Vannin' Home Forums Thread Like Summary - Tuner4life's 1985 Chevy G20 4 Speed Build Thread

I am so excited right now. I have been lurking on here for a while. I needed something to pull my drift car to events among other things. I was initially looking at a pickup, but came to realize that a van might be a better option. So after a lot of "keeping an eye open for what I want" I stumbled on this van on craigslist.

It's a 1985 G20, 305, 4 speed manual (PO tells me they only made around 500 of these?), only 64k miles, correct amount of windows. There is no rust, and besides a few dents, is in very good shape. Has mid 80s Pickup wheel setup. The only things that it really needs is a paint job, and the A/C converted to R134. I am picking it up tonight and can't wait to start on it!

The idea is to make from the rear axle forward lounge area, and behind that will be tool/parts/etc area for race events.. Hopefully the start of a long and fun build.

Pics:

I took advantage of a closed section of local highway and a beautiful sunset to grab some pictures the other night.

Thank you!

The ceiling uses a fiber optic kit that I sourced through Amazon. It can twinkle or remain consistent, and it can change through the entire range of RGB colors. It's pretty versatile. For the sake of keeping them look the most like real stars, I leave them white and slowly twinkling when displayed.

Here is the link to the kit that I used:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XZHQMA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I ended up using some fiberglass paneling that I friend helped source for the headliner board, if I would have been thinking, I probably should have just used a factory headliner from a junkyard passenger van or similar, but live and learn I guess.. I covered the board in some faux suede headliner material and that's the end of the easy part..

I then drew a grid on the backside of the board and drew out the 800 dots where the strands would poke through. I drew the grid in order to keep the spread fairly even across the entire ceiling. my grid was about 12"x12" squares and then just make sure that each one has similar number of dots.. Anyways, after that, the process is just to drill a tiny hole and hot glue each strand into the board. After a week or so of working on that, you have a bunch of spaghetti across the too of the headliner that you will need to secure down (I used duct tape). And the bundle should collect at whatever point it needs to in order to go down the wall to the light driver box..

Once the headliner is installed, then you can trim all the strands up flush with the heardliner material..

Here are a few pics of my process, but there are several good videos of youtube showing other people doing it as well.

The panel with suede on it:




Here is part way through the process of routing and installing the strands:




And here is the finished ordeal installed before I trimmed up the strands: You can also see the bundle of strands going down to the light driver box just behind the driver's seat.




Hope this helps! It's a giant pain, but I think the results were well worth it.

Thanks everyone! It feels good to get this thing back on the road and driving it regularly. I've done several cruise-ins and cars/coffee meets in the last few weeks. I do particularly love the night time gatherings where I can let the lights shine.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/r401/tuner4life2/185181811_3964901106935360_8240420815328799123_n.jpg


And while I do still have some work to do on the interior, I'm excited that I am finally at the point where I am supplying the van with actual usable equipment such as first aid kit, tools and supplies, etc. And in preparation for the upcoming midwest event, i decided to pull the trigger and get the van it's own bedding set so I am not raiding the house for blankets anymore. It's super cozy now and I'm stoked on how it turned out..





I might try to get the front door panels somewhat made before the event, but time will tell..

I had a blast at the Midwest Vans Ltd event over the weekend! Spent time with great friends and saw some awesome vans! Even managed to bring home some hardware of my own! Super blessed to be a part of such a great community and I look forward to many more events!

Thanks everyone!

My old original exhaust was getting rattly and falling apart, so over the weekend, I cut it all off and built a new one. Starting with the OEM manifolds and y pipe, I added a single-in-dual-out chambered muffler, and then ran dual side exits just in front of the back wheels. I still need to make little shields out of aluminum so that I don't burn the paint, but I'm super happy with how these turned out!

Here's a video of how it sounds:

https://www.facebook.com/1308096100/videos/pcb.10226345452805184/10226345450725132

And here are a couple pictures of the plumbing.. Eventually I want to get the Patriot style sidepipes, but this works great for now and sounds good. It's also not even loud on the inside. I love it!

Thank you all so much!

I am so excited to be able to share this. I've been watching JJlightning's videos on YouTube since before I even bought my van, It's truly an honor and a bucket-list thing to be able to finally have my own video. I am so happy with how this came out!

Check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ficron_PDBI&t=6s

Good luck my friend. Your van is so Primo

I realized that it's been way too long since I updated this thread. It's been a much more laid back winter build season than the last several years, but I still managed to make several improvements.

