Figured this would be a good place to share some better pictures of our van and document ongoing progress Yup, she's a project for sure, but we're excited to be her second owner
SUNSHINE VANS-VAN DIEGO ADRENALIN BY THE GALLON & CHASIN RACIN ONE FOR THE DIRT & ONE FOR THE STREETS '93 CHEVY G30 454 4X4 SPORTVAN EXT 146" WB '92 CHEVY G30 454 BEAUVILLE EXT 146" WB
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
Awesome, thanks everyone. I had a chance to mess around with the sliding door a bit. Took off the cover to the top outside slider and found some rust under whatever the previous owner goobered into the drip rails. Nothing unexpected though. Lubed up the sliders and hinge mechanism. Happy to see GM put a couple of zircs on the hinge. Now the doors slide smoothly and much more quietly. Noticed something that looked like a latch in the upper hinge, parts 22 and 4 in this diagram.
@NateB Lol finding some comfy seats is on the agenda for sure. I'm keeping my eye out for clean conversion van seats that would fit!
@Frosty Thanks!
I've been putting any free time I could towards the roof. Thankfully its been fixed to my satisfaction, but here is what happened: I discovered it was leaking like crazy and starting to rust the structural channels supporting the roof Also some janky lampcord wiring from the PO :P
I started to remove whatever substance was in the drip channel. Plenty of cancerous rust. More to follow...
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
It turns out the leaky sealant in the drip rail was also the only thing holding the roof skin to the vehicle. With the drip rails clear, lifted the the roof to treat the otherwise inaccessible rust. Plenty of rusty flakes
A section cleaned up with a wire wheel. Thankfully the structural areas were still sound.
Here is the roof and drip channel ready to be made into a POR-15 sandwich
With everything done, rusty roof areas were: wire brushed vacuumed degreased with simple green rinsed, treated with POR-15 metal prep or Ospho. rinsed again left to dry drip channel painted with POR-15 roof skin refitted painted top of roof flange with POR-15 sealed with a good quality seam sealer.
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
Looking good. I will keep an eye out for some seats for you.
Arianrhod:2003 Chevy Astro Black Magic: 1985 Dodge B-250 Serenity:1985 Chevy G-20 The Outcast:1983 Ford club wagon Luna 1974 VW bay window transporter Freedom:1990 Ford E-150(parts van) Outcast Vanners van club Support your local 2%
Thanks for the kind words everyone! And thanks lukester for offering to look our for seats!
The past month has been nuts. Lots of van progress though. Here are some pictures to tell the story
Sliding door wasn't shutting right, so I decided to mess around with the adjustment. I tried lifting it up using a trolley jack with a block of wood on it. Surprise! Bottom of door was mostly rust covered in bondo. Lucky for me there was a rust free door on a '93 in the local u-pull. Getting the door off the donor van took less than 20 minutes. Getting the new door mounted and roughly adjusted took almost 4 hours. I've officially got blood, sweat, and tears into the project now haha. Here coated in greasy handprints from the struggle the night before. Also, we're doing a full driveway repaint color change ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Out comes the interior Metal strips holding down the rubber floor mat.
Now they're out of the way. Seats too.
Little bit of rust through next to the doghouse.
Yep, water's been leaking in, getting stuck under the rubber mat, making a mess.
A couple of 1 peso coins from 1980 & '81 were hiding under the rubber mat.
Not pictured: wheel arch and floor rust repair using the POR-15 floor pan kit. I found POR-15-soaked fiberglass wider than a few inches in both dimensions did not lay flat as advertised, but cutting the fiberglass into strips 2-3 inches wide made them much more cooperative.
On to door disassembly! Passenger vent window out to replace weatherstripping, then this happened. Off to the u-pull...
