My Old Van: 1987 Econoline E-150, or "Scope creep is my friend"

In reply to NOHOME :

thanks! The jeep has been progressing, once it's done (I'm guessing this weekend) I'll update the thread.  Went through many stages of metal, assembly, had it working and everything.  Got some videos of my daughter driving it in bare steel running into my bushes! Then it was disassembly, body filler, (you know how that is I'm sure ) and finally paint.  Had some paint issues, gonna be sorted out this weekend.  Then assembling with detail parts that I designed and 3d printed.  Pretty excited for the finish.

In reply to fasted58 :

Endless coupon supply 

In reply to Ian F :

I already have drivetrain path figured out.  I got a 1990's F250 with a 351 and a zf 5 speed tranny, gonna swap it into the van after body work is done.  Until then I'm going to daily the truck. I plan to dive in and do some crazy build with it after the crazy amount of body work.  The truck 351 from what I hear isn't taller than the truck 302 because of a flatter dished intake manifold which flows worse but makes it fit in the same space.  Probably gonna melt all of that and make something else.  Gonna melt the AOD tranny from the van, too, as it isnt working too well.  Of course at the end I'll have a roller truck to part out/scrap and a perfectly fine 302.  No idea what I'm going to do with that...  I'll worry about it after the van is done.  That's what I'll do.

Time for an update here.  Took an unplanned absence from the forum here for literally no good reason, just got busy I guess.  Not much has happened to this van though.  Heres where I'm at right now.

Drivers floor, previously swiss cheese and tetanus, is done and painted with Eastwood rust stuff.  It has since become a shelf for lots of crap.

Heres the underside of the floor. You can see some of my patching.  No holes, not pretty, but solid and coated in stuff.  After using some filler on the jeep, I am more motivated than ever to do perfect sheet metal repairs.  More hidden patches ahead so I'll have time to practice before any visible spots.  I'm happy with that though.  Speaking of hidden patches, heres under the drivers side:

More steel removed, cleaned, painted.  Silimar look farther back, buy there's a jeep in the way.  If you zoom out, you'll see even more stuff in the way

That future table top there is SUPER heavy and my back threatens to go on strike at the very thought of moving it again. But it'll move eventually by the power of ibuprofen...

A bit of the outer sill was also cut out, dont know if I showed that. But heres some 

That bit was cut out to gain access to a spot underneath, but it was also pretty gross looking.  Towards the dark spot to the right you can see more of the outer sill cut out.  More cutting out will be required, after I make some space around it.

I probably wont be hammer on with this speedily, but I'm resolving to do SOMETHING on it every week.  A little bit a week minimum will add up.  If I have more time, I'll do more. But I won't do nothing.  How do you stay motivated? I could use some tips.

Not much accomplished but I did clear up space underneath and get some more pictures.  Now I can access most of the inner sill, just not all the way to the rear wheel 

Didnt realize I had a stump, jug of mtn dew/antifreeze, and a muffler under here.

Anyways here a shot through the now missing inner sill

Theres what I was working on last time I was under here.  Kept digging and finding more rust.  That's the underside of the floor behind the drivers door.  Got the rust off, coated in stuff, then I must have stopped.  This is about the halfway point on the drivers side of the body.  From the middle to the back nothing has been done, from the middle forward there is no rust, having been removed, only about half of what was removed has been filled back in with steel.  I'll have some work to do when I get to the back...

Looks like I was in there cutting some stuff away at some point.  Maybe a bit of exploratory grinding.  That's in the salt splash zone so I'm expecting bad things.  I'm going to fill the front back up with steel first though.

I have always stayed motivated by keeping this hobby to a series of small wins. If I go into the shop, I like to know what I am doing that day, know how I am going to do it, and stop when I am done.

Some days, that might be as trivial as "How will I get something apart" or even just getting a bit cleaned up for future use. Don't matter as long as I can call it a win. 

Pete

That sounds like a good strategy.  Minor wins, small bits add up over time.  I have plenty of time in the garage but I have too many projects working in tandem.  I'll have to finish a couple of them and not replace them with more projects!

I got some more pictures of the future issues to tackle:

That's the exact spot where I stopped.  Pretty sure if I look through the left side of that hole, I'll find more rust.  

Trans support brace literally dripping with trans fluid, this is despite sitting for a few years.  I suspect this is an issue i can ignore, as a new (used) engine/trans is still sitting in truck in my driveway, and will remain there until I get to that part of this project.  A long time in the future.  I find having a pickup is extremely useful in the meantime, it's the perfect mulch/soil hauling machine.

Wonder what kind of rot I'll find in there...

Quick question:

Ignoring the missing metal, that brace still has multiple gaps between panels.  I dont mean the drain holes, I mean a little above dead center of the photo.  Lots of gaps like that all over under this thing.  Do I want to leave those? Fill them with seam sealer?  Theres a drain, sure, but if I can prevent crap from spraying up in there I might try.  I doubt they were designed in for a specific reason (again other than the drain holes which I wont plug, obviously) More as a side effect of slapping the panels together as cheaply as possible.

Ok a month ago I set a goal for myself to do SOMETHING to this every week.  While I havent done exactly that, I have done something in the spirit of that every week.  Kinda.  

Garage door spring broke, and I had to move the van forward to fix it.  That means all 4 wheels back on and on the ground.  That also meant cleaning up underneath the van.  I have since not cluttered it back up with crap.  There is access now.

I then decided my sheet metal tools would be a lot easier to use if they weren't in a pile on the ground, so I made a stand for the bead roller.

I need to triangulate some stuff and add a place to put the dies on the stand, but it's there and its standing upright, not sitting on a bag of sand like it was previously.

Then I addressed the english wheel that was getting in the way of my workbench.

That needs a place to put the other lower wheels I have, but is otherwise stable.  Next up the pan brake that is currently against the wall in front of the van, then a shrinker/stretcher stand.  

I making the tools accessible and useable at a moments notice will hopefully push this van along faster.  The hassle to use these things definitely demotivated me.  Seeing the improvements to the garage, OTOH, is very mitigating.  Also the welding practice is nice.  

Some cleanup in the garage is also ongoing, obviously, but I'm running out of excuses not to start welding in some new panels, and the motivation is building every week.  I mean look at that english wheel.  That thing looks cool.  I want to build more cool stuff now.