Reviving a 69 Dodge Sportsman Van

[Landman]

Nice job Scott. Were you a bodyman in a former life?

Edited July 27, 2012 by Landman
Spelling, as usual (see edit history)

[Scotts_DG8]

Mooky and Pat, thank's for the comments on the body work. I have to tell you that I would never make money at it in a body shop, the amount of time that I put into a single area would in some cases cover most all the work on the outside of the van in a real shop. I am one of those people that have a mind set that anyone can do what I do, hence I can do anything that anyone else can do. It only take some research into the task, coming up with a plan and then proceed slowly until you grow your confidence/skills. In the end I am also working the dollars more so than the time. By the way, my first body work effort was replacing a rear quarter panel on a 64 MGB I had back when I was maybe 18, it turned out real nice as a first attempt. Again it's been research, planning, time, patiences and the desire to get it done is what has worked for me. I'm heading out now to pull the van out now so I'm going to get this Saturday morning July 28th started now. Again, thanks for the comments. Scott...

[Scotts_DG8]

Update as of Saturday evening, August 4th. Well this is going to be a bit slow on the updates as filler work has been going on since the last update. This is, as some may know, is a process that tends to repeat it self, put filler on body and sand it off and repeat until all is to one's satisifaction. I originally had every intention of doing my own filler work but my neighbor has in a sense made it his mission to do this work. This is his day job and as much as my pride may be sore a tad his skill and speed sure help me put that old bit of pride aside pretty quick.

And don't think for a minute that as my neighbor is doing the filler work I'm over in the lawn chair watching. I've been working at finishing off the little odds and ends inside the van. I'm wrapping up the welding/filling the screw holes mentioned quite a few posts back and on the side have been refitting the fuel filler neck cover back into it's original location. I'll take a couple pictures of this for my next update.

The following pictures were taken yesterday. Although it would look pretty much the same by late this afternoon several spots have moved into a finish glaze coat that will be hand sanded to finish. After all filler areas have been finished I will shoot some epoxy primer to seal the work up. At the current rate the body, less doors, should be ready for high build primer by the end of this up cominng week.

That pretty much sums up where things are. As I continue to make progress I'll be back with additional updates. As always, stay tuned. Scott...

[keiser31]

Til you said this,

"And don't think for a minute that as my neighbor is doing the filler work I'm over in the lawn chair watching. I've been working at finishing off the little odds and ends inside the van. I'm wrapping up the welding/filling the screw holes mentioned quite a few posts back and on the side have been refitting the fuel filler neck cover back into it's original location. I'll take a couple pictures of this for my next update",

I thought you were sitting back sipping on an ice cold Vernors getting a tan.

[Scotts_DG8]

Update Thursday morning, August 16th. The thing about body work and filler work is that it is a slow process, especially if you are working around wet weather and the body experts availability. The following are a few updated pictures as of last night. You can see that there is not much to see other than a change in the color of the filler, but that is a good thing. The blue colored filler is the glaze coat that is final layer of filler that gets applied. After the glaze coat is finished, outside and the spots inside, the next step will be an epoxy primer coat before the high build primer.

For those that have been following the whole thread/post you may recall my mentioning the numerous screw holes on the inside of the van that needed, in my opinion, to be fill welded and ground down on the floor, walls and ceiling. I'd finally completed that task and have now also applied a coat of filler, of which most will be sanded off, that will finish off this job. The following pictures give you some idea of how many screw holes there were, and three quarters of the the spots shown has two to three holes below the filler that were welded and ground down before the filler stage. If you happen to look at these pictures closely you might notice under the rear windows some sanding had been started, this was the area the was heat shrunk and pictured in an earlier post. Well just after taking these two pictures I finished sanding these areas with a 36 grit and they now both have a coat of filler on them. They will show up in a future update.

One final picture of my neighbor, also known as the body expert, who had stopped over last night to get some work done. I more than appreicate his time and effort. He is currently working on the spot that I had just taken a picture of that you saw earlier in this update. This spot now also has a glaze coat on it. Also when all was said and done last night the lower rocker you see below where he is currently working, along with the opposite side now have what should be the final glaze coat applied.

