introduce my van to the crowd in a little more detail.
As I mentioned in my introduction post, my van was a $600 purchase from a tow truck driver that purchased it at auction after it was seized as part of a string of local burglaries. And to be completely truthful - it's seen better days. My partner and I decided to buy it as a way to get a decent hauling vehicle for everything from dump runs, to 300 mile road trips over the mountains between NV and CA.
I love doing research, so I've been able to determine a number of things about the history of this van. It was sold as an incomplete chassis and farmed out to a conversion company I can't quite make out the name of, and then sold as a Prospector trim level from there. It's got a Carter BBD carburetor on a 318 motor, and the air conditioning unit that was once installed is no longer anywhere in the engine bay. Records (pseudo-Carfax, the cheap alternatives) are scant, but it changed hands 2-3 times here in Nevada in the last 5-10 years.
Now I'll be the first to admit - this van is never going to be a show van, and in fact, it will probably never be considered a "good" van. However, to me, the idea of a "daily beater" certainly doesn't allow for me to let the state of it grow any -worse- from day to day. So my goal with this van is to make gradual and incremental improvements in areas that really matter - wiring, engine, durability and interior functionality/flexibility. In addition to those things, I'm hoping to get the chance to play around with electronics and gadgetry.
The name of my van "64K RAM" is both a joke on the model, and the fact its coloring looks rather similar to that of my first computer, a Commodore 64. I plan on going to the DMV this afternoon to get that name on it as a license plate. I'm a vintage computer collector and hobbyist, so it's a particularly fitting one.
Another of my newer hobbies is ham radio, and one thing that had real appeal about this van is the spot above the driver and passenger for a CB mount. There is wiring in place there, but the hot wire appears to be disconnected and the CB antenna is properly placed at the center of the roof but would need a complete replacement.
So, what have we done so far?
Minor things such as the first phase of a complete cleaning job, which I'll be working on again today. It was a terror when I brought it home, as some of the pictures above will show. It was completely debadged, but I was able to find a set of appropriate badges for the front doors as a start and will be looking for rear badging as well. One of my first goals is to make this van look less "free candy" or "casing the neighborhood".
My partner and I cracked open the doghouse and started to check out the engine the day after I bought it, and discovered that the air filter was completely clogged with oil. Replacing the PCV and air breather and related hoses seemed to have fixed that problem, as well as a complete cleansing of the air box and a new filter. The end result was that the engine would stall out like crazy however, and that's been tweaked to the point where the engine will run, but not without some roughness to the idle.
When I originally bought the van it didn't have a working stereo or speakers, and in fact the dashboard seemed designed to disallow for the installation of one. But some handy work with a dremel and some multimeter probing resulted in a halfway decent install of a new $75 unit from Walmart and a couple of cheap speakers for the front doors.
The doghouse got a quick paint job, a "hammered" gray from some paint I already had kicking around. It will probably get a coat of brown later, and the padded wrap that goes around the doghouse as seen in some pictures above will be reinstalled. If I can find someplace to repair it without costing an arm and a leg, I may go ahead and do that. Otherwise, I'll clean it up and use it as-is.
Both front seats have been replaced since the pictures were taken, pullled from another '87 conversion B250 located at the Pick and Pull here in town. We replaced a couple of the vent windows, because it was simpler to do that than replace the broken latches.
So what's next?
There are a lot of things we'd like to do here, and some of them are more important than others. To start, though. It needs good seat belts! I'm a big guy, and there's no shoulder belt mount point exposed on the frame, or the seats. This makes me nervous as hell. The seats themselves are around 1-2 inches lower than I'd like them to be, and I get a sore ankle once I start driving it around. It's manageable, but not pleasant.
The engine idling needs to be adjusted, and it probably needs a once-over by a capable mechanic. This is the first carbureted engine either of us have ever dealt with, and so we're kind of stumbling blind at this point.
The T-slider windows need some repair, as none of the sliding portions have any kind of handle on them anymore and refuse to move. Additionally, the frame around the rear passenger side window seems to be somewhat tweaked, probably due to accidents over the van's lifetime.
The ceiling lights are in shaky condition, two of them work, the rest don't. I'm not sure just how bad it's going to be to get that headliner down and work on them. It's scary.
What we're not rushing to fix?
The side barn doors are pretty badly dented, and so is the step underneath them. We could replace the doors, but fixing the sill to not be a problem with sealing them up would be a giant pain in the ass.
The bullethole adds character. It can stay.