Thread: 1985 Astro V8 "Ole Yellar" Project Van

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I had 2 of these a few years back and you can't kill them ,tough as nails. There was one not far from here that had a 4" chop done to it, looked good too!
I hated the fiberglass rear springs, not bad to change, always seem to spliter at the axle mount.
Brian

The mod for the rear springs is steel main leafs which if I just wanted the OEM update it can be done by swapping out the front hangers and using 1996 Astro or later springs.With this van I am going to a custom spring set-up.A steel main leaf and secondary springs with center holes that shift them more towards the front than the rear.Mopar used to call them Super Stock springs.When torque is applied it act like a traction bar lifting up the body.

I am going to do a 3" front and rear lift.I will go into more detail on that in a little bit.We are doing that for a tire size increase to 29".Rear end is going to be a Ford 9" build by a outfit near Syr,NY.

So the conversion high top have to be taken off the shop van.To do that I have to remove drywall screws that are in a channel and hold the top down with sealer/glue.









I wanted to go slow to release the sealer/glue that over the yrs in the sun I suspected had harden.



There are block shims between the cut out roof bows to help give the top some structure and help give some strength.







They do leave some more metal over the windshield and don't touch the frame work for that at all.





I measured the cut to a common place found on both vans(the shop van and Ole Yellar not cut yet)



I found that the cut is real close to following the out side roof rib on Ole Yellar

I have more on this,but need to download and load Photobucket more.

Since I first bought the shop van,the rear doors never closed very well.I thought it was the hinges,the van had been in a accident before hand,etc.Now I wonder if all the vans with high top conversions all move over time.The pictures I am posting are the worse it has ever been and happened after I took off the top never moving the van.







Might be the rust issues are contributing to it:





Surely that was the reason why I bought the Florida body.

It would break my heart if the Ole Yellar 1989 got screwed up trying to put on the top.

With you guys topping roofs all the time I am looking for suggestions how you all keep the body/door jams in place.