So, where are things now standing? The outside of the body is close to being completed, there are a few small dents in the roof that will get addressed next by myself (this weekend) to prep the metal and the neighbor (this weekend?) for the filler work. The doors I will be into next week, there is a little rust repair to do and some stress cracks on a couple doors hinge areas that will need to be welded. Although the updates are not posted quite a often as I would like, progress is being made. For those interested and following along, stay tuned for the next update. Scott...

[Durant Mike]

Love these vans, I learned to drive in a Ford Econoline van. Had a lot of fun in that thing and the were good work trucks too.

[keiser31]

Boy, that van is gonna look GREAT, Scott. Keep up the good work. Mmmmm....tan metallic or green???

[Scotts_DG8]

This is Monday morning Aug. 27th. I'm sure there are numerous persons out there wondering what's been happening since my last update. Again after you all review the attached photos you may feel that not much has happened. Let me just say two words, "hand sanding". So let's have a look at the progress.

The front of the van is done and is ready to cover the work with a coat of epoxy primer. The nose was a stinker to get the right contour as there is a slight center high point/ridge under the "D", but as you see all is looking good now.

The driver's side is done. If you look closely you'll notice that there is a bit more filler showing then there was in prevoiusly posted photo's. This was both a bit above the rear wheel opening and then again behind it. Not sure how it was missed but it all looks great now.

The passenger side is done, well basically done. The one spot at the roof just between the door openings still has a little something going on there that needs to be addressed. It's not something that shows up in a photo, nor really visually standing in front of it, but you can feel that there is something just not quite right there yet. The problem is that there are some reverse quarter rounds that fade to flat at the top near the roof. A bit more work is needed.

The back is done. Again if you look at previous photo's you'll notice a little more filler at the bottom right corner, again a slight high/low area was felt while finish sanding the corner. All is good now.

Wait a minute, this is a new photo. I knew that there was a couple dings in the roof, specifically the two on either side above the doors and a dinge you could see from the back. Well upon further review I notice quite a few dings and a chain of them on the back. These are on their second coat of filler and with luck should be completed this week.

That's where things stand. The complete outside of the van will be completed and getting a coat of epoxy primer later this week, this will get detailed in a future update. You may have noticed that there are no pictures of the inside of the van, although you can see a bit of the inside in the photo's posted here and there. The majority of the spots that were welded and filled have been sanded down and are ready for a glaze coat before finishing them off with hand sanding. While checking out the photo of the back you can see a long strip of filler under the rear window, there is another under the other side too. The skim coat of filler was needed to cover the heat shrink marks that were left while addressing the poor previous body work under the windows shown in an earlier post. Did I mention that there is a lot of hand sanding involved here? I guess you could say that I'm basically doing enough body work for two cars in one here. Most cars are simple as you are just doing the visible outer surface and as the van does not have panels to cover the inside I just felt the need to finish off all the exposed visual areas inside too, which is basically ever surface. Oh, then there are the doors that need to be address. Stay tuned as there is still many updates to come. Scott...

[unimogjohn]

Scott, great job! Have you decided on a final color yet?

[Scotts_DG8]

Scott, great job! Have you decided on a final color yet?

Thank's John. Regarding the final color choice, I'm think that I've pretty much made up my mind but will probably get a sample of both of my initial choices and spray the face of a couple spare doors to make a true final decision. I'll post some photos when I get to that point which should with some luck be sooner than later. I can tell you that I did make the decision to do a base coat/clear coat paint and everything that is being used is PPG products.

I guess for those that might not be happy with that vague of an answer I guess I should say that I limited my choices to those listed/shown on a '69 factory sales brochure I have and the two colors that I narrowed it down to were; Tan Metallic and Medium Green Metallic. Both of these colors are actually a poly paint, which is the small silver dusty type metal flake. Which ever color choice it is it would be applied as a two-tone with the belt-line being White which was quite common for these Dodge A100's. Today was a rain day here so I'll be back at it tomorrow. Scott...

[MikeC5]

Hand sanding and a lot of surface area! It will be worth it Scott.

[Guest Kingoftheroad]

Van looks GREAT !!

Looks like your making huge progress, can't wait to see it finished !!

Love those old vans with the flat front ends..

