Posts from ‘projects’
Chevy Love
So, the ’79 Chevy custom shorty van is at tom’s place with the running gear off and the process of fabricating the mounting points for the burly upgraded gear has begin. Looks like she is gonna be running leaf springs front and back. . . I’ll post some pics soon.
And, it appears that my brother has come over to the vintage American camp. He liked my Camaro so much that he bought its younger brother — a ’77 Camaro hotrod, with a 4-speed, a very aggressively built 327 engine, and lots of period correct hotrod stuff. . . I want to steal his Centerlines. . . But, it is turning out to be much more of a project than he had at first assumed. . . I’m hoping that the engine can be salvaged, but if not excellent crate engines are amazingly cheap these days. . .
So a bit over a week ago I dropped off my custom ’79 Chevy Shorty Camper van with my buddy Tom down south of the city in wine country.
Story goes like this: Tom has had a serious crush on my late 60′s chopper ever since he first laid eyes on it — something about the vintage custom one-off nature of the thing was highly appealing to a hotrodder/gearhead/fabricator like him. He has always done right by me, and I’m not afraid to stick my neck out for my buddies. So last summer when the weather was beautiful and he was pining for something to ride, I handed him the keys and loaded the chopper into his truck, saying only that I was sure that we would find some way for him to make it a fair deal down the road. No money changed hands. No contract was written out. Just a handshake between friends, and an understanding that one way or the other he would make good.
He played with it all summer: took it to shows, flogged it through the backroads in wine-country, waxed poetic about it, and generally made me happy to have passed it into his keeping. Sometimes, watching a friend having fun with something you made is every bit as good as enjoying it yourself. . .
Well, Tom has some serious skills – he is a skilled mechanic, can build performance engines all day, is a bad-ass custom fabricator, and also is a master of building crazy off road machines. He used to own a custom 4WD shop and did high end conversions and upgrades — everything from mild mannered daily drivers, to hill climbers, to the kind of trucks that can jump, take 10′ of air and land with no troubles. So, when he offered to do a serious 4WD conversion to my camper van (with all freshly rebuilt running gear) as trade for the chopper, I knew it was a more-than-fair offer.
And so for months now he has been collecting parts and planning the conversion, and now she had been handed off to begin the process. It seems that my girl will be getting rebuilt period-correct heavy-duty 6-lug Blazer running gear, a 12-bolt rear, with Eaton positracs front and rear, and a correct transfer case attached to my existing turbo-350 trans. She will lose the A-arms and instead have leaf spring mounted hard axles front and rear, and a set of burly original 6-bolt rally wheels.
The process will take a few weeks. . . and be ready in time for my (hopefully) upcoming roadtrip. I can barely wait.
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P.s. here are pics of the chopper. I found her as a dilapidated, non-running, half-wrecked roller in Idaho, and rebuilt her myself with nothing but vintage period-correct trick parts which I found one at a time in junkyards, ebay, and Craigslist. Now she is the equal of most show bikes, and has that honest patina of age and wear that the ratrod guys try to fake.
As promised, here are some pics of my shorty camper van post remodel.
We reused the original cooler and outlet box, but other than that it was completely new. The cabinet is solid pine, and the sink is stainless steel. The hand- pump faucet is a pre-fab RV/marine unit, plumbed into a small tank in the cabinet, and draining (along with the cooler) out through the floor of the van. Instead of installing a stove unit into the counter-top I decided to go with a portable butane unit, as they are a bit safer for indoor use than the standard propane units, and it makes the space more versatile.
The addition of the sink allowed me to regain my motorhome insurance classification, which should save me over $50 per month on insurance!
Soon the van will be handed off to my buddy Tom to begin 4WD conversion with heavy-duty running gear. Stay tuned!
My old ’76 Camaro has that rarest of things — a 35 year old unmolested stock Small Block Chevrolet engine. The carb is original. The Air filter still has the snorkel on it. Hell, I’m pretty sure the valve covers have never even been removed. Probably because of this she runs amazingly well. . . although the 104k original miles no-doubt help things a bit.
Despite the constant temptation to cheaply bolt on more power, I have resisted the urge and left it stock — maybe I’m getting old. But, she definitely aint broke — and I am enjoying getting well-over 20 MPG on the freeway. Moreover, it would feel somewhat like heresy to tear into a perfect stock engine as old as this — like making a custom cafe racer out of a perfectly preserved 40-year-old stocker, it just wouldn’t be right.
