I've been working endless hours on the early.The goal of having it ready for the SEMA show just got a week closer.The show starts the last week of October. omg....
The metal work on the dash is pretty much finished. The mount for the stereo head unit is done. It looks real cool. Got it primed. The new headlight switch is mounted left of the instrument cluster The instrument bezel is an all aluminum piece out of a sportsman window van I've had for years. It will look good with the other stock appointments.The tilt wheel steering column is almost ready to install. The wiring is almost complete. We had to take the shift lever off the column . The barrel around the column with the hole where the shift lever was has been replaced with the cover from a Camaro with a floor shifter..... slick!!
The fiberglass door Matchstick did for me is the only body work left to be done. we got it hung and aligned.. Because of the shape of the outside sheet metal the hinges couldn't be mounted close enough to the outside of the van to prevent the door from hitting the outside when fully opened. Sooo, I had to modify the door shape in the center, and the shape of the door frame also.
Then round the corners of the door and door frame to match the front doors.
The biggest problem was the latch to hold the door shut. I found a door latch and inside handle that would work very nicely at the junk yard out of a late model ford van, along with power window motors. Cut metal to fit the frame and hold the latch in place, lined it up with a catch in the door jamb and presto! CLOSING DOOR.
The body work is progressing on the door and surrounding area, .In the lower picture I have taken the door back off to finish the door frame. You can clearly see the "bump" in the door frame where I had to reshape it.
As I said earlier, the wiring is almost complete also. The wiring to the engine is done. The motor runs. That was the biggest question.. If I could get all those wires run to the correct place. As you see, the wiring harness goes out from under the dash on the passenger side and comes down from the dash in the middle and runs under the seat...That will be covered with a console. Notice the ECM is mounted in the wall behind the driver seat.
This lower pic is looking in the driver door..
With a little modification the power window motors work real good. The problem is that early models have very shallow doors where the glass goes down into them. I used the track system from a ford van. I moved the track from the center of the door to the deeper part of the door and made an arm to reach over to the center to raise and lower the glass. Works like a charm!.
Stay tuned...lots of fun to go yet!