[Scotts_DG8]

Thank's for the comments guys. As much as I would like to believe that the hand sanding is coming close to being done, the truth is that I've only just begun. I'm not sure that I mentioned it or not but the epoxy primer that was sprayed after it was blasted had a lot of dust/dirt throughout so the entire body will get sanded to ensure that it is a clean smooth surface before everything gets a fresh epoxy primer base coat. With that being said, I'm feeling pretty comfortable saying I may complain some here and there about the hand sanding while I'm doing what needs to be done.

As far as the flat nose vans go I've had a desire to have one for years and it has always been the Dodge. I've seen some really nice looking Ford and Chevy vans out there but prefer the curves instead of the flat sides. I guess it also has something to do with when I grew up and what I grew up around. Scott...

[Guest lmpetersen]

Scott, just wanted to let you know that I am following this thread. I found it today whilst searching for a100 resources (which as you know are HARD to come by!). I live in Oregon and I just purchased a 1969 a100 all window van that I am excited to get started on. Mine is a 225 slant six manual which I like, for simplicity and reliability. I too have been wanting one for years, mainly to haul my vintage motorcycles around in but also for camping and cruising in. Keep up the work, it's an inspiration!

[Scotts_DG8]

Welcome to the AACA forums and I'm glad that you're enjoying the ride through my project. I will say that I too searched for forums covering these old van and I don't know if you have checked it out yet or not but there is a forum out there called vintage-van that you may have come across in your search, I do visit it every now and then. My choice though to post my project here was because I tend to be an original from the factory sort of person and also a member of the AACA, it's a great group of people here.

The last time I drove one of these vans was back in '73 when I had a job building and installing cabinets, it was a '67 A100 panel van. So with that being said I have no first hand experience with driving this van as it didn't run when I got it but at the same time am really looking forward to it. Oh, and the van I drove also had the 225 six and three speed manual but ran real well hauling a full load of cabinets and tools without issue. That 255 six van back in '73 had 145,000 miles on it and had never been rebuilt and still ran great. I'd thought several times that it would be good to have a 255 slant six as opposed to the 318 especially from a mileage standpoint but the van came with the 318 and I'll stick with it for now.

As far as my project goes it will be a while yet before this one is completed so obviously there will be many more updates to come. By the way while checking out my update(s) you also might want to check out the other sections/forums here on the AACA site when you stop by as there are a lot of great posts by many other owners/members on their cars/projects, maybe some or all of it will catch your interest enough to decide to join the AACA, although that's not required to enjoy these great forums. Again, I wish you luck with your van and hope that you enjoy it and that you stick around for future updates. Scott...

[keiser31]

Scott, just wanted to let you know that I am following this thread. I found it today whilst searching for a100 resources (which as you know are HARD to come by!). I live in Oregon and I just purchased a 1969 a100 all window van that I am excited to get started on. Mine is a 225 slant six manual which I like, for simplicity and reliability. I too have been wanting one for years, mainly to haul my vintage motorcycles around in but also for camping and cruising in. Keep up the work, it's an inspiration!

Where in Oregon are you located? Need parts for that van? John

[Guest lmpetersen]

Hey John, I am in Redmond Oregon (near Bend), and YES I will be needing parts. Just got it home today, drove it 20 miles and no issues except that it started to stutter a bit going 60mph up a hill in 3rd gear. I think it was flooding a bit because when I let off the gas it was fine. I included a photo of it so you can see the condition. With the van, I got two nice side doors, and two rear doors with pop out windows. The bumpers are removed, and I think eventually I will want some chrome ones. The interior is spartan at best, the only seats are front buckets and they need new upholstery. The dash is good, and I have a new passenger crash-pad. All in all, I think I did pretty good. I paid $1000

for a running a-100 with all of those parts....

[Scotts_DG8]

Friday morning, September 7th. It's time for an update and some pictures as I'm sure you all are wondering what's taking so long between posts. Two real reasons, weather and still more body work. We've had some real good and much needed rain pass through and the lingering humidity has not helped the exposed metal. Also I'm still finding other little things that need to be addressed before primer can get appled, more on that issue a bit later.

First up is a picture taken just Wednesday afternoon. As all the body work was completed on the outside the next step was to prep the outside to the primer. As I got down to hand sanding the area around the front driver's wheel opening I came across severl suttle dings that where hidden from by the dirty gray primer and once it was sanded smooth became obvious and had to be dealt with. The reason the van is pictured not fully outside the garage was due to a quick shower which really was just a sprinkle that past through, although it looked like it could pour buckets any minute. I was crawling around inside the van using the paper and tape to continue to prep for spraying the drivers side. It seems that every time I touch this van it shows me something more that needs to be addressed before moving on to primer.