The first thing I did is revamp the electrical system, the deep cycle batteries are now on their own dual bank charger, and the start battery has it's own on-board charger/maintainer. So now I simply isolate the batteries when charging, and all the batteries get charged correctly. The previous setup was less than ideal as the start battery is a lead acid and the house batteries are AGM. This just works so much better. all around, and with the current charging setup, I can leave the van lit up, open, with the interior and exterior stereo, fridge, etc all on indefinitely and the charging system will keep up as long as I'm plugged in. Then obviously I can un-isolate everything and charge all the batteries with the alternator when driving.

The other nice feature I added is house style 110v outlets that are live whenever the van is plugged in. That is going to enable me to make coffee, or the girlfriend to be able to straighten her hair, etc without having to leave the van when camping. Should be so much more convenient.

It all tucks nicely in this little compartment



I also added this little volt meter so I can keep an eye on both batteries while camping or at shows..




The next thing to address was the radiator. it still had the original single pass radiator with some cheap electric fans zip-tied to it with no shroud. It worked decent, but wasn't up to the task when towing up larger hills. The straw that broke the camel's back was that one of the end tanks started leaking. I got the dual core aluminum from Rock auto, the shroud came from Summit, and the fans are basic 12" fans from Amazon. They are controlled by the Flex-a-lite controller that was already in the van. This setup works amazing! IO haven't had a chance to really push it yet, but the fans really pull a ton of heat out of the radiator and I actually had to turn up the temp on the controller a little bit because they were doing too good of a job.. Good stuff.

Anyways, eye candy:




The biggest project of the winter was to replace the rear conversion van bench/bed with an actual bed. While it looked amazing and worked for the purpose of having extra passenger seating, and also a bed.. It was extremely uncomfortable and was actually causing me some back pain and whatnot. Definitely not ideal for a situation where you are supposed to be enjoying the experience.. Also, I've decided that it's really not a "family oriented" vehicle so the rear seating really isn't necessary as I rarely carry more than 2 people.. So I built a new bed. I'll outline the whole project here:


The old setup, it looked great, but just wasn't working like I needed it to.







Out with the old:





Here is some of the puzzle that was the electrical project:




After literal days of nothing but measuring and making notes, I started building a frame out of steel 1" tubing.




Here is the finished main frame: (There is another shelf piece that extends further to the rear and hinges up)




here is the front fascia in progress. I made that out of MDF. There you can see the 2 drawer cut-outs and the smaller compartment to the right (can't put a drawer there due to the minibar)




Here you can see the rear shelf as well as the front piece of plywood decking that the mattress will sit on.




Here you can see the entire platform is test-fit and the drawers are built and installed.




Here you can see some of the layout under the decking: The drawers and compartment towards the front, and the access from the rear which includes a special spot for a large double camping chair as well as other items such as storage for the porta-potty, tools, etc.




The finished fascia panel with drawers and door installed. Looks almost seamless and matched the minibar as well. The gloss black is 3M vinyl wrap, the top part is wrapped in black vinyl to match the rest of the interior, and the chrome trim is Cloyes trim same as used on the bar. The 3 buttons are poppers for the drawers and storage compartment




And here is the entire unit mounted in the van. The platform has marine grade carpeting on it as well as some tie downs in case I need to actually haul something.. Or whatever else they may be needed for ;)




Here is some of the aluminum panel work under the rear of the bed. Lots of storage for jack, tools, and a bunch of other stuff. I also added lights under there and a prop rod.





Here is what the inside of the small compartment looks like, the drawers are finished similar inside. I forgot to take a picture of them. There are blue lights in all of them which make it really nice at night

https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/r401/tuner4life2/PXL_20220208_230612253.jpg

And here is the entire project complete. It's finished off with a set of black satin sheets, a fleece blanket, and the furry comforter on top, also the random array of pillows. The mattress is a 4" thick custom sized piece from "The Foam Factory" It's nice and firm and super comfy. I couldn't be happier!




The last thing I did was to add to the JDM VIP styling of the interior as well as solve the problem of having windows lol. These are custom curtains from Influenced VIP. They make lots of cool stuff for VIP styled cars and they make custom sized curtains to order. I wasn't confident that they would get it right, but they knocked it out of the park per my measurements. They fit great, look great, and when closed, they actually cover extremely well. They are very close to full blackout. Anyways, I'm super happy with them, I have them on all windows except the windshield.






First test fit on the front doors. I need to add a snap at the front lower corner, but I love it! (Yes, I still need to make some front door panels)





Anyways, that's about all of it for this build season. I need to give the carb a little tune up once the weather gets warmer, but besides that it's good to go! I plan on going to several different shows and events this year including the Nats, and Vanfest in Ontario.

It's just about Vannin season!!