Scotts_DG8
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Posts posted by Scotts_DG8
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Well the last few days there’s been a lot of rain and along with a severe storms that have passed through. It was clear long enough on Saturday that I managed to bump out the passenger side rear wheel opening.
As I needed a different type of body hammer to bump the dent in the body seam (visible behind the wheel opening in the previous picture) I decided to drilled out/remove the remnants of the original spare tire carrier and am now ready for a donor once I find one.
I got a call that I could pick up the doors from the media blaster so made the trip this morning. It wasn't until this afternoon that I had a chance to take a few pictures of them. The driver's door is probably the best door of them all. You can see that there is very little (next to none) rust but there are stress cracks around the bottom hinge.
The passenger door begins to show some of the challenges that surface after cleaning with media blasting. A bit more rust at the very bottom of the door and again the stress cracks around the bottom hinge.
The remining doors are pictured in the next thread. Scott...
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Scott, If you need front lights I have some good ones from my 1969 A-108 that I used to own. I have parking and head lights. Also water pump,windsheild wiper motor and switch. Windsheild washer pump and maybe the resivour. Dan
Dan,
I just wanted to say that I really liked the parts that you sent and I am very happy with them. If you have any other items that you might have saved from the van that I might be interested in please let me know. An example of other items would be rear lights, both the stop/turn signal and back-up, headlight trim rings, etc. Keep me in mind and let me know if something surfaces that you think I might be interested in. Thanks again, Scott...
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Well I know that it's been a few days and to be honest there has not been a lot of progress with the rain passing through most every day and I don't want to be using the welder in the rain (nor the garage as it is just to full). And, either waiting for the rain or following the morning rain I've been busy getting some other things done around the house.
I do though have a couple pictures of the nose after it had been bumped out that I had missed posting earlier and it looks real good. A bit of sanding, filler/putty and more sanding and it should look like new.
Although there are showers forcasted for the next couple days yet I should be able to get some time on the van in. I would like to get it to the media blaster by the end of next week at the latest so a proper update is coming. Scott...
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Mike, the neighbor that does bodywork, came over and first played with my welder for a little while. He asked if there was any place on the van that he could test it before jumping in on the frame rail. Well I mentioned that I was going to go around and weld up the screw/drill holes so I guess he could do a couple near the side doors. He welded up three small holes and was happy so I cleaned up the frame rail by stripping the paint off with a wire wheel and then he welded it all back together. It turned out pretty darn good, the welds are still a little high but it will level out and look real good if not normal after it get ground down (leveled off) some more. Mike liked my welder, a Miller 210, stating it worked real nice.
<O:p</O:pWe then worked together doing some finish bumping out of the vans nose. I was using the dolly on the outside of the van and guiding him where to hit or at times we traded places and he was outside while I was inside. The nose really looks good without being sanded down, and with a little sanding, a little filler and/or putty and it should look as good as new. There are still a couple small shallow creases along the outside sill area on both sides that I will need to pull/level out yet, I’ll do this during this up coming week. Sorry, noticed while looking at the pictures that I didn’t get a snap of the nose. I have one next time. He was done for the day after that, but he really was a lot of help.
