Vanning


Vanning is a compulsion, an obsession, an occupation, an affliction, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it, must. Those who don't, think it's a waste of time. For me it is a calling.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Before I took the SURFINK  to the paint shop, I needed to get the exhaust system made. I wanted a stainless steel exhaust .It was going too be tricky since I had to have the tailpipes come out in front of the rear wheels, due to the gas tank location, all the other stuff around it and the fact that the van is 3 feet shorter than it was. 
     I took it to my son Vance who has become a skilled welder. He fabricated the entire exhaust from scratch. We went to the supplier and bought a bunch of pipe bends and straights, we were trying for a throaty sound that wasn't to loud. I got him 2 stainless mufflers 2 resonators and some v band clamps. and he went to town.    I didn't believe he could get all that into the small area we had to work with. 
   He cut the collector from a set of stainless headers and made his own. The exhaust goes into a  resonator


  
  then OVER the cross member down UNDER the trans, into a hand fabricated cross pipe and out thru a muffler.

 The v band clamps were installed in several places to allow the entire exhaust system to be removed with just a  wrench

and don't forget the cool dual pipe tail pipe just in front of the wheels.
  He even fabricated stainless hangers and welded them to the pipes.. no clamps and no rattles
I will remove the whole thing and polish it some time after the interior is done   The whole thing will polish up to a nice shine.   I couldn't be prouder of him.    He did an awesome job!!


 On the work front I got a call from one of my regular customers, Mr Green.  He has restored a horse drawn trolley car from the 1880's, that is going in a museum and needs it lettered.  
   this is how it turned out.  not bad if I don't say so myself.
 
so back at the ranch.....
I added the light blue outline.   lettering is done.  but,  it's gona take a fortnight  to do all the striping

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

amazing job and it looks GREAT!

Greg "COOP" Cooper said...
This comment has been removed by the author.