Thread: Bad Ast Astro Van Build

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Originally Posted by astroracer

The only stock floor I will be keeping is the areas outside of the existing frame rails. most of the tin in between will see some massaging in one way or the other.

My thought Mark is the Astro's are pretty heavy.In the range of 4,000lbs +.So my thought is you trying to save wt anywhere you can.That does take a fair amount of a engine to get it to move. have you given any thought for a projected wt??. Just my two cents worth.

Hey Gary, I am not concerning myself with the weight. There is really nothing I can do about it. Granted it will be heavier with the full frame and all of the cage work but I think the 509 will be up to the task of moving the van down the road. My main focus has been in getting the CG lower. That and moving the engine rearward and down will definetly help in the handling department.
Things have been going slow although I have not been slacking!!! Got all of the chassis welds completed over this past weekend along with the rearend housing. I added some triangulation bars to the back side of the lower suspension cradle. Fabbed them up out of 1 5/8 DOM and fit them to the bottom of the side rails.
This is the passenger side (upside down on the rotisserie)
http://images51.fotki.com/v628/photo...MVC001F-vi.jpg
Looking at the rail fitup. This was a head scratcher... Took some thinking and mocking up to get the cuts right...
http://images56.fotki.com/v1298/phot...MVC003F-vi.jpg
I got the shock towers mocked up and welded tonight. That means the welding is about 99.9% complete. I have LOT of clean up to do to get it ready for paint but that will happen this weekend.
http://images56.fotki.com/v1298/phot...MVC019F-vi.jpg
After the welding.
http://images57.fotki.com/v1354/phot...MVC002F-vi.jpg
http://images43.fotki.com/v1505/phot...MVC005F-vi.jpg
This what I've been up to.
Thanks for looking
Mark

This is another thing I have been doing. A friend of mine has a little junkyard just up the road from me. He brouoght this down for me to strip. I pulled off the entire front end, Hydroboost setup, tilt column, overhead console (and bracket), instrument cluster and throttle pedal, the last few nights. I will get the doors for the electric windows and locks and I will strip out all of the light grey interior trim and dash along with all of the wiring. I think the light grey will look better then the beige that is in the van right now...
http://images46.fotki.com/v1506/phot...MVC015F-vi.jpg
This thing is a pile. It had almost 260K on it though so it was rode hard and put away wet...
It had been hit hard in the right front also. You can see some wrinkles in the sub-structure. This is kind of wierd because Bad Ast had been hit hard in the right front also...
http://images57.fotki.com/v1354/phot...MVC016F-vi.jpg
The hood is bent at both corners so that will be used as a donor for hood experimentation.
http://images58.fotki.com/v154/photo...MVC018F-vi.jpg
The roof console and bracket.
http://images9.fotki.com/v248/photos...MVC012F-vi.jpg