Thread: Need help straightening van floor

Tweet

I bought an 88 Chevy Astro today that has some crash damage. I want to fix it my self but I need some suggestions first. The crash damage is in the center of the back doors and it folded the floor in. I plan on straightening it or getting it close to straight then cut out the damage and replace the damaged area with a donor floor. I have another van that I can get for free that I will use for replacemnet parts.

My options as now are:

Bury a piece of steel in concrete with a ring welded to it. I would hook my come-a-long to the ring and the other end to the van. The idea is to pull out the damage.

Or. Weld a piece of steel between the frame rails and use a bottle jack to push out the damage. I can dismantle my press and use its 12 ton bottle jack.

I got the van for 295 dollars and it runs good. I plan on using it for my work, family and parts chaser van. One day I will put in a V8 that I have sitting around.

I have pulled off the back bumper and took out the floor mat. I will try to get some better pictures tomorrow.

Thanks
Lon

That was a hard hit. You will never pull that out with a com-a-long. The van will need to be strapped into a frame machine to even come close to pulling that correctly. DON'T try to push it out with a jack and bar between the rails. All you will do is further bend the rails.
I would suggest taking it to a competent autobody/frame repair shop. If the job doesn't have to be perfect you may be surprised by how cheaply they will do it for you. If you have everything stripped off and it is ready to go you could have it back in a couple of hours.
Mark

None of the inner structure was damaged. The frame rails are straight and it drives better than a lot of cars I have driven recently. I thought of going to a body shop but, but I have friends that get me into trouble. We (my neighbor and my best friend) were discussing chaining it to my neighbor's skid steer and a telephone pole and straightening it that way. That idea was thrown out by me. It was the middle vehicle in a three car wreck. The front is smashed as well but it is all cosmetic. I want to fix it as cheaply as possible. But I want it right. I know those are two different concepts.

Astroracer how is your van coming along? I have followed its progress but not recently.

I can understand the "cheap" thing but you will probably do more damage to the van by beating and tugging on it with jury rigged equipment then a nice slow pull on a frame machine. The thing is, the frame machine will hold the van as it is pulling out the dent. There is a lot to be said for that. If there is no structural damage it should go pretty easy and quick.
Another point to think about is, if there is no strutural damage, just cut it out and put in a new piece. Why go to all the work of straightening if you can simply replace the panel.

Thanks for asking about Bad Ast... I haven't been working on it. I lost my job (it was good job) in early December due to another company buy-out/cleaning house of our engineering and design division. I have been doing other things, working on customer projects and trying to find a new job since then. No time to play now. I'll get back on it though, I have hooked up with a fellow from California and we are in the process of setting up/starting a muscle car design and build company. We have a long way to go but it is really falling into place so hopefully, in a year or so, I won't need to work for someone else...
Mark

Cutting out the donor section was my original intent. I'm trying to get as many ideas of what to do as possible. I'm getting my donor van (94 Cargo straight body bad drivetrain) from work. We are relocating our office and they want it gone. Problem is they cant find the title. And I want a window van because my daughter has been sitting sideways looking out the driver's window of my wife's extended cab S-10. Its time she has a panoramic view on long trips.

When I'm done with robbing parts of off the Cargo van I want to put in a Big Block Chevy. My idea is to mount the motor trans and rear to seperate frame that will fit into the frame rails of the Astro. The new sub frame will pivot at the front and have coil overs at the rear. But that project will happen after my GMC's airride is where I wnat it and my F-100 is on the road.

This van (the 88) will be lowered a little and get a V8.

Thanks for the help

Lon

Some other pictures. Front damage and drivers side.

From a look at the rear shot,you may have sucked the sides in when the doors buckled up in the center. If so,quite a bit of damage will ease tension by pushing the sides out. As long as you have a donor vehicle,take several measurements off of it to check for hidden damage. I think if you just cut out the boxed area that forms the lower latch,the floor will relax and hammer and dolly flat again. Hank

I do this stuff everyday for a living and the first thing I can say is, TEAR THAT THING APART! There is NOTHING but NOTHING that can be done, nor is there anything that can be said about repairing it until you get the rear bumper cover off, and the floor mat and junk out, NOTHING.

Get that out and we can give better advice. You will probably need to replace the rear crossmember and simply straighten the floor, but a pull should be done. And yes it will need quite a bit, a come-a-long is not likely going to do it. But it could, just get the thing torn down so we can get a better look at it.

That goes for the front as well, it looks like your right rad baffle is toast as well.

Brian

Thanks for the help. Here is the damage without the bumper and floor mats.

That floor is pretty funky. Listen, first off, the rear frame rails are pulled in towards each other. In other words the distance between them is less now than before. When the crossmember gets pushed in like that it is effectively "shortened". Get a straight piece of wire a foot long and bend it in the middle, now measure the distance between the two ends, get my point?

So those rails ARE in towards the middle a little. THUS, the quarters are in as well, as mentioned in another post.

You will need to cut out that rear crossmember and replace it, both inner and outer and that may not be able to be done as an assembly. You may need to cut it out, inner and outer and weld it in, inner and then outer.

That means you may need to buy new. You could splice it, if you do this right, with a "Butt weld with backing" by putting a sleeve in the thing and welding the gap up with the weld going into that sleeve you could make it strong enough. But you really probably should buy new and replace both the inner and the outer.

The floor could be replaced in the center only. Just cut right down the middle of the flange that it sits on. Then you cut out the donor the same way, and butt weld it thru the gap to the flange under it. If you plan on doing this I can walk you thru it. That was kind of a short to the point explaination.

But after you get that floor removed you should be able to jack out the rails into shape. You need to get a good bumper reinforcement to use as a guide to be sure the rails are where they should be.

You should also get the replacement doors. You WILL need them to do this repair. After you get the frame out where the bumper reinforcment fits, then you need to get the doors on and see how they fit.

Brian

You may find out why they made this thing a "total".

Brian