<O:p</O:pI also used the pressure blaster that was borrowed from a friend to clean the two small spots that I wanted to. One was the little crunch at the bottom of the rear body seam on the passenger side, it poked/pulled the rear side of the seam away from the front side of the seam and had some surface rust that needed to be eliminated before it could get bumped out and pulled back together again. The second was to clean the surface off the rear of the front passenger side fender/wheel opening to see how much rust was there. After playing with the blaster for a little bit I figured it out enough to accomplish what I wanted to. I did learn that all the valves on the pressure blaster are worn out and need to be replaced as once you hook it up to the air it is always on no matter what valve you try to close. Both spots got cleaned up and I sprayed them with a self etching primer as there is no sense to use an epoxy to just blast it back off again when it goes to the media blaster. The worst spot is the fender/wheel opening, it will for sure need to be patched, there is just too much metal gone. Not a major biggie, just going to take some a little effort. As I last said that I would be posting in a couple days and here I am posting the next day again, who knows when I’ll post again, no more predictions. That’s it for today. Scott…
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As to the question on checking the bore on the cylinders, yes I did check, all check out ok. The only problem that I had with the engine bore was that it was worn enough that it could only be cleaned up bored .040 over. I originally was looking towards .020 and said that I was hoping that it would max at .030 over. They had it at .030 and called me and said that it would have to go to .040 to clean up some pitting. I stated my concern going .040 over and they said that the 318 can go .060 over without issue. I’m not trying to build a hotrod engine, it’s going into my A100 van that I am restoring and of which I am posting my progress on within the “Our Cars and Restoration Projects” forum. I just want a solid running engine, this is not the first engine that I’ve rebuilt, just the first that I encountered an alignment problem with which the shop said was not an issue. When I get the engine back from the shop again I’ll post an update and the engine rebuild will be covered in my posts under the van project thread. Again, thank you all for your input and the added thoughts/consideration. Scott…
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Just a quick update. Pulled the front brakes and learned that the drums and shoes are not new like the rear although the brake hardware is new.
I also managed to chase the threads on the front bumper bracket nut that was messed up and now the new replacement bolt threads cleanly into the nut. The tab that was cut out will be welded back together this weekend.
And a side note, I went out today and bought 30' of SO 8/3 wire along with a plug and socket to make up a long extension to use my welder outside the garage. It took less than an hour to put it all together. It will be a handy item to have around.
So, as it stands now I am really down to the body work (all metal work only) that I want to get done before sending it off to be media blasted. I'm going to allow another week to complete the body work so it will not go to the media blaster for another week. So the next update with pictures will be of what body work get done. Scott...
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What a wonderful car. Who'd have thought that a car in its current condition would be out there. I too hope to see a thread on what ever restoration activities that you decide to do to it. I don't know what else to say, just wow. Scott...
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They look good as long as the holes that feed the heads are clear. Dan
PS: Your stuff went out today.
Thanks for your thoughts on my question and the update.
I've talked with the machine shop and will be taking the block back in to them and they will change them out and replace/realign them. My question/concern was based on the fact that when I pulled the engine down all the cam bearing oil holes aligned and now they are not. Scott...
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First I would like to thank you all for responding.
Second after reading your replies I would like to apologize in that I did not type the cam bearing oil hole dimension out correctly seeing that I entered .005 as opposed to .050 or had I type it out fully it would have been fifty thousandths of an inch.
Again, my concern came in to play after getting the engine back from the machine shop and noticing what I thought to be an obstruction in the cam bearing oil holes alignment as when I pulled the engine down the original bearing holes all aligned 100% with no obstruction. As I noted I did talk to the machine shop and they said that as long as the openings were at least .050 (50 Thousandths) all is fine. As I had not encountered this in the past I needed some input which is why I post both the pictures and my concern. As far as the machine shop is concern they at first were not going to do anything with it other than their initial stance that .050 was sufficient but have since stated that if I bring the block in they will pull and replace them again. So, in the end I guess the problem will be sorted out by the machine shop.
If I encounter any additional technical issues I will post them here. Again, thank you all. Scott...
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Since the van is an Oregon van, I can relate. Those buggers are everywhere here. Glad to see that you are going "whole hog" on the van. It makes me want to start in and finish my A100 compact pickup. I must work some more at "architorture" to do that and since I use it every day as my driver, it will be tough to do.
As far as the spiders are concerned I know that there was at least one that got out because I did see one last year in the garage, he didn’t last long though but since then I've had my eyes open for them.
I am hoping that this is not a long term project as mentioned above, but I do know that things happen that can stop the best plans in their tracks. With luck though I still am planning on having this pretty much wrapped up by late summer to early fall. I really would like to take a spin around the block in it this year before the snow flies here in Michigan, hopefully more than once.
