sabreuk project

[sabreuk]

and we are getting there slowly. all thats left to sand is the roof consolw where the mood lighting switches are and the front will be ready for the new wood stain

[sabreuk]

hey up guys well as the rain is still heaving down i thought i would under taker a lil project, a project that could save ya a couple of $ as a bit of overlooked maintainence

WINDOW SWITCHES.

well my van is 95 and have the older type switches fitted and as im sure some or most of ya know these switches do stop working after a while which then leads to expensive fault finding replacing window motors window regulators etc for the sake of the switch. i know these switches are fairly cheap however something you guys can try to eliminate the switch is the following:

i removed the passenger side switch from the door and turned it over so the pins are facing up, there is 2 restraining lugs shown in the picture which if your carful enough and use a small enough screwdriver you can pry up, if your to rough you will sanp the plastic on the switch if your not carful and it wont go back together.
in the pictures shows the switch and the lugs im refering to are circled and arrowed in the 2nd pic.

[sabreuk]

at this point once you feel the pins loosen turn the switch back over and gently remove the pins, reason being inside the switch is 2 brass connector plates which sit neatly in the pin housing, if you do it this way you can see how they fit in the switch do it the other way and the connectors fall out maybe in a pain in the neck place to get them back.

anyway once you remove the housing you will see the switch side has a yellow plunger you dont need to take that out but if you remember which way it came out or on reassembely the switch wont work.

on the pin side you will see the 2 brass connectors remove them and then clean them up with sand paper removing or the burnt charred crap off them, once you have done that remove all the gunk and burnt crap off the underside of the pin housing using sandpaper or a flat head screw driver to clean the contacts up. in mine i had green gunk in there which i replaced with contact greese once i was ready for reassembley.

[sabreuk]

once everything is cleaned up then its putting it back together in the opposite way you took it apart apply your contact greese or whatever your using to the connectors then replace the connectors back in the pin housing and this is the fiddly bit is putting the switch housing on to the pin housing with out everything falling back out, it can take a couple of trys however it will go back, once you have them seated its pushing the pin housing back into the switch housing so the lugs click back together, once you have done that i cleaned up the pins with some sandpaper again and there ready for putting back in the van. on the 96+ astros im not sure on the switch type so i dont know if you can do this with them.

[sabreuk]

best way of putting them back together is kinda a 45 degree angle and slowly, make sure you put the pin housing in the correct way , ie the samw way it came out or you might have probs getting the pin housing back out job done

[sabreuk]

well the next installment ive just got my nice new shiny rad today from rockauto got myself all excited and bugger me they sent the wrong one they sent a 96 fuming i was....................

Until i realised i undone the box from the bottom and it was upside down what a donkey so they have sent the correcct rad and im happy again now, ill get that fitted tomoz if its not howling down with rain and then its just the iac valve to go on and it should be good to drive again also gona get the front wood finished off and put back in then its on with stripping the wood in the rear not looking forward to that at all

so on the wood ive got a couple of bits that have craked an snapped for what ever reason and the carpenter at work is going to do me a nice new dash cluster surround and the big bit that goes over the heater vents and cd player.

am i right in thinking the wood used in these vans are maple or are they something else?

also today my new grill turned up and i managed to get it fitted so heres the before and after pics.
honest opinions look good or pants? all i need is the gmc badge to fit the grill which wasnt supplied with it. might get the illuminated red one to go in the spot what do you guys think on that. illuminated or just palin red gmc?

on the grill im thinking paint the intake black the intake surround chrome wrapped in vynle and maybe color match the bodywork to the light surrounds. again opinions or suggestions appreciated.

[Duckstar]

Hiya mate tried to reply on astrosafari.co.uk but it will only let me upload tiny files so got fed up with it! I was saying I think the sealed beam grilles look better colour coded, heres some examples!