The passenger window was pilfered out of the '93 already. There was a passenger vent window an '82 conversion van that looked like it spent the past 20 years in a damp, shady location. The outer frame had rusted through in spots but the window swivel itself looked to be in decent shape. Someone took the chrome latches though Pic shows the vent window frame from our '80 in red with the Steele Rubber '71-'79 seal fitted, next to the driver side frame out of the '93. It needed a couple of very careful cuts with an x-acto knife at the ends to fit around the '80-up post design. I bought the seals only, not the felted rubber strip that seals the vertical part of the window to the post so I can't vouch for how well the full vent window kit from Steele will fit. By some miracle the felted seals on ours were still pliable.
Here is the original seal on the '80. Looks pretty similar to the '71-'79 style.
The seal out of the junkyard '82 for comparison. Looks the same as the one on the '93.
Windows are out, minus windshield (we'll get to that in a bit). The rubber strip from the sliding door is gone. That adhesive was a bear to remove. The exterior is pretty much covered in primer now. We had someone asking about buying the van the next day, but we're too attached to the ol' girl to even consider it
Then the sides. 4 coats of marine enamel. I ended up doing the whole thing with a little harbor freight detail sprayer, and it came out way better than I expected. The dark green really makes that dent on the sliding door pop out
Also, that T-handle was almost welded into the latch on the sliding door. I was impatient and got it to move with zealous use of a 3 lb sledge, but this mushroomed the square end of the handle. I ground down the mushroomed part with a dremel and eventually hammered it through to the other side. The old door got a more gentle treatment of pblaster, reasonable hammering, and a little heat every day for a week and never budged. I eventually would like to get the handle and latch mechanism out of the old door since it has a provision to lock from the inside. Also the handle was in better shape to begin with. Is there a trick to this i'm missing? Otherwise, penetrating oil, light hammering, and weeks of patience is the plan
Last edited by vaNsquared; March 19th 2021 3:49 pm.
My younger brother got me a pair of paint guns from Northern Tool several years ago. When we opened them up, he was really impressed with how good they were. He even bought himself a pair to use as backups. He was a new car dealership paint and body guy for about 20 years.
Thanks Rusty. I think I spent less than $15 on mine, less than a nice paintbrush. Definitely money well-spent haha.
On to the windshield. I knew there was going to be plenty of rust hiding under there. I poked around in the holes where the sun visors mount, and could feel moisture after rain even with the roof sealed up tight.
My POR-15 skills were sharpened and the only excuse I had for putting this job off was the weather. Five days with no rain in the forecast meant time to move. The truth comes out. Plenty of crusty, rusty rot in a few places. Fairly solid compared to what I was expecting though Here is where moisture was getting in behind the sunvisors.
Pulled the dash before going to town on rust repair. It's not bad to do with the windshield out
Shop vac, wire brush, then vaccumed some more. I carefully used an air chisel to knock down a few rusty bumps on the metal lip to keep it a consistent width. Cleaned, treated it with ospho, then POR-15. I used some thin strips of fiberglass soaked in POR-15 from the floor patch kit to patch any areas where the lip was rusted out.
Many hours later, its painted and the winshield is in with a new seal.
As for the cheap spray guns from Harbor Freight, etc. They are fine and if you practice lots with base/clear spraying you can get some high quality paint jobs with them. I've been using them for years. I'm planning on using the profits from my next couple paint jobs to upgrade my clearcoat gun to either an Iwata or something, but only because my clear jobs could be a lot better and would require less wet sanding, cutting, and buffing with a gun that would atomize the clear better.
I would suggest getting a couple or the larger gravity feed guns though.. I have three different guns, each with a different needle size. One for heavy primer and mini flake, another for basecoat, and another for clear. I'll attach a couple pics of stuff I've dome with the cheap guns.
I love the grean you picked. 70s greens are some of my favorite auto colors.
Thanks kursed, that is some really impressive work there! I'm still on the learning curve with that little sprayer, but I've learned a lot for sure. I thought about buying one of their gravity feed guns to speed up the job but got scared of overspray landing on the neighbors or the wife's car. Someday I'll have a garage big enough to fit the van in
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
Very nice work man. I really dig the two tone green.
Last edited by lukester; March 20th 2021 7:32 pm.