From a planning point you should get a good idea of what kind of effort is involved in doing one of these. I would imagine thought that a pickup version of these would go a bit quicker yet, and then again you don’t have to go to the depth I’ve chosen to. Besides, I don’t know that this will ever be a daily driver for me, but who knows. Scott...
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I concur, there appears to be way too much to start with. But, I guess you are looking for something that you can putts with and polish into another jewel and still find time for a bit of personal life too.
Still, humor aside, I think it would be a great project and it does have a unique style to it and using the Flyer as an example can visualize it completed. Scott…
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Are you referring to the spider webs? Or is it the lack of a connection to the emergency brake cable?
Actually it's a bit more than the webs, if you look close. I did enlarge the picture I posted to actually see if you could see it. And knowing not all will take the time to to search the photo, on the left side of the bottom spring above the adjuster is an actual black widow spider. The good news is that it was dead and dried up. I did jump back a bit seeing it and ran and got my raid out so that it would be handy. That was a bit of excitement that I didn't need...
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As there's been plenty of people looking at my post but no responses to my question as yet I'm left to think that there are no experienced engine builders here? Maybe a 60's small V8 is beneath the experts here to respond? I'm at a loss...
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It’s Wednesday evening, 26-May-2010, and I’ve got a few more pictures...
I pulled the rest of the brakes out of the van which included; the rear lines, the proportioning valve and finally the master cylinder. I also needed to pull the emergency brake lines so they would not interfere with the media blasting and this prompted me to remove not just the emergency brake cables but the shoes and wheel cylinders. All parts are bagged and labeled, and I should point out if you noticed the rear brakes contained all new parts, a bit dirty but new which included the shoes and drums. I’ve not checked the front yet, that will hopefully be tomorrow.
I pulled out my torch and cut the bolts that were welded to the rear bumper brackets. And the rear brackets came off without issue after that.
Tomorrow I plan to remove the front drums to pull the shoes and wheel cylinders and that then pretty much completes the stripping for media blasting.
I next plan to plug numerous holes that were drilled into the floor, at least 8 to 10 holes that are ½ inch in size that I’ve seen and probably 30 small 1/16 inch holes from screws that held the wood floor in. I will be welding and sanding/grinding all of these.
So, there probably won’t be another update until sometime this weekend at the earliest. And in parting tonight I wanted to say there is one surprise to be found in the one picture showing the brake shoes, the question to you all is what to be found in the picture? Scott…
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Well it’s the Tuesday evening the 25-May-2010, and I’ve got pictures, and of course just everyone likes pictures…
Ok, so in my last update I mentioned that I was going after the last of the items down below, this was the rear shocks, brake lines, emergency brake cable and rear bumper brackets. You know how you can be distracted by something not quite as important as what your objective may be and you choose to redirect to that distraction, that’s kind of what happened with me. I kept looking at the interior and wanted to know what was under the wood, and besides the wood did have to come out so it was a productive objective. I thought that this task was only going to be a hour or two at the most, but in the end it turned into a 5 hour effort, screws (way to many screws) kept breaking and where in some crazy locations. But I both prevailed and gave in, as you can see in the picture showing the piece of carpet still attached above the back doors, I get that tomorrow. What I saw after removing the wood and vacuuming the inside out was that it all looks pretty good, again a little surface rust in the rear passenger side corner not unlike the rust shown on the front passenger side floor. Oh, I should also say that the driver’s seatbelts still need to be removed as I just saw that I hadn’t pulled them looking at the pictures I was going to post, another task for tomorrow.
I managed to also get the gas tank out since my last post, not too much trouble over all. I got 2 ½ gallons of clean gas out of it. The gas will cover the lawn mowing for most of the summer, that was a mini bonus.
