I've been out of the 4x4 scene for a while, the last one was a SAS explorer about 8 years ago. My son and I want to go explore Colorado and the rest of the west, so I needed a vehicle that could cruise the highways, do some heavy wheeling, and make a good "camper" on the weekends. I thought about K5 blazers, suburbans, late model tahoe/yukon, etc.., but none of them really "did it" for me... I had "The Lunchbox" when I was a little kid, that monster van r/c car. That's all that I could think about, I just couldn't shake the idea of a 4x4 van. So long story short I decided to build a shorty van.
My buddy had a rough old cargo van out behind his shop for the past year, and I see it every time I go over there. I struck a deal with the owner for $200 (owner keeps the motor), and started gathering parts. I found a dana 60/14 bolt up in southern illinois, I drove over to St. Louis to pick up an NP205, my buddy had a motorhome with 42k miles on it for the motor (tbi 350), literally drug a 700r4 out of the weeds to rebuild, then I ran out of money. I pulled an old project truck out of the garage (lowrider F150) and worked on it for 3 weeks, cleaned it up and sold it for $5k last week. I went on a buying spree over the weekend (which was fuckin awesome btw) so by the end of this week, I should have a big enough pile of parts that I can finally get started.
I work for myself, so as long as I get the bills paid, I can work on this thing pretty constant. I've gathered all the parts to try and have this thing up on it's axles and running in a few months. The only thing I lack at this point, parts-wise, is driveshafts and steering, both of which are waiting for me to get the axles mounted up.
So we'll see..... I'm going to take pictures, and I'm a videographer by trade, so a youtube channel will probably soon follow. There isn't a ton of information out there about doing these earlier vans, so this has been a lot of digging for information and parts. In all, I think I have the makings for a TANK, and am excited to get started... Follow along if you like
My buddy had a rough old cargo van out behind his shop for the past year, and I see it every time I go over there. I struck a deal with the owner for $200 (owner keeps the motor), and started gathering parts. I found a dana 60/14 bolt up in southern illinois, I drove over to St. Louis to pick up an NP205, my buddy had a motorhome with 42k miles on it for the motor (tbi 350), literally drug a 700r4 out of the weeds to rebuild, then I ran out of money. I pulled an old project truck out of the garage (lowrider F150) and worked on it for 3 weeks, cleaned it up and sold it for $5k last week. I went on a buying spree over the weekend (which was fuckin awesome btw) so by the end of this week, I should have a big enough pile of parts that I can finally get started.
I work for myself, so as long as I get the bills paid, I can work on this thing pretty constant. I've gathered all the parts to try and have this thing up on it's axles and running in a few months. The only thing I lack at this point, parts-wise, is driveshafts and steering, both of which are waiting for me to get the axles mounted up.
So we'll see..... I'm going to take pictures, and I'm a videographer by trade, so a youtube channel will probably soon follow. There isn't a ton of information out there about doing these earlier vans, so this has been a lot of digging for information and parts. In all, I think I have the makings for a TANK, and am excited to get started... Follow along if you like