1985 custom Astro

[Ronald]

Hello,

This car started out as a runner but soon let me down and then it became a project.
I bought it in and it seemed to be in good order. Even drove it home without major trouble for more then 500 miles ,only oil was leaking from rocker covers onto manifold, which caused some smoke when driving on the highway. .

It was not long after i got my new registration that I discovered a noise was developing from underneath the bonnet.
I suspected the conrod bearings, also because the oil pressure had dropped considerably.
So the engine came out, and I discovered it needed a complete rebuild.

[xit]

Good looking van, did you get it rebuilt?

[Ronald]

No, bought a brand new engine. I was lucky someone had an engine built and he sold it to me without using it.
Engine was built at Speed-O-Motive and had only run in on the dyno. I could buy it for less money a complete rebuild of the old engine would have cost me
Here are some pictures of the project.. The old engine ..


Grooved bore of the old engine..

Broken rings.. and worn bearings


This is the new engine, a blueprinted 4.5 stroker with 250 HP . Engine has nice specs. 280h-r10 cam with hydraulic roller lifters, vortex heads, ARP bolts throughout. billet distributor

Engine has got old edelbrock carb on it but thinking about converting to TBI with LPG conversion and with megasquirt ecu..
When i took out the engine (subframe off the car), i discovered some more work to be done and parked the car on some made up jackstands
The subframe was heavily rusted


and needed repairs
Chassis was totally wirebrushed and sanded and covered in rustconverter

[xit]

Very, very nice, good job & you should be proud.

[Jasen]

re you running the Mad Max wheels



Nice lookin motor

[Ronald]

Yes, these are real multipurpose wheels. Didn't you know i'm a doomsday prepper?

[97cargocrawler]

I LOVE those jackstands! You coulda saved me $400 if I had seen those a few weeks back...I got a set of stockers and a missive pile of beefy pipe.

Instead I bought these (10ton each!) jacks that go as high as 4ft.



That's a nice looking motor.

[Ronald]

That's a WICKED set of stands you got! And at least yours are adjustable for more than 1cm (with or without air in tires). It was a saturday night and I had to improvise and they suit the purpose.

[Ronald]

Got bored , so scraped of the underside of the Van.


Found some slight rust and got my sand blaster and gave it a shot


Next stage is some rust protector/convertor in hard to reachplaces and zinc spray and paint.

[Ronald]

My other astro, (black one) needs some attention also.
In preparation of the LPG conversion I scraped off the underside where the tank will be installed.

Now I can get at it , when the tank is installed not anymore.

I couldn't leave tne rear shocks alone.
Before and after...

[Ronald]

constucted an extra battery tray, offered up the footboard beneath the sliding door to make a power delivery station to charge batteries for my tools and provide power for the stereo.

[Ronald]

to get an idea .

[bobcardone]

Really good work!
The second battery in the sliding door footboard area is slick.
Keep posting your progress.

[Ronald]

My nearly finished extra powerstation.
Took a while but here it is.

[Ronald]

Did also some things on the dash, it had no demister/ heater. So had to makje something from scratch and adapted the original heater/ vent box to fit underneath the custom dash.

[Ronald]

Made some ducting from drainage pipe and welded this onto the orignal heater / vent box

[Ben_R]

BILD0076.JPG

Did also some things on the dash, it had no demister/ heater. So had to makje something from scratch and adapted the original heater/ vent box to fit underneath the custom dash.

That centre console looks very familiar, who owned this van before you?

E2A

Paul Richardson's old 5.7 TPI Camaro V8?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1985-CHEVROLE ... 7675.l2557

http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/ipb/index.ph ... -for-sale/

[icebrrg3rd]

Hot dang!!!!!! I need to go clean myself! That interior (and Ben's link) is AWESOME!!!!

Again, WOW!

I don't think I can ever show an interior shot of my van again.

If I can get my van to be 1/100 as nice I'll be happy.

-Andrew

[Ronald]

Yes it's Paul's old van , 'the Earthquake' Astro. I am trying to finish what he started.
Quite a lot of work left to make it real nice but the things Paul made are absolutely stunning.

[Ronald]

$(KGrHqF,!lcE-ks0K0V9BP6trMzv)w~~60_12.JPG (53.75 KiB) Viewed 3160 times

This is more or less the finished result.