Arianrhod:2003 Chevy Astro Black Magic: 1985 Dodge B-250 Serenity:1985 Chevy G-20 The Outcast:1983 Ford club wagon Luna 1974 VW bay window transporter Freedom:1990 Ford E-150(parts van) Outcast Vanners van club Support your local 2%
Thanks for the complements on the paint. I'll give my wife credit for choosing the colors and the two-tone scheme. We went in expecting a 20 foot paint job and its exceeding our expectations
On to door reassembly! Driver's side window regulator was pretty messed up. Fairly rusted, teeth were worn, and one of the plastic wheels was toast. No one sells new replacement manual window regulators for g-series vans, but I did discover that 1972 chevy truck window regulators have longer arms than the 1967-71 models. I wondered if this had anything to do with the arrival of its younger van sibling for the 1971 model year. I could tell right off the bat that the spacing for the mounting holes was off and the rollers were different, but at $25 bucks for a new repop, I figured it was worth it to buy one and experiment. I swear I took a picture of the '80 van regulator and new '72 truck regulator next to each other, but I can't find it. Exciting find though, the dimensions of the arms and gears are exactly the same!
I measured out the mounting hole spacing on the van regulator, marked it out on the truck regulator, then measured the regulator mounting bolts from the 1980 van and drilled and tapped holes in the '72 regulator. I figured it would hold fine with a dab of locktite, so I mounted it up.
Here is how it fits. The escutcheon is out of the junkyard '93. The only issue is that the splined shaft for the window crank handle is a fraction of an inch too long. Not quite show quality but it works perfectly, even with the old roller design; noticeably better than the somewhat worn original on the passenger side now that there are new window channel felt and window scrapers on both sides.
Here is the door all put back together The '82 conversion van donated some nice stainless vent window trim and a replacement sideview mirror. Steele rubber for the rubber vent window seals; I reused the felt seal in the vent window pillar. I bought the Fairchild 6pc kit for the sliding window felt and window scrapers.
I slipped up when mounting the mirror back up. It swung down with only one bolt in it and put some nice big gouges in the paint. A couple minutes with a little paintbrush and fixed. Really glad I didn't farm out the paint at that point
'72 truck side marker light is identical to the broken original too.
I'll de-panel the doors again in the summer to stick on some sound deadening then spray the inside with cavity wax. I've found that butyl-based products like sound deadening sheets and windshield sealant go on really nicely on 98+ degree Florida summer afternoons, especially if you let them sit out in the hot sun for a while
Last edited by vaNsquared; March 21st 2021 4:06 pm.
Nice work man. I know from experience what a pain those window regulators can be.
Arianrhod:2003 Chevy Astro Black Magic: 1985 Dodge B-250 Serenity:1985 Chevy G-20 The Outcast:1983 Ford club wagon Luna 1974 VW bay window transporter Freedom:1990 Ford E-150(parts van) Outcast Vanners van club Support your local 2%
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
Thanks guys And thanks for the offer on the bumper kursed. I'd take you up on it too if I was driving up north anytime soon.
Got a little more progress in this week with the dash out
Went ahead and pulled the heater core. With that out of the way, I cleaned out the cowl and kick panel vents.
This compost pile was hiding in the passenger side vent. Driver's vent had just a couple of dry pine needles, and only a small pile of dirt behind the heater recirc door.
Old heater core looks fine, doesn't seem blocked if I blow air through it. Was it bypassed due to a leak or something else? Had the new one on hand so I replaced it anyway. I suppose I'll find out if it was something else haha.
Old speedometer cable out and replaced. This took a little more work than I expected. The cable is clamped to the body in 4 places, and the grill had to come off to free one of them.
On my van, the speedometer cable is routed through a small opening behind a pair of brake lines and the frame rail. There is not enough clearance for the threaded transmission end of the cable to pass through.
If I had to do this job again, I would completely remove the old cable, then feed the new cable from the bottom up, passing the speedometer end through the small opening behind the brake lines, saving the battle with the old firewall grommet for last.
