Frank Frazetta - H.G. the BarbariVan

[hgs_notes]

Ac ouple years ago I bought a rusty G30 work van with a blown 4.3 engine and pushed it into the back corner of the shed. It was intended to be 4x4 swapped and just be badass.

Last weekend another van came up on market place that was way less rusty and extremely cheap. It's a 1979 G10 and was parked in 1992. Two owners ago was a body guy and he started doing the rust repair but I don't think it was all that bad. He added the large side windows common to the typical conversion vans. If he wanted a conversion van he should have just bought one. They're fairly common and affordable. Anyway, ideally I wanted a shorty without windows but those are unobtainium in my area. It was a runner when he was working on it.

When I looked it over I only found rust holes in a few places and not extensive. The one brown fender and door are originals that haven't been worked on yet and have some rust/damage. I'm pretty sure I have good front doors and a good fender. There's a small rust hole behind the rear bumper and some in the rocker under the slider door. Overall a much better start than my G30.

I offered $400 and it was accepted. I got it home a couple days ago and pulled everything out of the back, vacuumed and got to see what all I got. Only a few dead mummified critters, only a few handfuls of poo, only one large critter nest. I believe the original engine is all intact and not messed with. Casting number is for a 79 350, has a TH350 tranny, AC, cruise, tilt, PB, PS. Should have a 3.07 rear gear. Haven't looked for the SPID yet, I should do that.

After cleaning it out I checked the oil and hooked up a jumper pack. It cranked over so I sprayed some ether down the carb and it does fire. I stopped there. The gas tank has a small leak from the seller moving it with forks on his bobcat under the tank. Which is a shame since the inside of the tank was perfectly clean. I ordered a new tank, sending unit and straps. I'll pick up some fuel line this week and hopefully can get it running next weekend. I don't know if the carb is too dirty to run or not. I don't know if the fuel pump works.

I bought a set of 15x8.5 aluminum slots for it but haven't had any luck finding some cheap tires in the size I want for it. Instead I may be buying another set of wheels with tires mounted. The tires are only 2 years old and mounted on some classic turbo fan wheels and they are cheaper than a set of similar tires without wheels. Good enough to drive on because I believe the tires on it now are from 1985 and only 1 holds air.

Since I believe this van won't take much work to be road worthy I'm going to run the drivetrain as is and just fix what's left of the body work and get some fresh shag carpet for it. I'll spray some paint on it, eventually find some tires, spif up the wheels and cruise the boogie van. My hope is that I can find a good airbrush artist to paint a sick mural in the style of Frank Frazetta on it, hence the name. If that doesn't happen it'll get some stripes or something to really grab attention. Maybe a cool wrap, who knows?

Like most of my projects, it'll be slow going. Mainly because I have too many things going at once. Getting the cobra ready for paint now, still have lots of work to do on the crewcab, still need to swap gears in the 71 C10, still have a Jimmy waiting for attention, still have a 71 Riviera that needs tons of work, etc. I'm never bored.