I also removed all the rear wiring, it was a long run, it ran from the passenger rear brake/stop light down under the van and across the back valance up to the driver side rear brake/stop, through the filler neck cover into the main interior and up to the chase just on the inside of the drip rail and then ran to the front driver side A pillar. All connections are also labeled.
And in closing this update, I’m not sure that you can see the nose in a previous picture showing the portion that was pushed in but now you should clearly notice that it is looking almost normal. The neighbor who is the body guy by trade I think is getting attached to my project, not really a bad thing, and thinks that he should be able to get most all the rest of the dimples out of it this weekend.
So, that brings us up to date. Tomorrow is another day and still lots to do before it goes to be media blasted. Scott…
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I'm rebuilding a 318 Dodge engine for the van that I am redoing and received the engine back from the machine shop. I'd been busy working on getting the body ready to go to the media blaster and while it is gone I will be putting the engine back together. I just had a bit closer look at the engine and noticed that the alignment of the cam bearings oil holes appear to be, in my opinion, obstructed. I've attached a picture of the five bearings front to back, does this look to be an issue? The machine shop states that as long as there is .0050 clearance that all is good. Thoughts? Opinions? Any and all feedback is appreciated. Scott...
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Well it’s another Sunday, 23May2010, and although it may not appear as much of an update through pictures I have made progress on both the van and a bit of organization within my workspace.
As far as the van goes, I had three problems remaining with dismantling the parts from the front. One was the driver side bumper bracket, with a stubborn bolt that did not want to come out. Well, the thought was that it was the nut/plate in the frame rail was broken from the spot weld and it was spinning. As it turned out, which the pictures show, the nut was still fastened/welded to the inside of the frame rail. A little bit of analysis after opening and getting a chance to view it leads me to believe that the rear bumper bracket bolt was already tightened up before the front was attempted to be put in. When they tried to put the front in the bracket was a bit off from the hole in the frame rail and the bolt used the out of alignment as a thread and allowed the bolt to go in and push the top of the nut away from the inside of the frame rail before the end of the bolt threading into the nut at an angle and jamming. It took a lot originally on my part to work it loose and when it did it spun making one believe that the inside nut came loose. A bit of persuasion from the inside and mutually on the outside finally helped to extract the bolt. I still need to pull the nut up tight to the frame rail, but I need to get a half inch grade 8 bolt and some washers that I will pass through the nut and torque the half inch with the washers down to pull it up tight again. I also need to tap/chase the existing nut out to clean up the threads and get a new bolt. I’ll get this done this up coming week and the then weld the frame rail back up.
The second item that still needed to be removed was the driver door hinges. The driver door was the only door where I had broke bolts while removing for media blasting. After breaking several drills and trying easy-outs/bolt extractors the only solution was to completely drill the bolts out. The hinges have been set aside and the holes that were drilled out will need to be addressed. I do have the hinges on the extra set of doors that I have if needed.
The third item was the infamous shock/sway bar link bolt through the axle. I’ve now tried liquid wrench, WD40 and now PB Blaster with little success. Maybe it is also that fact that I’ve not had a of room to swing a small sledge hammer to tap it back and forth, just the room to turn it with a breaker bar which I can still only move it about one eighth of an inch. When I pull the van out on the drive I will be able to get a proper swing, which may just be happening as soon as tomorrow.
And finally, as I have 4 cars in my garage and lots and lots of parts I was in the position of needing to reorganize as I had a lot of parts in the back of the van that needed to find a new home. Well I spent a good day and a half sorting through things and figuring out where things needed to be. That’s now accomplished and the back of the van is now empty and I still had not interfered with any of my precious floor space. That’s about it for now, I’ll get another proper update posted in another 2 – 3 days. Scott…
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I too feel your friend Greg’s pain and frustration. In the engine that I am redoing I am being extra careful but it’s still in the back of my mind but I won’t know until it is all done and running. The cam instructions that came with my cam do specify a break in period saying that you should not start and stop the engine when it has initially been started, specifically saying do not attempt to start the engine unless you are prepared to allow the engine to run at least 30-40 minutes between 2,000 and 2,500 rpm. Another thing that I am only slightly concerned with is that I too opted to have my engine shot peen and am hoping that all my cleaning efforts have chased out any errant peen bits and there is nothing hidden away that will destroy my hard efforts.
