90 Voyage(r) to SDAC!

[jonnyb]

I'm going for an inexpensive, reliable daily driver with a little bit of ooomph to make the commute more fun - not unreliable with impossible to find parts and a way too huge turbo for daily driving...LOL! That blue T3 in the background was the project that got derailed due to the Top Van announcement. In some of the pics you can also see a little of the electric blue 91 shadow vert that the T3 is going into (EDIT: and now also the main donor of engine/trans parts for the van!).

More bummer news - I just got home from work and saw the pinstripes had arrived, but it turns out that the factory pinstripe "kits" that Martin has at Arizona Parts are nothing more than about 6 feet of the dual pinstripe. It doesn't have the special intersecting front end and it's only enough to do one or maybe two panels. About the only thing it will be good for is to get an exact color match and exact width and spacing of the stripes. So glad I paid the extra money for expedited shipping...LOL!

I'm going to bring the piece of pinstripe to the graphic guy tomorrow and see what he can do.

OK - time to go paint the mirrors and trim parts!

Jon

[2.216VTurbo]

I think it's safe to say that you get more quality work done in a shorter span of time here than 99% of the members Likewise your project logs are top shelf stuff, the SRT6 rearend replacement was top notch too

[jonnyb]

Thanks Alan, but I have to say, this one is more of a good 'ol, build it cheap and make it look good enough rather than "quality work", and I sure hope the "good enough" part holds true and it at least gets me out to SDAC and back...LOL!

You still got that unitrax sitting on the shelf? You don't know what you're missing if you do!!!

Jon

[wheming]

Although not original, the pinstripes I bought was a roll from http://www.stripeman.com/
I could get you the number of the exact stuff I got, but the factory stripe was a dual stripe of the same size. I didn't see the exact size of original on that site. I bought one that the top was a bit thinner and a two tone.

[jonnyb]

Actually, the factory stripes were not the same size (at least not on my van or in the factory replacement kit that I just got from Arizona parts). They measure 7/16" overall, with the top stripe being 1/8", then a gap of 1/8" and then the bottom stripe is 3/16". That site you sent has the same ones that I've seen everywhere else. The closest they have is the 1/2" that has a 1/8" top, 1/8" gap and 1/4" bottom stripe.

I'm heading over to my graphics guy shortly with the piece that I got from Arizona Parts. He said he can reproduce it, but because of the way they make the decal sheets, that it's going to cost quite a bit to make (he said it might run close to $100). I was hesitant when I heard the price, but looking at that site you posted up, they want $43 plus shipping for the close match, so I guess paying a little more for an exact match isn't that bad. It does go against the "budget build" that I'm trying to do, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do....LOL!!!

Jon

- - - Updated - - -

OK, well, now I'm torn about the graphics for the van! I went to talk to the graphics guy during my lunch break, and we were both surprised when we cut off a piece of the factory stripe and applied it to a piece of paper to compare it to samples. While Chrysler called it "gold", it's not really gold at all! It's a very copper color and is almost an exact match to Oracal 092 and Avery 5732-M (both listed as "copper"). However, when I hold the sample sheet of Avery 5732-M up to the van, it just doesn't look right!

So now I'm torn - do I go with the a match to the factory color, or do I go with what looks more correct (which to me looks like something similar to 3M's 03-Gold Metallic)?

I know, I know, it's just a stupid pinstripe and turbo decal, but I figure since I'm doing it, I want to do it right the first time! I've done enough "redos" on the engine and "redos" on paint and graphics aren't quite as easy...LOL!

Jon

[wheming]

I had Dave at Positive Impression s cut Turbo decals in two colors because I wasn't sure which would look best. Sometimes you just can't see without actually applying it. A sample swatch on a white background was messing me up. I went with silver for the decals and the thin stripe of the pinstripe and charcoal for the wide stripe. It looks good in my opinion.
As you may recall Gus MeanMini had a lighter blue stripe. I like the change however. I thought that pinstripe was just too bright. Normally I remove all decals and such but I think the silver with the factory Twilight Blue Metallic looks better.


For your color I think a metallic gold would look good.

[jonnyb]

Well, as usual, good news and bad news...LOL!

I was able to get the trim and other items cleaned and painted, but somewhere along the line the grill got all busted up. It seems to get all held together fairly well once it's all screwed in, but I definitely need to look for a better replacement. I also priced out the headlights, and for the $200 it would cost to replace them, I decided to just sand and polish them and call it good enough for now.



As usual, Cliff was the man and came through with the hybrid trans. It should be plenty stout for what I intend to do with the van and it's all set up for the Hugh's locking tc that I picked up.



So I plan on buttoning the trans up to the engine on Friday after work, and then pulling the existing drivetrain and doing a quick clean up on the engine bay over the weekend. My goal is to have the new drivetrain dropped in by Sunday night.

Now for the bad news. The wheels I bought don't fit!!! The center bore on them is 67.1mm and the 5x114.3 vans came with 71.5mm hubs! I hate these hubs - nothing fits them...LOL!

The bore on the rim is definitely large enough to accommodate a 71.5mm hub, there's a large lip near the mounting surface of the wheel to mate to the 67.1mm hub so I'm going to bring them to my wheel guy this afternoon and see if he can turn it out to 71.5mm. Depending on how much or how long he says it will take, I may try to go the cheaper easier route and put some wheel spacers in there. It looks like I would need about 1/4 spacers. Either way, it's more stuff I have to deal with before SDAC...LOL!

Jon

- - - Updated - - -

Woohoo - that was easy! I called the place that I bought the wheel/tires from and asked about getting some spacers, and he said instead of using spacers that they can bore the wheels out for me no problem. He said they do it all the time and those wheels will be fine with the extra 4.5 mm taken off the lip of the center bore! I'm going to drop them off at lunch and he said they'll be ready in a couple hours. Why can't all roadblocks be removed that easy....LOL!!!