Moving on to yesterday, the weather worked with me and I managed to pull the van out and had every intension of making the best of it. Frist look at the following couple pictures one would think that all went smooth, not quite what happened. If you were to look back as the driver side shot saying all the body work was done and checked this out out you would notice numerous additional spots. As I ran my DA with the 180 grit over the rest of the old primer below the windows I uncovered pits in the metal from surface rust that was trying to start under the original paint that was stripped. I also uncovered a couple more dings around the tail light. These all had to be filled with the glaze and sanded before any primer could be applied.

Bottom line, by late yesterday I managed to finally get the driver side in a new coat of epoxy primer. It was a task for sure but in the end I'm very happy with the outcome. I took several pictures trying to show how nice it came out but it's hard to shot a picture of a white surface. Mike came over and checked it out and thought it looked great, oh, not an insect either.

The next task will be to move across the back and up the passenger side to the front and get that into primer. With some luck I may even get the remainder of the outside sides sprayed in one shot before shooting the roof. I'm hoping no more hidden blemishes appear but will address as needed. With the weather forecast and my speed the worst case would be that the outside should be in its new coat of epoxy primer by the end of the day Tuesday. Did I mention that this is September? My current revised goal is to get the van painted this year. After seeing how well the outside turned out I'm tempted to re-shoot the inside, we'll see. That's it for this update, today is running to the store and cutting the lawn before any work on the van. Also, there is rain forecasted for this afternoon and continue on into tomorrow as passing showers.

BTW, Impetersen, you've got a good base there and for a good price in my opinion. I'm no where the expert on these but have learned a lot so far. There are some parts that are hard to come by for sure but I find that there are more of these out on the west coast, like many other older cars, so you should not have as hard of a time coming across some good used parts. Good luck with your new ride.

Scott...

Edited September 7, 2012 by Scotts_DG8
Fixed lost picture links... (see edit history)

[MikeC5]

That is truly smokin' Scott! It looks like the proverbial new body in white..

[Scotts_DG8]

That is truly smokin' Scott! It looks like the proverbial new body in white..

Thank's Mike. I too have gone out and looked at the van and then the photos and am very happy with how it turned out.

The one thing that I'm not real happy with is the weather and the fact that it's already September. I will be taking my Dart GTS over to my one of my brothers soon for a while so there will be room in the garage but until then if I want to get any real work done currently I have to pull the van out into the drive in front of the garage, hence rain does slow the progress. It rained pretty good here last night and is still wet outside but looks to be drying out so I just may get out there today too. I'm going to work at picking up the pace as there is still a good amount of work to do before the final paint can be shot. Oh, and the reason for the white epoxy is that I will be spraying a grey high build primer over the top and having the white base will help when sanding down the high build primer, if for some reason you get crazy on the sanding you'll know when to stop before going through the base primer coat.

Lots more to do so there will be plenty more updates to come. Scott...

[Scotts_DG8]

Sunday evening, September 16th. This has been a busy week but a productive one too. I managed to get the roof, the back and passenger side in a fresh epoxy primer coat. I did continue to find everything from missed dents/dings to small surface pits as I used the 180 grit to sand/prep the old dirty primer coat for the new primer coat. The good news is that the front is the only thing left to do. This time I skipped posting pictures showing the filler as they didn't change much from those posted earlier, nor did I include ones showing it masked/taped up before shooting the primer coat. So with all that said on to some pictures.

I decided to set the doors in place to make believe that I'm making some progress. I liked the look having the doors on. The two front doors were too much work to set in place which is why they are not shown.

The vent on the nose of the van needs some media blasting to clean the paint/rust off before the nose gets a new coat of primer. I've got the presure post blaster back from the friend I'd borrowed it from, with luck it should get done in the next day or so.

Altough you can see in the above pictures that the roof now has a nice new clean epoxy primer coat I took a couple more pictures to give a better view.