I’ll be watching for what the diagnosis is as I continue to learn from everyone’s skills and experiences. I’ll be rooting for Greg the second time around. <O:p</O:pScott…
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Dan,
Thanks for the consideration, I sent you a PM.
As far as current activities, as it turned out I’ve gotten sidetracked between rain and getting a few other things done around the house this week and will be back on the van in this weekend. My plans are to get the van body to the media blaster the end of next week or just after Memorial Day, I'll pick up the doors then too. The reason for the end of the week delay is that there are a couple small things I would like to get sorted out on the body before it gets blasted. Scott…
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I was being sted fast patience for you to have the time to post proper pictures, not to say that the couple pictures taken in the evening weren't a good begining. To say that it is beautiful is an understatement, it's simply gorgeous. To have the eye, patience and the skill to turn a bit of metal bits into this things that looks oh so ready to motor down the road is just amazing. Just a great job and a great finish. I hope that all goes well on your trip...
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I'm attaching pictures of the cam bearings that had been recently installed in a 318 that I am rebuilding. Does anyone here see anything wrong with these? Any and all feedback is appreicated. Thanks, Scott...
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The other 6 pictures mentioned above.
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Well its Sunday, 16-May-2010, and although I’ve not posted for a bit I’ve been busy. I’ve now got most everything removed from the front of the van. Well there still is the one bumper bracket as there is a problem with one of the bolts. It turns out that the bolt was put in at an angle, in my opinion this happened from the factory. And then there was the driver side shock/sway bar like bolt that runs through the axe, that’s another issue, this bolt is suppose to slide out of the axle but it has enough rust that it didn’t want to move. Not wanting to burn the bolt out, I worked with it for a couple hours and finally managed to move it about 1/16<SUP>th</SUP> of an inch, I checked it again this afternoon and had it moving 1/8<SUP>th</SUP> of an inch so I’m going to just continue to soak it in WD40 and working it because that’s how I am.
I’ve removed the front brake lines and shocks, the engine mount supports and the exhaust manifolds before removing the exhaust pipes/mufflers. I also removed the rear bumper, so no picture, and would have taken the rear bumper brackets off but the last person to put the exhaust on welded a bolt (actually the bolt head) on the bumper brackets and they will have to be cut off before te brackets will slide out the openings.
So, what’s left to remove? I’ve still got the rear brake lines and the master cylinder (it has two bolts holding it on), the gas tank and lines, the rear shocks, rear lights and the rest of the rear wiring harness. Oh, the rear windows still have to be removed too.
I have to get the van outside of the garage before any cutting occurs as I will not work with any chance of fire occurring in the garage. When the gas tank and lines are out I’ll then deal with the rear bumper brackets. And as far as the one front bumper bracket is concerned, I was mentioning to my neighbor how the bolt was in at an angle and when trying to remove it the plate/nut inside the frame rail broke loose and started to spin hence the bolt will not come out that way. He came over and had a look and offered to bring some tools home from work and will cut a slot in the bottom of the frame rail to hold the plate/nut so the bolt can be removed and then he’ll weld a new plate/nut in place, cut a piece of metal and patch/weld the bottom back up. He said when he was through you would hardly see it if you were under the van. Oh, I should mention that he’s been a body guy for 35 years. He didn’t have to ask me twice if I want him to do it.
I taken numerous pictures of which I decided to post 16 and as there is a limit of 10 per post the other 6 are in the next post. You’ll note that I took a couple pictures of my manifolds; this was just to show you that the passenger side had a ’76 vintage date coded manifold while the driver side had the correct ’68 year. That’s all for this post. I’ll be posting again in a couple days. Scott…
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Well, today Wednesday 12-May-2010, I managed to get out to work on the van again. The first order of business was to get some tires on the van again so I collected the wheels and made a trip to the tire store. I was told that it would be several hours and they would call when they were ready.