[sabreuk]

hey duckstar nice to see you again lol i know what ya mean with the small pics on the uk forum.
i did reply to you though.
i do like the look of the grey one a lot more than the red one now and the tinting you mentioned looks realy smart on the grey van like i said you are becoming a bad influence lol keep the idea coming

[ProStreet_LS1]

Cool Safari front ends

[sabreuk]

UPDATE:

well had a realy busy weekend so far, i borrowed a timing light from workshopd at work and wow its that old it came in its own bloody arc lol. anyways got the timing sorted which wasnt to bad.

had to take the fan off to get the timing light close enough to see the timing pully on the back of the harmonic balancer. loosend the dizzy clamp bolt and according to the sticker on my van the timing is set to 0degrees at tick over also had to disconnect the advance wire on the dizzy which is the single tan coloured wire with a single pin plug so as to bypass the computer to set the timing up. so got that squared clamped down the dizzy and plugged the advance wire back in but it still was clunking its head off hmmmmmm proper cheesed off at this point and then remembered i had to reset the computer doh!

disconected the battery and turned the key to ign to clear the computer off anything its stored and hey presto 5mins later the van sounded for the first time ive had it like it should, no clunking no high revs at idle or pulsing idle well happy big time just got to tax it now and its good to drive.

anyways starte don getting other things sorted so painted the grill bit of my new grill satin black just got to get the chrome wrap to do the outsides of the grill and get the gmc badge put on then taht will be done.
also started sorting my bumper out and had to modify it slightly to fit the new grill as its deeper than the one i took off, also did a mod in the bottom off the bumper opening up am air intake and all thats left is to get the wheel arch bit sorted and repaired so i can get it back on the van.
so heres a couple of pics.

painted grill:

[sabreuk]

so opinions on this, heres the before and after test fitting the bumper back on. what do you think keep it on or leave it off????
(still got the lights to put back in the bumper and some mesh to put in the centre airdam bit)

[sabreuk]

well got the grill chrome painted hmmmmm not realy happy with it so ill get the chrome wrap and do it that way. gona attempt the bumper repair today aswell and get that back on in stead of hanging on. getting there slowly also just found the chrome in the reflector in the headlights are going rusty so ill order them projector 7x6s and get them fitted. im actualy starting to like the look of the front end now its coming back together but got a fair bit to do.

also decided on the resparay im gona get done which is a blue marbelized effect from house of kolor so heres a couple of pics for ya.

so this effect with the blue on the car.

[sabreuk]

on the respray the other choices where black and silver or black and gold but i think the balck and gold, the gold is to overpowering being more gold than black, please dont ask me to repeat that esp fast lol

[sabreuk]

and heres the grill with the chrome paint and the gmc badge finaly fitted

[Jasen]

The gold looks like snake skin, the black is good, but I like the blue.

[sabreuk]

ive settled for the blue marbelized effect over the other 2 jasen, not realy keen on the other two particulary after a google image search and seeing some of the black gold/ silver paintjobs. plus the there doesnt seem to be many blue ones out there other than the odd bike or honda civic...............

[sabreuk]

well the bumper is in the process of being painted its just drying in the garage at the min then its got a couple of coats of laquer to go on yet but im getting there. the other big thing ive done this weekend to the van is its NOW TAXED and drove it for the first time since its been rebuilt, still got loads to do interior/exterior wise but it runs. im hoping to have the bumper on by tomoz then put my effort in to getting the cab sorted

[sabreuk]

well started the interior today in the cab and started tidying it up ive painted the nasty grey marked and discoloured plastics and there now black and look lovely just got the dash to sort. and a few other bits n bobs. heres a couple of pics of before and after and ill get some better pics tomoz so you can see it a bit better.

[sabreuk]

well got a fair bit done today finished painting up and laquering the front bumper, also got it drilled a fitted back to the van after fibreglassing the damage up from when i first got the van, just got some 4" lights to get to fill the holes then thats done

also got more of the interior plastics painted and back in the van, and i think im starting to like the look of how its coming back together got a couple more jibs to get done tomoz and over the weekend which is stripping the rest of the wood for the front and getting them sanded down ready for the next phase

heres a couple of pics for ya to have a gander at.

[chevymaher]

Nice some how that looks familiar tho. The interior work.