The great white fun hog (another white GM awd build)

[boardrider247]

Been picking away at some little van projects the last few weeks.

First up was a front receiver hitch. The front of these vans don't have tow hooks and no good spot to locate them. There also is not a off the shelf front receiver hitch available. I ended up purchasing a hitch intended for the earlier express van's hoping I could make it work. I welded a couple 2x2x1/4" spacers onto the frame and bolted the hitch to those. Obviously my front approach angle is hurt by having this on there but the overall ground clearance is not affected. And this ain't no rock crawler so I prefer having the front tow points over a better approach angle.

2016-03-01_07-52-03 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

I like spraying anything underbody with 3M rubberized undercoating it sticks to anything and seems to hold up fairly well.
2016-03-01_07-52-25 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-03-01_07-52-34 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

 

[86cj]

Great idea on the hitch, how bad was the fit? My wife bought me that hitch for X-mas and I have not held it up there to see if it would work yet. I was hoping for some re-drilling.........

 

[M35A2]

Curious why you dropped the hitch instead of cutting the bumper, perhaps hiding the receiver behind the tag.

 

[boardrider247]

Great idea on the hitch, how bad was the fit? My wife bought me that hitch for X-mas and I have not held it up there to see if it would work yet. I was hoping for some re-drilling.........

Curious why you dropped the hitch instead of cutting the bumper, perhaps hiding the receiver behind the tag.

The bolt holes on the hitch did not line up with anything. And the frame is boxed in such a way that it would be extremely difficult to drill holes and bolt directly to the frame.

Dropping the hitch allowed me to still bolt it on and not have to modify the bumper.
If you cut the bumper you could weld the hitch directly to the frame gaining some clearance and approach angle.
For me it was more important to have the hitch be removable if needed

 

[86scotty]

Somehow I've missed this thread until now. Nice build! I'm considering doing about the same with an AWD Chevy. Has your fuel mileage changed much?

Thanks

 

[boardrider247]

Somehow I've missed this thread until now. Nice build! I'm considering doing about the same with an AWD Chevy. Has your fuel mileage changed much?

Thanks

If my math is correct I have lost about 2-3 MPG vs stock. This was all from the lift and bigger tires, the high top actually had no affect or possibly a slight positive affect on mileage.

 

[86scotty]

Thanks for the info. Love the van.

 

[boardrider247]

Interior build moving forward. Upper platform will be for a bed, lower will be dog crates and storage.
2016-04-05_01-25-49 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-04-05_01-26-15 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-04-14_08-10-33 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-04-14_08-10-44 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-04-14_08-10-52 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

I finally finished hooking up the heat exchanger for my water system. Now we have nice hot water. While I was in there I upgraded the shower hose and head.
2016-04-05_01-25-08 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

 

[rockbender]

Need to know - air hose and chucks for your shower line? The thought had crossed my mind last summer but I sort of forgot about it - seems like such a great way to go. How is it working out? I actually thought about using fancy hydraulic QR fittings that have a no leak male end as well. Looks fantastic! (I envy your ability to glue aluminum together like that!)

 

[boardrider247]

Need to know - air hose and chucks for your shower line? The thought had crossed my mind last summer but I sort of forgot about it - seems like such a great way to go. How is it working out? I actually thought about using fancy hydraulic QR fittings that have a no leak male end as well. Looks fantastic! (I envy your ability to glue aluminum together like that!)

I wasn't sure the air hose quick connects would have enough flow but so far it seems great. Plenty of water coming from the shower head for a quick rinse down. And I only have about 9 gallons to work with so restricting the flow a little bit isn't such a bad thing.

No need to be too envious of my aluminum abilities they are pretty rough at best. But so far nothing has broken apart!!

 

[luthj]

I have had good results with plastic quick disconnect fittings (see mcmaster carr link). They are corrosion proof which is nice (some air fittings have steel parts inside).

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-quick-disconnect-tube-couplings/=11zw1ac

 

[boardrider247]

Other then a little finish work the bed platform dog kennel project is complete.
After looking for wood to build bed slats I looked at Ikea and came up with a pre built slat platform that was the correct dimensions.
I will say this mid stream change of plans made my initial design slightly cumbersome and I ended up using more material then necessary. Also some of the material was reclaimed from other old projects so while I am happy with the outcome it could have been executed better. Some of this stems from the midstream change from pop top to hardtop. Were I to start fresh building another van I feel like I could do things better.

2016-06-06_09-43-01 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-06-06_09-42-48 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-06-06_09-42-34 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-06-06_09-42-13 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

 

[boardrider247]

I took this
2016-06-19_03-17-23 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

A little cutting and welding to make this
2016-06-19_03-17-03 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-06-19_03-16-53 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

2016-06-19_03-16-45 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

And now my passenger seat does this
2016-06-19_03-16-14 by Danny Knowlan, on Flickr

Total cost about $12

 

[Corneilius]

Nice swivel, what was the donor from?

 

[boardrider247]

Nice swivel, what was the donor from?

90's Conversion van I found at a boneyard. It was a flexsteel brand swivel.