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
More to follow soon