That said, I have been systematically replacing worn out engine peripherals — spark plugs, distributor, plug wires, belts, hoses, and bigger pieces like the radiator, and yesterday, the alternator. The nearest new Bosch unit in NAPA’s system was in Massachusetts, and I wanted the benefit of Second Saturday pricing. So I settled for an absurdly cheap remanufactured Delco with a lifetime warrantee. I’m sure it will be adequate.
As usual, more time was spent drinking, bullshitting and smoking cigars than it took to actually do car surgery. Gotta love simple old American vehicles.
So, the ’76 Camaro is fast becoming one of my all time favorite cars. It has both the simplicity and no-frill-and-gimmicks directness of classic American muscle, and the fantastic handing of a DeLorean era GMC vehicle. It looks great, runs great, handles great and sounds great.
Given its age it is remarkably well preserved (as discussed in prior posts). However, one spot has seen more wear and tear than any other — the base of the driver’s seat. Although the foam in in good shape, he original vinyl was split when I got it. And then a couple weeks back the elaborate wire underpinnings failed when I went over a speed bump to fast and suddenly the seat cushion was on the floorpan. Given how low-slung the F-body seating position is this was not far to travel. But, it was still a pain in the ass — literally and figuratively. . .
Well, I have been thinking of either tracking down a nice set of vintage Trans-Am seats with bolsters or some good Recaro or Corbeau race buckets anyway, but now my needs have become more immediate. . . However, nothing suitable has appeared on the Craigslist. . . and I’m not about to install something that I don’t really like. . .
So, I hit the hardware store and bought a roll of extra wide Gorilla Tape and some 20lb test galvanized bailing wire. Then after pulling the seat, I “reupholstered” the seat base with the incredibly burly Gorilla Tape (which actually appears to be a heaver vinyl that the original upholstery fabric), and wove a support structure out of the wire.
Despite the rather kludgy methods, the outcome was surprisingly good — so good in fact that I am more than comfortable taking my time finding just the right replacement seats. The seats are actually more comfortable and batter looking than anytime since I have owned the car. Viva la creative kludges!
So over the past week or so I have a couple of extended work sessions with a carpenter buddy who is helping me remodel and expand the kitchen/galley in the ’79 shorty camper van.
To date, we have ripped out the old galley (salvaging the built in cooler), and fabricated a new larger galley which will house not only the old cooler but also a sink, faucet, and freshwater tanks, with a power outlet extension and extra storage. The bare minimum necessary for extended camping, and to fall into a different insurance category.
Upon careful consideration, I decided not to install a propane stove, due to concerns re venting and high flames in a wood-lined box. However, I have sourced some small modular countertop butane stoves which have far fewer issues in terms of fumes, and excessive heat. They dont get quite as hot, but are more than adequate for boiling water for the morning coffee which, honestly, will 90% of the interior cooking I expect to do.
I hope to finish it next week. Here are some pics of what we have done so far.
I have really been enjoying driving the Camaro, and as a result have done so a lot. She is running fantastically well, but a couple weeks back I started noticing some drips on the floor of the garage, and upon investigating discovered a leak in the radiator, which so far as I can tell is the original 35 year old unit, so no surprises there. . .
At first I had some hope that it was merely a cracked hose, but upon removing the hose is question, I discovered a crack in the radiator itself right at the join between the pipe that the upper hose clamps to and the body of the radiator itself. . . to add insult to injury, there was evidence that is had cracked some time ago, and had been patched up with JB Weld or some similar product, which is a pretty kludgy fix for a radiator. . . oh well.
It was however a slow leak, so, I bided my time, avoided long trips, and kept an eye on the levels until the Second Saturday, when NAPA extends employee pricing to the general public.
On that magic day, I bought a nice new aluminum radiator, new hoses, clamps and fresh fluids — all for $200! That’s about half as much as I would have paid for them today. Then, Dale and I put some nice downtempo on the garage stereo, and proceeded to tear into the old beastie.
Honestly, I probably spent a good five times the amount of time thinking about the project than it took us to complete it. Working on these old cars is so damn easy. . . Dale, who is a die-hard BMW guy, was shocked at the simplicity of the process and the shocking cheapness of the parts. . .
