Vannin' Home Forums General Discussion Readers Rides My Van Build " Dark Green Star Wars Machine:

Well I have always wanted a Star Wars Themed Van ever since my Uncle bought me a Kenner SSP Star Wars Van as a kid in 78.

Still got the toy so plan to display it somewhere in the build. I recently picked up the Van to build on the first week of June. I got a 1995-chevrolet-g20 sportvan with a 5.7l v8 in it. It is in pretty good shape all things considered but I plan on overhauling as much as I can by myself with my kids with in the limits of my disability.

Going to start tearing into it this weekend, got some parts to work with so far and I will be pretty much just inspecting it fully and creating a to do list for it.

I will post what I can when I can until it's road worthy.

Awesome and good luck with your build!

Sounds like you got yourself a good plan. Looking forward to updates.

Thats a cool toy. Hope you as much fun with the big one!

God luck with your build

I would look at having a wrap done for the Star Wars design.

Spoke to a place about it recently, but I have to clean up the paint first , they recommended a partial wrap. So will focus on the paint first. While I am waiting I will draw up my design on photoshop and illustrator, so when time comes they can just print , install and be hood to go.

Found this cool tool online to draw a good mockup for building the interior of the van.

Unfortunately according to the company's website they only work on vans from the years 1997 and newer so I could not get anything built there.

However using this tool helps get a good blueprint for building an interior.

This is my plan for how I will change my van. Going to get rid of the old sofa bed and replace it with a custom dinette that turns into a bed instead.

I have 6 kids so this configuration will let me seat everyone inside.

Wish I could have found an extended van for this but most I looked at near me were in real bad shape and would have cost way too much to bring back to life for me.

This van however was perfect for the build budget wise and conditions.

We have a traveling Detailer up here that could help you with the paint correction, but I am sure there are a ton of them down there as well. I am not sure if he ever gets clients in Savannah. To save yourself some money, I would suggest getting yourself one of those eraser wheels and start removing all the old Conversion Van decal stripes first on your own. Then hit it with some Polish and it will probably wake that paint right up! I know time is probably a hot commodity with 6 kids, though...I have 8 total, but only 4 young ones at home and it takes a considerable amount of time for myself away......like, all of it. haha

A nice set of wheels and tires will do wonders, as well. some lower profiles in the front could change the stance nicely. I love that its not a High Top and that it has a roof rack. on a side note: If you decide to remove and get rid of that bug guard up front, I would be interested in it!

Thanks for the advice, yes pain is not too bad on the van as a whole but up on the hood area on the passenger side the clear coat is gone and the base color is exposed. But I will definitely strip the remaining stripes/graphics off myself (well one of my kids will at any rate lol) I will most likely go full Mr. Miyagi and have the kids do the polishing too lol. But yea between band practice and being a full-time dad it gets pretty crazy lol. Btw definitely lmk when any van events are going on I will definitely hit one of them up heck would love to get my band to play a show for one eventually to someday as well..

Bug guard is cracked in half , not sure if it's meant to be 2 pieces or if it's broken , if it is or can be repaired, your more than welcome to it , I am planing to put hood scoops on and that thing would interfere with look I had in mind.

Whats your contact info? Tried to message you here and your account doesnt receive messages.

Whats your contact info? Tried to message you here and your account doesnt receive messages.[/quote]

Sent you a message, not sure why it didn't work , all the stuff I saw was checked on 🤷‍♂️ lmk if my message went through if not respond here and I will figure it out .

Grabbed some tools today from good ole harbor freight. Now just patiently waiting for the parts I ordered to arrive ND fair weather that doesn't cause heat stroke and I can start tearing into this van project.

Good luck with it.

got your message, man. yeah this heat wave is killer, thats for sure!!!!

Some parts are trickling in. But unfortunately I have to wait because installing requires all of the kit ugh , I hate when Mail is slow lol. Got some new external door handles in today to replace the busted ones. So if weather permits me I'll install those on Saturday. It will be great to be able to open the doors with ease instead of having to use a oair of pliers lol.

I hate that too. That is me lately...always waiting on a part....they never come all at once!

So to try and combat the heat so I can start working on this project van, I am going to test out this portable ac I got for Christmas last year and haven't had a chance to try yet.

But that happens when one of your children at the time needed heart surgery, everything gets put on hold.

Now that has been taken care of thankfully he is doing great recovering well. I can start focusing on this van. The portable ac I got is called the Icybreeze v2 pro. It is a battery powered cooler that you fill with water and ice and beer to chill and it works like a swamp cooler but better.

Going to give it a test in the afternoon tomorrow so I can see how it works and if it gets good and cold inside the van since my current ac is dead in the van and I need to change its compressor I'm gonna use that.

Hopefully it will cool things down in the van so I can start ripping the interior out I got 4 of the replacement seats in this week and I'm going to remove the old tired ones and modify the bases for these new ones

Assembled 2 of the 4 seats to replace tonight, I will assemble the other 2 later today after my pain medication kicks in cause these dang things hurt my back pulling the parts out of the boxes. Lol

Sorry about the heat. Im from Central California, and yes it has been pretty hot here as well, but we don't have the humidity. I just have an old swamp cooler near where I work. Fortunately, with a bit of water, this things cools pretty good. Im going to be doing a lot of welding, so will probably need a bit more cool, or work early in the morning, unfortunately I have to work in the morning.

Looking forward to following your build. Mine is a 93 G20, pretty similar.

This heat stinks but I tried the Icybreeze device and it works rather well inside the van. It was 92 outside and the icy breeze on in the van ran around 73 to 74 degrees .

My new seatbelts arrived but they didn't send the anchor bolts with them so heading to town to try and locate some.

Seats look great!

I have to go back and check out this ride.