So, that's where things stand as of this evening. I can only hope that the week coming up is as productive as the last was. The weather here though is changing and the temp is heading down. Today it was in the upper 70's and tomorrow will be the same but after that the next 7 days will see the high's drop down to the low 60's and the nights will be in the upper 40's to low 50's. Oh, did I mention that there is going to be several days with showers, that's going to put a dent on pulling the van out to work on. So, until the next update enjoy the pictures and visualize a completed van. It'll get there, stay tuned. Scott...

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Looking GOOD, Scott!!

Ben

[keiser31]

NICE!!

[Scotts_DG8]

Tuesday evening, September 25. Not sure if I mentioned this in the past on this thread, if so please humor me some. I work out of my three car garage and I've 4 cars stored there so most all of this work is happening outside the garage. That being said, those of you that work outside realize quickly that you are at the mercy of the weather, especially painting. Just over a week ago here in Michigan we had a taste of fall that stuck around for a while. Between cool weather in the 50's and either rain/showers and wind it puts a crimp in making progress. Another drawback of my work location is that the sun has already dropped to the south enough that the neighbors trees are now creating shade over most of my work area for a good part of the day, it gets sun in the morning and there is a break in the trees and I'll get some more sun in the afternoon for a bit. It's worse if it does rain as it may be dry in the front of the house 2 or 3 hours later but will not dry out in the back for up to 8 hours. With all that being said I finally managed to get the epoxy primer on nose of the van today. Now the exterior body work and exposed metal from prep sanding is sealed from moisture. The pictures shows how things turned out.

I've updated my objectives for this year as winter is not all that far around the bend. As the weather is not predictable I thought that I would drop the line item from the plan that was to have it in final paint this year and insert a line item to ensure the body work on the van inside and out is sealed up from the elements, especially moisture. So, the next task on my list of thing to do will be to finish off the doors before moving inside the van to finish it off. I'm thinking, fingers crossed, that I can get the doors done in about a week weather permitting. So, the next update will be telling as to how my revised plan will work out. Until the next update then, Scott...

[Landman]

Scott, are you painting outside? No wind, bug or dust issues? I suppose they are not as critical with primer. It will all get sanded.

[Scotts_DG8]

Scott, are you painting outside? No wind, bug or dust issues? I suppose they are not as critical with primer. It will all get sanded.

Pat, I'm happy that your interested enough to follow along. The answer is yes, in the case of the primer I am painting outside using an HVLP gun at 10 PSI at the gun with a 1.3 tip shooting a PPG Shop Line Epoxy Primer. I looked at using the DP primer and after talking it over with the PPG guys learned that a lot of body shops were switching over to the Shop Line product as it performed well with good coverage and much better cost. I did mention that wind was a factor in making progress as I will not spray with any kind of wind, a slight breeze now and then I can handle. No over spray on the drive or paint dust being carried away. Regarding bugs and dust being an issue, the answer is that it is not an issue, for all the painting that you see I had two tiny bugs that landed while it was tacky and they brushed off when the paint was dry to the touch without leaving a mark. If you ran your hand over the painted surface that you see you would be amazed how smooth it is, maybe as much as I am, I joked that you could almost color sand, buff and polish it as is.

When I do the final color/clear coat paint I will paint it in my garage and I will put a "spray booth" together with filters and fan(s). Maybe I've been lucky shooting it with no bugs/dust but after shooting what you see but I will not chance it when doing the color/clear coat. Oh, and when I do get to the point of spraying the color/clear I will be taking one of the cars over to a brothers to provide the inside paint space. In the end, although I am not happy with the progress due to weather delays and new dings and dents that continued to surface I am very happy with the end results. If I knew for sure that it was going to be in the upper 60's to low 70's over the next 4 or 5 weeks I would for sure have it in paint this year but I'm thinking that that is just not going to be in the cards at this time of year. Scott...

[Scotts_DG8]

Sunday morning update, October 7th, 2012. In my last update I noted that the next task was to complete the rust repairs on the 6 doors and it would be rather telling if it could be done in a week. Well two weeks have passed and I've only basically completed two of the 6 doors, obviously not making very much progress but there has been some progress which in the end was good. I decided to start with the worst door of the bunch which was the rear driver's side door. It had a good amount of rust on the bottom of the door and a good sized crack. at a hinge point. I tried to document everything that I did to repair the door so this will fall into a second post to finish. The following is shows how things went.