So I got a repop painted bumper in the mail this week. Sprayed some silver paint on it and on to fitting it up! Learned the hard way: Loosen the bumper mounting brackets before fitting up a new bumper. Then with the bumper carriage bolts snugged on most of the way, tighten the brackets back up. Good thing I had plenty of touch-up paint Got it all fitted and tightened up yesterday
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
Been a busy few weeks but fit some more progress in A big POR-15 smudge got on the dash when it was in the garage :P Saw someone on a Jeep forum use Rustoleum then satin clear to re-do their dash, and it looked surprisingly decent. Figured why not give that a try using the exterior dark green paint. Will take some better pics once installed but I think it came out all right
Been a busy few weeks but fit some more progress in t
WHAT A CLEAN JOB .... KUDO'S
I have 2 more for you to do ... LOL
SUNSHINE VANS-VAN DIEGO ADRENALIN BY THE GALLON & CHASIN RACIN ONE FOR THE DIRT & ONE FOR THE STREETS '93 CHEVY G30 454 4X4 SPORTVAN EXT 146" WB '92 CHEVY G30 454 BEAUVILLE EXT 146" WB
Went to do the rear brakes and the lines were fused to their fittings with rust. Time to replace some hard lines! Slightly bent out of shape original line next to pre-flared NiCopp line slightly longer than original. Bent them into a close copy of the original and made final adjustments with the lines mounted up NiCopp is not too bad to form by hand but it definitely comes out cleaner with help from a tubing bender. This was for the driver's front caliper. All new hoses too. This was the rear brake hose. Replace the calipers and greased the front wheel bearings while I was at it.
Bled the brakes, went for a test drive around the block. All seemed well so I decided to take the van on a little three mile spin to grab some takeout.
Accelerating from a stoplight on the way back and suddenly loud tapping from engine. Uh oh.
I'm thankful for all the encouragement you all have shown me. I know we'll get it sorted out one way or another!
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
Went to do the rear brakes and the lines were fused to their fittings with rust. Time to replace some hard lines! Slightly bent out of shape original line next to pre-flared NiCopp line slightly longer than original. Bent them into a close copy of the original and made final adjustments with the lines mounted up NiCopp is not too bad to form by hand but it definitely comes out cleaner with help from a tubing bender. This was for the driver's front caliper. All new hoses too. This was the rear brake hose. Replace the calipers and greased the front wheel bearings while I was at it.
Bled the brakes, went for a test drive around the block. All seemed well so I decided to take the van on a little three mile spin to grab some takeout.
Accelerating from a stoplight on the way back and suddenly loud tapping from engine. Uh oh.
I'm thankful for all the encouragement you all have shown me. I know we'll get it sorted out one way or another!
Best to do all lines and hoses at once with brakes. Looks good
Every time I've done brakes and used that greenish parts store pre-formed line, I find I need to go out and drive and hammer the brakes hard - not a full on panic stop, but an oh crap the light dropped on me from like 55-ish. There's always one connection that the line pressure actually pushes through and you have to tighten the fittings at the union. After that it's tine. I learned the hard way driving somewhere after finishing a line repair and having to crawl under and do it downtown before going into the bar for a while.
One blessing on the G vans is they're easy to gravity bleed, at least the ones without the 4WAL ABS unit are.
1994 G20 2002 Express, sitting dead 1988 G20 conversion, stored
@pontiac59 A downtown brake line replacement sounds rough! You've pretty much described my experience replacing brake connections. Somewhere, there is gonna be a mild leak that won't show itself until a hard stop. This time it was one of the banjo fittings at the front caliper. Put in a new copper washer and thankfully fixed
Here one of the pre-flared sections mounted up after adjusting the bends by hand. Not a perfect copy, but the new line passes through the original retaining clips and enters the wheel cylinder and junction block at the correct angles, so good enough for me
3 months to the day since my last post, and *checks odometer* more than 5000 miles. Time to share some highlights!
