Now that the van has been at home for a week I’ve had some time to crawl on, in and under it. Happily, its as rust free and clean as the previous owner described which is a surprise since the words rust free and Canadian vehicle almost never end up in the same sentence. I wasn’t a big fan of the running boards so I removed them right away and think it looks far better without them. I also removed the lettering along the rocker panels.
My plans are to do a few minor repairs and get a few miles on it before it has to go away for the winter. The first thing on the list is the brakes. I’ll be picking up pads, rotors, bearings and seals this week. After that it’ll be drums and shoes for the rear. When I drove it home I noticed a bit of a drone from the rear. I’m thinking it might be the rear axle bearings. Once we settle into winter hibernation I’m going to replace all the fluids and filters, check out the belts and hoses and replace the shocks.
I’m planning on using it for summer road trips so a few interior modifications will be planned. I’m going to come up with a way to make the fold down bench seat a little more sleep friendly, possibly add a second battery and a small solar panel to power a 12-volt fridge, some USB plugs and lights.
I’m not sure this will qualify as a build thread, maybe more of a post a couple of pics whenever I get some free time to hang out in the garage kind of thread.
Greetings all.I haven't had much van time at all but have been able to get s few jobs completed. I did manage to get new brakes on both the front and rear. Pads, rotors, bearings and seals for the front. Drums and hardware on the back. I also put new shocks all around and new sway bar bushings. now it drives, stops and handles far better.The rear end is making a bit of noise. I thought it was maybe the axle bearings since the noise is unchanged whether under load or coasting. The bearings were cheap, it's not a difficult job and I wanted to change the oil in the rear end anyway so I figured I'd swap the bearings and see if it would fix the problem. Unfortunately the noise remains. When I had the cover off the rear end the gears looked OK to my uneducated eye so perhaps a bad pinion bearing. Either way it's past my skill level so it will get looked at by someone more knowledgeable than me after the winter. I also changed out the heater control valve which had sprung a leak. The oak drink holder on the dog house was looking tired so I removed it, disassembled it and sanded the pieces.I didn't like the fact that the drink holders were on the shallow side and I had already had a few close calls with a large coffee so I used a hole saw to open up the bottom piece. The golden oak color on the wood looks dated to me so I painted the parts with some metallic grey that I thought matched the interior. I also had to do a bit of trimming to get the holes on the drink holder to line up with the factory spots on the dog house. Finally I managed to get one last drive in the other day. Salt and brine trucks were out this weekend so the van will be indoors until spring.
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Greetings everyone. Been kind of busy the last couple of months so progress on the van has been slow. The rad had been seeping coolant so I decided to pull it out and have it recored. While its out I figured I might as well replace the hoses, thermostat and serpentine belt. I called a couple of shops to price the rad job and was shocked to hear 450-600 Canadian pesos!! I went to NAPA and picked up a new rad (plastic tanks/aluminum core) for 190 dollars and it's made in Canada which was a nice surprise. I would have preferred to recore the original but can't justify the price difference. The rad is back in, as well as new hoses, thermostat and belt. The weather was perfect yesterday so I couldn't resist the first drive of the year. .