More updates to come later today

[wheming]

Guess you got all the luck today!

[jonnyb]

OK - the new drivetrain is in!

I started to really clean and prep the engine compartment to make it really nice, but then I talked myself down and kept telling myself that this is going to be a daily driver so there's no need to make it nice. In fact, it would really be a waste of time...LOL! So I ended up just doing a good cleaning and put some rust converter on the small spots around the battery tray, and then sprayed a little undercoating on it, and that was about it for engine compartment detailing...LOL!

Here's the van at 9AM Saturday morning - ready for the transplant surgery:



And here's the original drivetrain plucked out and ready to be put in storage:


Here's the empty engine bay - pretty dirty, but nothing major to get cleaned up:


And here it is all cleaned up.



I also needed to add wiring for the Charge Temp Sensor and the computer controlled lockup TC. So I dove into my wiring stash and found a 60 way connector to steal the pins from, as well as a couple other misc weaterpack fittings that had the correct pins to add to my weatherpacks for that factory wiring look:


Since I spliced those in and ran a few new wires, I figured I would go ahead and go through the entire harness and clean it up, retape and put some dielectric grease on all the connectors. I didn't take any shots of the completed harness, but it looks good!

And finally, late yesterday afternoon the new drivetrain was ready to be dropped in. Here it is all buttoned up and ready to go:


And here it is in its new home!


I'm hoping to get it all buttoned up and ready to fire by Wednesday night. As long as all is OK, I should have all the loose ends wrapped up by this weekend and hopefully be ready for SDAC!

Jon

[wheming]

Damn you Jonny B!!!
j/k of course. Fantastic work. Can't wait to see it and be jealous in person.

[Pat]

Fan freaking tastic. Looks great.

[wheming]

Hell I ought to fly you and Pat down here to help me finish mine up!
It would be worth the plane tickets! lol!

[2.216VTurbo]

OK, that's it, I'm taking an *extra* 5 days off and gonna drive Woody out to SDAC and compete in Top Van




































Or I'll just fly in and have fun as usual Is it oo early to start the SDAC 25 in Vegas campain?? BTW Way Mr B, I thinks its a little too late to make it "Just a daily driver nice"

[jonnyb]

It's ALIVE!!!

After standing and/or laying in the rain for the last couple of days (darn you mother nature!!), I fired it up at 6:30 AM this morning! It should have happened at 8PM last night, but as always, the simplest overlooked item can cause hours of frustration...LOL! The motor would fire and then immediately stall. I checked everything - spark, fuel, grounds, etc. and everything checked out OK. After a couple hours of not finding the problem, I came inside, grabbed a homebrew and searched this site.

Low and behold I found ShadowJakes thread that had a very similar sounding problem. His ended up being the SBEC, but in that thread there was mention of the TBI distributor having a different shutter wheel. I never knew that. I always thought it just used a different HEP. I didn't use the distributor from the TBI motor that I pulled most of the parts from, so I passed off the distributor as not being the problem.

Fast forward to me not sleeping the whole night and finally getting up at 5:45AM and starting to go through the grounds, check the SBEC etc. Then I think about the distributor and say, what the heck, let's take a look. I pop off the distributor cap and look at the shutter wheel - sure enough - no window!!! I grabbed another one from my spare pile (with a pickup window...LOL) and popped it in the van and it fired right up! Engine sounded good, no leaks and no smoke.

Note to self: go through pile of spare distributors and toss the TBI one's into the same scrap pile that you just tossed the one that caused you 3 hours of frustration and a night's worth of sleep...LOL!

I'm done playing in the rain, so I took the night off from the van. I'm hoping to get it all buttoned up on Saturday and take it for it's first test drive.

[wheming]

Congrats Jon!
I know that sort of frustration you speak of....all too well in fact...
Good going though!

[jonnyb]

5:30 PM EST, here's how the van sits:

[speedfreek500]

What a great build, And fun to read with all the up's and downs you came across.

Keep up the great work

[wheming]

5:30 PM EST, here's how the van sits:

What'd I miss?? What happened now??

[jonnyb]

The van seemed to run and drive fine, but even the slightest bit of boost triggered knock. I thought it was a fuel issue (thought that maybe I had accidentally cut/broken an injector wire when I redid the harness) and just tried to drive it lightly while I figured it out, but the cheapo pistons couldn't hold up to the detonation during a downshift while going up my road with a spike to about 9psi. I guess it gave them a good rattle and that was that.

Upon taring it down the motor, I can see that I clearly marked tdc on the new torque converter wrong. There was no mark on it when I got it and the head was on the motor so I tried to eyeball it when I made the mark, but I was one tooth off with my mark and after using a dial bore gauge on the pistons with the head off, I can see that I was just about 10 degrees off on my mark. So that plus the 12 on the distributor gave me about 22 degrees of advance! The end result is 2 demolished pistons and 2 slightly damaged pistons.

I now have the torque converter marked correctly and am going to try to find pistons and rings that can be at my door by Wednesday, or else I doubt I'm going to make it with the new motor. So the current fallback plan is to plop the old motor back in on Thursday if I'm not ready to go with the new motor.

This is fun...LOL!

Here's a pic of the carnage:



The cylinder walls look fine, as do the rods, bearings and crank, but the head and valves might have taken some damage so I might have to pull out a backup head as well.

Jon

[blk86trbo]

I just wanna say you are a real trooper...it would be hard for most of us to keep going at this point, but you aren't going down without a big fight!

And I wouldn't have guessed that brown paint looked so nice on a van, congrats!