Looking at the bottom of the door the worst was on the left (lock bolt) side. As the bottom is not flat and has a slight step I could not use a simple longer patch. I ecided to start with the smallest area to build a little more strenght before tackling the larger needed patch. I marked a general area to be removed and then after working out the details removed the area to be patched. I used the good side edge of another rusty door I had and cut out the patch. The lock bolt used to keep the door closed had a little tab that welded to the area removed which I cleaned up and drilled a couple small holes that were plug welded in place of the original spot weld. All in all the patch went real well. The next patch to be made you can see marked just to the right of the patch just finished.

This next patch, other than cutting the slot and drilling the hole was rather straight forward an it too went rather well. What you see behind the holes is a strip of copper that I used as a backing to my welding, it works well.

The next thing to tackle was the crack that needed to be addressed and the remainder of the little rust holes. Sorry, I don't have the after pictures as these pictures were taken the end of one day and the next day that I was outside and could work on it I didn't think to grab the camera. I can assure you that it all went well.

To be continued in part two of this post...

[Scotts_DG8]

Sunday morning update, October 7th, 2012, part 2. First to finish the update on the same rear driver's side back door. This was another day so I did have my camera with me to capture the bottom of the door in metal glaze that was applied after all the welding was done. I also noted that I missed welding the 4 holes that a previous owner added for who knows why, these were quickly fill welded and you can see the copper is being used.

The next door worked was the rear passenger's side door. I started again with the lock bolt area, this was in general a pretty solid area. The lock bolt corner that you see sticking out was split, I had already aligned/squared it up before taking this photo. Everything was welded up and cleaned up nicely.

The opposite bottom corner was a little thin and although I could of put a patch in I decided not to, it was a hard decision. The door in general is not in all that good of shape as there is some heavy pitting you can see on the inside making the metal rather thin and I know that there are rust free ones still out there. I'm for now proceeding with what I have but will keep my eyes open for another one or two for possible replacement before paint.

That's where things ended as of yesterday evening. I still have a small, less that a quarter inch hole to fill weld on the outside of this last door. It was only 48 degrees outside yesterday and will only make 50 today with a chance of showers in the afternoon. If I again get a chance to get out I'll finish the welding of the hole and move on to another. As a side note, I can really see the benefit of having a tig welder vs. mig welder especially after following Flops posts. My work is very much amature compared to his.

To close off this post I thought I'd post a picture I took a couple days after I finished painting the nose with the epoxy primer. It was a nice but very cool day. It makes me wish it was already spring and I was getting ready to paint, oh well. If there are a string of nice days in the 60's at least I plan to get the doors finished off with filler as there some level of body work on dents/dings needed and then get them sealed up with a coat of epoxy primer. Hope that you all have found this update of interest. Until the next update then, Scott...

[Scotts_DG8]

Wednesday evening, Sept. 17th 2012. I've been busy working around either the cold temps or the rain but still have been making progress which is good for this time of year here in Michigan. As I recall it was some weeks back that I noted that if I couldn't finish the work on the doors in a week it would be rather telling as to how much more I would get done this year. The good news is that I have made progress, the bad is that unless there is a week of nice temps I'll be challenged to get the doors done and the work sealed up with the epoxy primer. So, let recap what's been accomplished since my last post.

The following pictures show what was originally a rear door that is now being used as a side door. The rear set of doors that I came across were rust free but were from a 68 van and had the large DODGE letters across the bottom. These needed to be fill welded and was one of the easier tasks tackled latey. A copper backing behind the holes and some quick fill welds followed by some Metal Glaze finished things up quickly. The 4th picture is my original back door that I posted the repairs on in my last update, the only thing missed was there were three small rust holes that I fill welded and again followed with the Metal Galze to finish.

I thought I would show you a few pictures of one of my original side doors. There was just to much rust to make it worth the effort to repair, although it, and the other original side door, would still be used for parts and repair metal pieces as needed.

Now that the emblem/letter holes were filled in the one side door, I had to transfer the window latch recess from the original side door (just shown) to the replacement door. The first picture shows the part of the donor door to removed followed by the replacement door window area that needed to be cut out to accept the window latch recess piece. The next picture shows the piece fitted in place before welding followed by a shot of the piece welded in place and in the proces of being ground down. Final picture shows the completed door with the Metal Glaze. Yes, I have way too much Metal Glaze on the door as it only needed a skim coat at best, I mixed to much and so just slopped it on, and most all of it will end up being sanded off.