I spent more on the radiator hoses for my e30 than your entire radiator replacement
Yeah, well God Bless America, buddy.
Humph.
The celebratory bourbon and cigars in the garage afterwards probably lasted as long as car surgery. God Bless America.
So, I have been attending the Burning Man festival for a decade now. Hell, the festival camping circuit is one of the reasons I am such a devotee of custom “camping capable” vans.
This year, before I left for the thousand mile trip to BRC and back, I took my sweet little Custom ’79 shorty van into a professional shop to have a safety inspection and make sure my amateur mechanical skills hadn’t missed something mission critical. After a 32 point inspection they basically gave her a clean bill of health, although they recommended a “transmission service,” due to aging fluids, which I had them perform.
The little old shorty did really well on the trip out — 6500 feet of elevation gain while heavily loaded down with hundreds of pounds of gear, food and water was no sweat. She took the curvy roads like a champ. And, even got pretty decent gas milage. I arrived at 12:30 AM on Monday morning.
But upon arriving at the entrance line to the festival, during the miles and miles of slow creeping progress from idle, she started to show problems. The transmission started slipping, and eventually refused to engage altogether. Some random nice people helped me push her off to the side of the queue (into the dreaded “D-Lot” a.k.a. BRC Purgatory. . .). Basically, she was dead in the middle of the Nevada high desert, many many miles from anything resembling civilization.
But, I didn’t freak out. I didn’t panic. I didn’t give up. I strapped on my headlamp, grabbed my socket set and Leatherman Tool and crawled under the van.
The entire undercarriage was coated with a sludgy mix of desert dust and many quarts of transmission oil — all the fresh fluids I had paid professionals to instal had been dumped in the desert. Uh oh.
But, again no panic and no freak out. I was in my Zen space — somehow I knew I had this.
A looked for the source of the problem. And, despite the thick coating of sludge and near total darkness, eventually found the leak: a cracked hose leading to the tranny cooler. I cut out the cracked part, spliced the hose together and reclamped it. Then I spent six hours begging passing cars entering the festival for spare transmission fluid, until I had put in enough that the car would engage and allow me to drive the rest of the way into the event and make camp. The next day I was able to source enough tranny oil to fill her up properly (thanks to DPW and the man known as “The Satanic Mechanic”! And, thanks to the helpful D-Lot crew.) Apparently my diagnosis and fix was a success, because she made it all the way home without any problems — and this after a week of camping in the desert.
Now that I’m safely back in civilization, I’m going to have some words with the “professional shop” about the quality of their inspections, and their ability to service a transmission without checking its integrity. But, the satisfaction of taking care of business when it mattered, was, I think, worth it.
When the project phase is finished, I invariably get bored, no matter how sweet the finished product is. It is beginning to feel inevitable. . . so the following should come as no surprise.
My ’69 Mustang Hotrod has apparently sold to a VERY excited young man. His Father came to look at it for him (he is active duty military), and I took him for a ride and showed it off a little. The father had bought a brand new Mustang Coupe off the dealer’s floor in 1969 (for $2600) and was excited to help his son acquire the very same car 42 years later.
His reaction to the power of the Black Beast was telling — apparently his new one had had nothing on the neck-snapping acceleration of the 400+ HP built balanced and blueprinted 302w in my Beast. I wish the new owner nothing but the best with my old Hotrod. May he spank all comers, impress his dates, and never see flashing lights in the mirrors.
So, I guess I’m shopping for a hotrod project. Will it be a Corvette? A Cougar? A Nova? Another Mustang? Or something completely different. . . time will tell.
in the meantime, here is a video I took before I sold her:
So, for the 10th time, I will be attending the Burning Man festival in Nevada. In preparation for this, I have done a bunch of work on the little shorty camper van to prep it for the trip and the camping portion when there.
Among other things, I have (with the invaluable help of Mr. Z), fabricated a new base for and then mounted a swiveling front passenger seat, had the rear vent hatch replaced (by professionals who warrantee against leakage, TYVM), and had a pro shop check my work, give it an overall safety check, a tranny service (sounds kind of dirty, eh?), and track down a couple stubborn electrical issues. And, I replaced the dry-rotted-hockey-puck of a spare.
I think she is about ready for a nice long trip to the desert. And, spending a week camping in her should be pretty posh as well. . . definitely better than a tent in a dust storm. . . I’ll upload pics of shorty camp when I get back.