Came home and after a quick lunch went out to the garage and managed to get some things organized some until they called saying the wheels/tires were ready to be picked up. At the store the normal clerk I had been dealing with was out and when the other sales person gave me the price I was caught by surprise as it was $50 more than planned. He noticed and asked if there was a problem, I said yes and asked what price the tires were, he told me and I noted that the price was quite a bit more than what I saw on their web site last night. He called and found out the price did go up last night but did honor the lower price. All turned out good from a pricing standpoint but I also learned that the two wheels that I cleaned up and painted were bent and they couldn’t balance them. Not a complete loss as I had only paid $20 for them, I’ll do some checking to see if they can be trued if not I will replace the two but for now to roll with they will do. It is kind of disappointing though.
Back home the first thing I did was to take some time to mount the wheels on the van. This was followed by finishing the removal of the driveshaft as I left it attached to the axle when I pulled the engine and transmission. Checking it out in the light I see that I have some cleaning to do before it goes back in, there is plenty of surface rust, as is shown in the picture.
I went back to removing the wiring, there were still the engine harness and connections that needed to be labeled and dissembled before I could route the wire harness back up through the hole in the floor to the interior. One thing that I learned was that the engine harness is very brittle in several places and the wire covering cracked just moving the wire. I’ll do some homework to see what the availability of wiring is. The main harness is for the most part uncut which is amazing, there are two spots that were spliced into that will need to be addressed. There is one wire that was cut and I saw that the neutral switch on the gearshift was not hooked up and there was no sight of the connector/wire within the main harness, so this too will have to be researched more.
I managed too to pull the transmission gearshift and cable out without issue. At the same time I removed the gas pedal which is in reasonable condition but it does have a thin crack were it flexes at the base. I had also removed the vent door on the driver side and noted that it was screwed to the opening, it was missing the hinge on the left side and the rod going across the top of the door, there was a screw to act as a rod on the one side to hold it in place. Removing the letters spelling DODGE from the front of the van I managed to break the bottom pin off the first “D”, bummer.
And finally I had taken some pictures of the worst rust again; as I mentioned the inside passenger floor is solid but has a good amount of surface rust going and the step is rather light surface rust. I did also manage to take a picture of the passenger side behind the front wheel to show the rust bubbles; I’ve no idea how bad it is but it is the only type of spot like this on the van. We’ll see how it looks after it is media blasted. Same picture shows one of the tires I just picked up; again they are probably not going to be the permanent tires my brother thought that they would look cool and they really were rather cheap.
So, tomorrow it is suppose to rain all day again so there will not be any work on the van. Friday is it clears early enough I will be removing the steering column, brake pedal and whatever else I can pull on the front. Scott…
Reviving a 69 Dodge Sportsman Van
in Our Cars & Restoration Projects
Posted
The continuation of the doors. The side cargo doors when viewing them in general look rather nice with little to no work required.
The side cargo front (right) door, a little rust and the stress cracks.
The side cargo rear (left) door, again a bit of rust and stress cracks.
The rear cargo doors. One of which is the worst of the lot, and one is the best of the lot, but again not so much when viewing them on the surface. The good news? Neither have stress cracks.
The rear cargo passenger side door. This is the best of all cargo doors.
The rear cargo driver side door. This door is the worst of all cargo doors and best canidate to be replaced.
So, that's the new knowledge that I have on the doors. I can only hope that there are no reveals like this when the body is media blasted. I will give it a bit of effort to search for at least one and maybe up to three doors. We'll see. I've only got this week to get some things done on this before taking a week (up to two weeks) off to do a complete redo of my sisters bathroom which will begin this coming Sunday. I'll post another update later this week. Scott...