COOPSTRIPES: November 2011

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

And the beat goes on,,,,,

Workin hard on the early,

With all the the mounts welded up we needed to trial fit the engine and trans.

Fits like a glove... with the repositioning of the engine, there is a lot of space behind it. so..... I came up with the idea to shorten the engine hole and engine cover. Here John and Danny are cutting out the floor with the cover mounts.

The side panel had a big hump in it,to accommodate the alternator on the stock engine. The new one has a serpetine belt drive and we dont need that space, so we decided to take it out and make a flat side cover......cool!
Wow ,, to look at it you would never know its 8 inches shorter than stock.. Also, started to plumb in the gas tank, and the new filler neck..

I got the door frame with the gas filler roughed in.

Spent most of the week finishing up the paint on the Nautilus.. should be ready for a trip to California next week.

With the motor in, we get an idea where the van sits after it was lowered.. the stance is perfect. slightly lower in the front... It should drop even more after we get everything back in.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

If you have been following my blog, you may think I spend all my time in the garage working on my newest van project. Well as much as I would like to do that, I need to do some work and make the rent once in a while.
I did this street rod a few days ago. A real nice one

I again have another van from Tom in California. He picked up the Nautilus from the last owner in New York. It needed some repairs to the body and paint. The bodywork done ,I am getting to it! This is the first color.. won't be done till next week.

Last Saturday I went to the Ohio State game with Wisconsin... It was one of the most exciting games ever!! The Bucks won 33-29. It was back and forth all game, and the Buckeyes won it on a bomb in the last 20 seconds. Lost my voice for 2 days

Last Friday was trick or treat for the grandkids...I got to go with them. That was fun, even tho I ended up carrying Vada the last half of the trip. Little Vada was a princess. Damm she is CUTE!

Last Thursday I got some help from Danny and John with the doors and other welding projects on the van. Here we are cutting in the new battery box into the floor. The stock battery box is inside the van behind the driver seat. Not the easiest place to get to , and I don't want battery fumes or acid inside. Besides it's ugly. So were gonna hide it under the floor. Wow this is coming along just fine.

In earlier posts we sealed off the ugly gas filler on the side rear of the van.. the new filler is going in the side door jamb. Danny did this trick on his Astro ,so he is helping me with this one...VERY COOL!

Another trick I want to do is to make the front air vent intake to match the grill with the center vertical post removed. A very subtle change but it really does look good.

Another day , another color!

THE EAGLE SAGA

It was 40 years ago and I attended the largest van event that I ever went to. Even tho I had had a van for some 4 years, this was to be only my 3rd van event. The Nationals at Bowling Green, Ky was sensory overload to the van enthusiast. 6300+ vans in one place? It still stirs the emotions. I belonged to a club from Newark, Ohio at the time called, North Fork Vans.

It was hot that weekend. Very hot.. To hot to even move. Got up sat to enter the show & shine. This was to be the first for me. When I got to the check in area we discovered that there were nearly 1000 vans in the line ahead of us. Didn’t do it. After parking back at the club camp we went to look at the vans. The heat was oppressive, and we spent most of the time in the bleachers watching the vans inch their way through the judging lanes,occasionally walking down to take a closer look. There were so many vans it was impossible to see them all. It amazes me to this day how the N.S.V.A. group was able to judge all of them and pick winners in just a few hours. There were a lot of real nice vans. Many were even outstanding. Saw the B.F.G. van, future shock. It was extreme, especially for then. But the one van I kept hearing about was a van from Ohio. Built by Greg of Akron. The van was the Flying Eagle 2. I never saw it. But a number of people said it was the best thing they had ever seen. I the host group must have agreed since the Flying Eagle 2 was awarded top honors at Bowling Green. including best overall paint ,and best interior. I never did see it..until it started showing up in every van publication there was and back then there were a lot of them.

Greg toured the van all over the country that year. Taking top honors at many shows, including Best of Show at the west coast van nationals in King City Calif . Over the next few years I became a fan of Greg's style of paint. He was the “Foose” of his day. His paint was on many of the top winning vans for years. The Superstar, Rocky Mountain High, Hotel California, Rolling thunder, and others were among the elite of the vanning scene. But the Flying Eagle 2 was Greg’s personal van and probably the best one he ever did. What ever became of it.?? Well in 1978 he repainted it. The second paint job was not as elaborate as the first but was still very nice. I know this from pictures I saw in a magazine called small car trends. But I still hadn’t seen it. Then later that year he sold the van to a guy in Louisville,Ohio , Ben Merkle . Merkle Had the van at the 7th. Nats show & shine. in Cortland. Never saw it. Later that day someone told me it was there. Hunted it down but it was locked up and I had to settle for seeing the exterior… after that it was never seen again. Fast forward 24 years to the Nats ,2003, in Kansas City. A long time Vanner friend comes to me with pictures of a van that he just acquired ,and wants to know if I would be interested in helping him restore it. Woaaaa. It’s the Flying Eagle. And it had been on fire! Well, to actually find this van after all these years was real cool ,but the story behind it was even cooler.. Blaino bought the van on ebay. as the story goes, Merkle was driving the van one day and it stalled at a light. Then there was smoke ,then fire. The fire department came and put it out but the van was pretty messed up. The van was insured, and after settling with the ins. company they sold the van at auction. No one wanted it. It had no parts a junk yard could sell and it ended up selling for $100. That person put it on ebay and it sold for a ridiculously low price. That’s when Blaino came to me. Blaino lives in Oregon. The van was in Michigan. And after a year of banter Blaino offered the van to me. I took it. Then Mikie and I took a 12 hour trip to Michigan and I finally got to see the Flying Eagle. Upon inspection and a little detective work , we determined that the fire was caused by a fuel line leak.The rubber hose at the carb, either cracked or wasn’t properly installed and sprayed gas over the engine., That's why it stalled. Then the gas hit the exhaust and fooom. The fire was contained to the intake and above. The paint on the block wasn’t touched.The fire melted the wiring harness, heater box and then came through the fire wall. The front of the cab was burned pretty good, some wood will have to be replaced but most could be saved. The pictures to follow will show the progress of the restoration… oh yes, in 2000 the van was repainted again, supposedly by Greg at least partly. It has his mural work on it. The theme is still the sailing ship, but it is now a futuristic look. Actually I like it. The idea is to eventually restore it to its original paint job, but that will entail striping the van completely as all 3 paint jobs are still on the van, and at least the first 2 are lacquer. If you look just right you can still see the old paint outlines. I am going to fix the van as it was before the fire for the time being. The restoration is pretty much done . Now i'm working on improving it. you know I can't just leave it alone. coop

COOPSTRIPES

Vanning

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

And the beat goes on,,,,,

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

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