Thread: 1985 Astro V8 "Ole Yellar" Project Van

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This was a running 5.7 in the donor van,but suffer from a high idle issue.The donor van's owner told me he had put on cop car 65lb injectors lifted.I tried to address the high idle while the engine was still in the donor van and couldn't get the computer to communicate with a snap-on scanner.We swapped out the cop car injectors and for a short while it acted normal,but then crept back to where it was before.Time running short on space in my friend's lift I decided to pull the stuff out of the donor van.I knew from the engine casting numbers it was a 1995 two or four bolt main and that given 1995 was a Gm transitional yr it could be either a roller hyro cam or a flat tappet cam.The donor van's owner told me he resealed the oil pan before putting in the engine in and told me it was a four bolt main.I really don't put much value in a street driven four bolt main in most cases,but atleast I knew that part about the engine.Because I couldn't get the ECM to communicate with a scanner,I figured it had to do with the wire harness and the swap done wasn't done correctly.Still I wanted to confirm if it was a roller cam or not because my plan is to do a cam swap for a GM roller cam that is nick named the "383" roller cam.One of the guys on the Astro web site I spoke of had used that cam in a 5.7 and just raved about how much torque it make and then sold the van to another member and he too spoke about how much low end torque the van has with a smooth idle.So I pulled the intake off to confirm if it was a roller or not.While doing that I found a number of intake bolts very loose and now think it is the reason behind the high idle.Humm,we even sprayed the heck out the intake with carb cleaner and never saw a difference.Might have been the fact the vac leak was that bad at it wouldn't have.





So now I know it isn't a roller,but as you can see it does have the bosses drilled and taped for it.Should be a easy conversion to a roller because of that.

The donor van had a tilt steering and Ole Yellar didn't.So I swapped it into Ole Yellar.The donor steer also has cruise control on the steering column and delay wipers which I will swap the delay relays and cruise conrols into Yellar while I do the V8 swap.







You can see where the column bolts into the firewall and the dumb GM design of just using self tapping bolts.When I go back to do the the V8 swap I will elf aleast 1/4 20's nuts to the firewall engine side and run 1/4 20's bolts threw there for a more secure mount.The cruise control I feel is more to get better gas mileage than a convenience item.

Still more to add...............LOL hang in there guys.

So about the 3" body lift.Here is the sub frame without the engine and tranny:





As I said earlier in this thread a friend of mine put in a Ram-Jet 502 into his 1997 Safari by a 5" body lift.The way that was done is by welding in schedule 40 4" diameter pipe over the body mounts on the sub frame exactly centered to the bolt holes of the body mounts and hogging out the frame mounts so as to pass the body mounts into the pipe so they are the same length bolts as before and welding a plate with the centered bolt holes in them.A number of guys have used this method in the past and has complete success as long as they did what description centering I posted.There are kits available too from a company called Overland Vans,but some of the involves suspension mods that effect steering geometry needing to be corrected.The reason for only a 3" lift is I met my friend from Canada and we went for a ride in his van.Well honestly being as old as I am.Peter pretty much had to grab me by my shirt collar to get into his van because these old legs ant what they use to be. The advantage is through you can run a bigger tire and to get to the spark plug on a V8 is a simple task of going threw the wheel wells.Here is a example of that done by another member of the Astro site.



So i have the sub frame from the donor van stripped of all the steering,suspension parts to clean,(maybe power coat),and weld the 3" spacer lift tubes.



While I need to say this not to most here,I have to say this old mechanic knows the amount of stored energy that is involved in front coil springs.So i bought a ball joint pickle fork to take the sub frame apart and a front spring compressor too which as it worked out the the wrong one for this kind of spring.When I took apart the suspension I was standing in the center of the sub frame and I cabled off the spring to the frame so if it was going to take off,it wasn't going very far.





And I did have a answer to those stubborn sway bar links of which one was broken already:



The intend also is to replace all the steering parts with either new Moog parts or rid my self of the poor designed steering where idler arms are a content wear part and install a rack and pinion steering.


Now onto the body mods..............

While it is a high top van that appears to be a cargo,really it is a conversion van that the owner before me ruffed up the windows and painted them.It would be very unusual to see a high top cargo van and that is what I wanted.So I cut out over sized panels from junk yard cargo vans to use as fillers.









I have a later yr no window side door slider that I am in the process of converting it to this early van and will get no window back doors for it as well.

There is some rust work to be done as well,but I will go out of my way to clean that up given all the things I have said are advantages of this van.

The inside I cabin I want lush,A/C'ed,power windowed stereo'ed system.There is a overhead counsel where I will move the radio tuner and in the regular radio location I am going to build as diamond plate a three gauge set for oil pressure,temp,tranny temp gauge.The cage I have for the separation between the front and back will be plywood-ed in covered and covered with some sort of carpet.

Well That is the basic outline of this project.I will add more about the engine mods,a Ford 9" rear end/gear ratio,and alike.Oh yeah about the internal struggle I am having with a hot rod side of me not to stroke the engine into a 383 roller engine and which heads I am going to swap into this V8 given the C.I. of it. .Also about the V8 1991 truck tranny 700 that came in the donor van and the repair of the same and mod build up using TCI parts.

Thanks for reading about my project guys,

Gary