She got a name, Juice Cleanse, or JC for short
May was a scramble getting the van ready for its inaugural camping trip/shakedown cruise over Memorial Day weekend. The only snag was new tires was not arriving in time. JC made it there with flying colors. Did some dispersed camping in Conecuh National Forest, and plenty bouncing around on back roads. That was too much for one of the old tires though. It had a pretty bad leak show up on the drive home. I caught before anything bad happened, but that left me stuck with a spare of 3-digit date code vintage. By then it was dark, so I figured I'd chance the 150 remaining miles on back roads doing 45 mph. Predictably, this happened. About 75 miles from home around 1am. Noticed some odd vibrations when accelerating from a stoplight, and the old spare let go spectacularly at around 15 mph.
Arianrhod:2003 Chevy Astro Black Magic: 1985 Dodge B-250 Serenity:1985 Chevy G-20 The Outcast:1983 Ford club wagon Luna 1974 VW bay window transporter Freedom:1990 Ford E-150(parts van) Outcast Vanners van club Support your local 2%
Thanks guys, I'm glad to have had a chance to have some fun with it for sure.
It was a successful shakedown cruise other than the flat. I got the tires installed with just enough time to make it to Vermont for a family visit.
This is the part where I did a dumb and expensive mistake. I lost a lot of oil doing high speed interstate driving, apparently from the filter connection. I pulled off of I95 in SC for a late dinner and shut down the van. Heard some bubbling coming from the engine for about 5-10 seconds, then a loud groan immediately followed by a big, boily hiss. I was thoroughly mystified by this, since I check the temp gauge pretty religiously (Blew a radiator hose on my first car and didn't realize the spiked gauge until I blew the head gasket haha) I popped the hood and coolant had blasted out through the vented cap of the reservoir and sprayed all over the engine compartment. Not good. Checked the oil to see if coolant was in it. There was not enough to make it on to the end of the dipstick. Very not good. Got some food and some bottled water waiting for the car to cool down. Topped up the oil and coolant and started the engine. Saw a huge puff of white smoke in the side view mirror. Very very not good. At least she started though, and the smoke cleared up after running a bit. Limped over to a nearby gas station, filled the tank, and had another big puff of smoke at startup, but it quickly cleared up. I took a chance and kept going I did the remaining 1000 miles at 65mph and topping up the oil every 150 miles. Start ups were a little embarrassing but I made it. Got almost 15 mpg doing this though haha.
Here is JC doing the canoe shuttle. Not shown are two kayaks in the back
Arianrhod:2003 Chevy Astro Black Magic: 1985 Dodge B-250 Serenity:1985 Chevy G-20 The Outcast:1983 Ford club wagon Luna 1974 VW bay window transporter Freedom:1990 Ford E-150(parts van) Outcast Vanners van club Support your local 2%
Jim & Lucy Newkirk 1965 Chevy Bad Influence 1981 Chevy-the Love Shack 2012 Chevy Van , 2020 chevy van 2020 Chevy van Sapphire Sweet. Club Vannerz. vanninvanner@comcast.net
3 months to the day since my last post, and *checks odometer* more than 5000 miles. Time to share some highlights!
She got a name, Juice Cleanse, or JC for short
May was a scramble getting the van ready for its inaugural camping trip/shakedown cruise over Memorial Day weekend. The only snag was new tires was not arriving in time. JC made it there with flying colors. Did some dispersed camping in Conecuh National Forest, and plenty bouncing around on back roads. That was too much for one of the old tires though. It had a pretty bad leak show up on the drive home. I caught before anything bad happened, but that left me stuck with a spare of 3-digit date code vintage. By then it was dark, so I figured I'd chance the 150 remaining miles on back roads doing 45 mph. Predictably, this happened. About 75 miles from home around 1am. Noticed some odd vibrations when accelerating from a stoplight, and the old spare let go spectacularly at around 15 mph.
This is the very reason I just put new wheels and tires on mine... The take offs looked good but were 15 years old. Yikes! Looking good man, wish I could paint like that...