And finally as of this evening the weather today was nice enough to get the window latch recess in place on the second replacement side door. This effort was not unlike the door work just discussed above.

I've still got other body work to do on the rear and side doors, small dents/dings. My main objective was to get all the welding work done on the doors and the work covered with the metal glaze. The front doors have cracks at the hing area which was common as the door retaining straps often broke and the door would swing to a stop and creat a stress crack at the hing point. If the weather holds I'll get the front doors done in the next day or two. I'm also still holding out for some good weather, which right now might be next Monday/Tuesday if the long range weather forecast holds true, and I'll get the dents/dings on the doors taken care of and all the doors sealed up with the epoxy priemer.

That's where things stand. One thing that I've learned about myself doing this work is I sure could not make production money doing it. As an example the last three pictures above look rather like a simple task but took me almost 5 hours to accomplish. I sure have a bigger head as to what I can accomplish and how long it will take as opposed to how long it actually ends up taking me. I'm still learning and plugging away at it though. Stay tuned as I'll continue to post updates as long as I can make progress this year. Scott...

Edited October 18, 2012 by Scotts_DG8
Spelling (see edit history)

[keiser31]

Nice progress, Scott.

[Landman]

I agree with Keiser. Neat, clean work. Coming right along.

[Scotts_DG8]

Thanks guys for the postive feedback. I do try hard to do my best with whatever I tackle, hence another reason for the slow progress. I've also learned alot while taking on this project, one of those thing is that at times it can get a bit depressing. For me the depressing moments occur more often when I realize how much time has passed and how much more work(time) is involved to complete some tasks then I originally thought and/or planned for. I never let it get the best of me though. On a positive note I follow along all the other restoration projects going on here and am amazed at the skill levels so many posting here have shown.

So, today it rained until early afternoon and in the fall/spring my driveway doesn't get much sun so it takes quite a bit of time to dry out and I won't pull the van out if the driveway is wet or damp as I do not need the extra humidity to engulf the unfinished body work on the van. There may be showers in the early morning hours so I may not get time in tomorrow either, we'll see. Being from Michigan and not having a heated workspace I know that my work on the van will be coming to a stop soon, I'm just hoping that there are enough nice days left to get the doors done and any exposed metal sealed in a coat of epoxy. That's it for now, those that will be following along stay tuned for another update. Scott...

[MikeC5]

Very nice job on the door Scott. The old door would have been tough to bring back without pre-formed patch panels. Keep at it!

[Scotts_DG8]

This is Monday evening, December 10th, 2012. A lightbulb went on tonight and I realized that I never did a final update of where I was at when I put the project to bed for the winter. This will be a two post update as I've included all the pictures that I'd taken since the last update with photos. So first up, update part #1. I had been trying to complete work on the last two doors, the front driver and passenger doors. I managed to get the rust repairs done on the drivers door and then at least hung it although it is not adjusted yet. I also started work on the passenger front door, this door has a lot more issues and in the end it did not get finished before throwing the towel in for the winter.

I've included plenty of pictures, first up are the pictures on the front drivers door. Sorry but I again missed getting some pictures of the welding work before it was covered with the glaze. The door in general was not in too bad of shape but it was after I mounted it, and had been talking to Keiser31 here on the AACA forum, that I found some additional stress cracks on the top inside of the door that now still need to be addressed. The stress cracks are where the vent window mounts. The cracks will have to wait until next spring.

And then there was the front passenger side door. My memory of the passenger door some how didn't match what I saw when I pulled the door out. There was a lot more rust that I recalled. I really thought that it was pretty much in the same shape the front driver door was in. Again the stress cracks are there on the top inside of the door.

The second post with the rest of the pictures contains the remainder of the update.

[Scotts_DG8]

Monday evening, December 10th, 2012, update part #2. Work on the front passenger door continued.

As I noted in the previous post the front passenger door has some strong rust issues. I'm pretty certain that I could get this door fixed up and as you can see in the photo's below I did start work on the worst area of rust at the bottom of the door. I cut out the area that was rotten and cut up a replacement piece and started to trim it to fit. Before I got carried away I cut a small piece off and trimed it to size to see how things were going to fit together. I really don't have much metal to work with and could end up with a bit of distoration on the outside skin as I work at welding this up. Rain was going to again move in when I stopped work on the door the afternoon that these pictures were taken. I did take some time to have a bit closer look at the door and saw that there is rust that is also growing under the lip around this door.

Where I left off in my thinking on the front door(s). I've pretty much made up my mind that I'll begin looking for a good set of front doors at this point. If I don't come up with a set before spring I'll take the time to at least put this door back together and see how it turns out and in the worst case use it until I come across a set.

That's the last update for this year. I've been busy getting things around the house ready for winter. If I had a heated workspace I'd be out there getting all the small parts cleaned up and painted but that's not the case so it too will have to wait until next spring. Again, thank's to all of you that have followed along and be patient as work will continue in the spring of 2013. Scott...

[unimogjohn]

Scott, great work. Something to see the van coming back to life. See you in the spring. Keep warm this winter.

[Scotts_DG8]

It's late Friday evening the 17th of May 2013 and it's also time to bring this thread back into play. It's shure seemed like it was a longer winter this year and was followed by a cooler spring here in Michigan this year, the good news though was that the weather had finally warmed up a couple weeks back. That being said it was time to pull the van out and get back to work on it.

Sorry but there are no pictures with this update just a quick recap of where things are currently. When I left off in the late Fall 2012 I had just started to look over the rust repairs needed on the passenger front door. Already this spring I managed to finish off the all the rust repairs on the passenger front door and went back and addressed the stress cracks inside the window opening on the drivers door. All doors were test hung and the outside body work on all doors have also been pretty much completed. I've managed to get the gas filler tube cover mostly sorted out and ready to be re-installed. That's what's been accomplished.

Over the next week or two the body work will be finished off on the outside (just the doors need to be finsihed) and the complete inside should also be wrapped up. Following the completion of the body work and a fresh coat of epoxy primer to seal things up it will be time to move on to the hight build primer. The hight build primer will be limited to the outside only. The inside will get only get the fresh coat of epoxy primer and the finish coat of paint will be applied over it, no high build inside.

So that's what's happened already this year and what is planned in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for updates, and pictures because we all like pictures. Scott...

[Bill Stoneberg]

Glad to see your and the project are back.

[Scotts_DG8]

This is late Monday evening the 3rd of June, 2013. I realized that I'd not done a proper update yet this year, a proper update includes pictures of course as everyone doesn't always take the time to read but everyone that reads a thread looks for some graphic representation of a problem, progress and/or results. The problem is that I've not gotten into the groove yet this year to be sure to take the camera outside with me when I head out to work on the van. Today I did though so there is going to be at least a few happy people that browse this thread because they will have something to look at. So, lets get going and talk about what's in the pictures now.

Last year I left off with just begining the work on the front passenger door. There was a rust issue at the bottom of the door and I originally thought I would cut out the least amount and patch it back in. This is what is looked like:

I originally cut out a small amount without pealing back the lip of the door skin and was in the process of making up a small patch:

In hind sight, always a better view, I decided that a proper patch was necessary and that the lip of the door skin neeed to be pealed back. The next couple pictures show the removed area and the patch made up and set in place.

The next set of pictures shows the patch in place but it is lacking the drain holes that should be in the bottom of the door. This is the task that I completed today. You can see that I used a drill and a couple small files to create the drain holes, the only thing different from stock is that the drain openings are just the slightest bit larger and the ends are not rounded off. I didn't own a small round file for the ends and was not going to buy a file just for this task.

Now that the drain holes are done the rest of the door can be sanded and filled/glazed where neccessary. What I don't have pictures of is the rest of the doors, all 4 cargo doors (2 back and 2 side) along with the drivers door have all be completed as far as body work goes. All screw holes have been fill welded and ground down and all have been fill/glazed and sanded. The only thing left is to do a final sanding of the original primer before shooting a new white epoxy primer coat over them, this will happen later this week if all goes well or early next week at the latest. I also had completed some of the inside work on the floor and sanding of the glaze applied over the gazillion screw holes that I'd fill welded last summer.

So that pretty much catches you all up on where things have progressed to up to this point. I'll work at doing better at having the camera present when I head out to work on the van in the future so I'll have something to show that I really am making progress. Until the next update then, Scott...

[keiser31]

SWEET!