Sounds like you've blown a head gasket. Mine started doing the same things a couple of years ago after taking a couple hundred mile trip. I kept hoping it wasn't a head gasket failure, as the van runs and drives normally, but I verified it a few months ago.
Thanks ah64pilot! If you try you might surprise yourself, a10 foot paint job looks great when you take the photos at 15+ feet I was supposed to have new tires installed a week before the trip, but the retailer did not keep their word.
Rusty, it sure seemed like it The coolant was disappearing, but there was no oil in the coolant and no coolant in the oil. I spoke to the old school mechanic my parents go to, and he suspected that the valve stem seals were shot and causing the smoke. Either way the heads were gonna have to come off. I got around to pulling the heads a couple of weeks ago.
One of these pistons is not like the others... Same story on cylinder 8!
Yep... That's what mine was doing. It would blow steam out the exhaust every so often on a cold start, but no other symptoms... Then, about a year later, it started letting a little oil into the coolant. I tested it with one of those head gasket test kits and got the answer I didn't want.
Looks like you've got some steam cleaned pistons. On your trip, the coolant blasted out of the reservoir because exhaust gasses were building up in the cooling system and pressurizing it. Then when you shut the van off, the opposite happened and coolant went into the combustion chambers while the van sat. When you started it up again, the coolant in the combustion chambers steamed out the exhaust. That's why it only "smoked" for a little while, then cleared up... It went back to pressurizing the cooling system again.
Oof, that stinks. From my experience the Cometic MLS gaskets are worth their weight in gold. Have never had one leak on my Olds engines. I know you have gaskets, but if you haven't torqued them you might consider getting some Cometic gaskets in the same thickness as the stock gaskets, or even a little thinner for a little more compression.
Either way, you're at a good place to put some new heads on it 😂 And then maybe a camshaft? Ok, NM... Don't listen to me, I have an addiction.
Look into the Cometics though, they really are worth the money.
That make sense Rusty. It never pulled that groan and spray move again but I did put a 7 lb radiator cap on out of caution. I would've been glad to do ours at the same time, an extra set of hands should make maneuvering those heads into place a lot less dicey!
When I pulled the head, I found pieces of valve seal laying in the bolt holes near the oil drainback passage
I couldn't find any damage to the head gasket or any surfaces where the seal looked compromised. Then I discovered my cylinder head castings (462624) are particularly crack prone.
I found some warrantied rebuilt 3986339 heads from a '71 350 for $160 each. Just plain, low performance heads, but worth it for avoiding trips to and possibly bad news from the machine shop.
ah64pilot I'd heard good things about MLS gaskets and Cometic gaskets in particular. I ultimately decided to use a composite gasket because they are supposed to be more forgiving of imperfections (which I read as: forgiving of shade tree mechanics working in a driveway at night) I went with Magnum brand gaskets (a Dana product I guess?) that I found for a good price and that folks seem to like. They're already in so we'll have to see how long they hold up! I hear ya about having the urge to upgrade haha. I came really close to doing a Vortech head swap, but reigned myself in because it wasn't something we budgeted for. And to be fair, this van had enough power to get me into trouble as-is haha
I got everything buttoned up last weekend and to my great relief the old 350 fired up! The only issue so far was a small intake manifold coolant leak due to a couple improperly torqued bolts.
Mine still needs to be done, though. If you're up for another one, feel free.
I can't do mine yet because I bought a cheap hobby car recently that blew it's head gasket, and it's currently taking up the shop space I need to do the van. It was really bad and was coughing oil out of the reservoir. Looked like soft serve chocolate ice cream. The gaskets themselves looked good, but I found a bunch of silica balls everywhere in the engine, so it must of had a "head gasket in a bottle" treatment right before I got it.
Oh well... I'm not even $2,000 deep in it yet, even with all the repair parts I've bought.
Glad to hear it's running. I gave up on trying to get mine to perform better, I was thinking about all kinds of improvements but I'm just gonna LS swap it in a year or two. No sense in wasting money on it rn.