Duane's story

Subject: not so brief history
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 00:28:27 EST

Alright, you wanted some history, here you go." It was a dark, cold, dreary December morning
when I first saw her. ( yeah right ) I work at a body shop in Hazel Park, MI and one of the guys
that worked there brought this horrible looking, orange and white thing up to the shop and parked
it in back. He'd been told repeatedlly by the police that he couldn't park it next to his trailer because
he wasn't driving it, the plates were expired, it was on flats, etc.

Never really gave it much thought, but over the course of the summer, eating my lunch behind
the building on several occasions, I guess I must have let my imagination run off on its own once
too often. I didn't even look it over real good. Actually, the thing that appealed to me the most was
the awsome rear slant the door windows have and the fact that the driver's side from the roof line
down to the tops of the wheel well lips was real straight. The longest panel in the truck had never
been screwed with. You know. No collisions, no rust holes, no big gapping window holes. A nice
straight panel. I heard talk that he had couple of guys looking at it but I didn't get the idea that they
were serious. I also heard $200 was what he was asking. When we finally got around to talking I
managed to talk him down to $150. So here I am Sept.1997, the somewhat proud owner of a 1970
GMC van. You'll notice that from now on it will be referred to as " her ". The rest of the guys at the
shop thought I'd lost my marbles. Maybe I had. You should have seen her. Well, after scratching
my head for a couple a days I decided that a major tune-up and an oil change had to be the first move.
I was told that she did run, and not to bad at that, so that made me feel pretty confident. You know
the old saying, "Don't count your chickens". . . Fresh oil change, tune-up, battery, go to turn the key
and ZIP ZERO NADA Probably should have expected it. I know what your tkinking, $150 bucks,
just what DID I expect. Turns out that it wasn't as serious as it sounded. At least not to me. A little
bit of rewiring and it turned over, a little bit more and it was running. Topped off the rest of the fluids
and went around the block to see what it was really like. She shook and shuddered pretty bad so I
brought it back quick. The tires were separating from sitting so long but the real shudder was coming
from the u-joints , which were darn near seized. Well to make a long story a little shorter, u-joints,
all the brake lines up front, another oil change, another set of
plugs, half a tank of real gas instead of the varnish that was in
the tank and I actually could drive it in and out of the building
pretty reliably. I guess thats when the real progress started to
take place.

"Sherman & Assoc." had 72" rocker panels for $31.00 ea.
Bought 2 lefts. Worked out better for me that way. They
offered rear corners but all said and done there were none to
be found. I also noticed that they are not even listed in there newest catalog. Kinda bummed me out.
Thought I had rear corners. Stripped all the panels except the roof and was supprised to find only
two paint jobs. The original color was the light green / turquoise (possibly with a white top???). Lots
of surface rust so I spent an afternoon with a sandblaster and well you know what kind of results you
get with one of those. Cleans up the good and removes the bad. But that fresh coat of primer made
her look like a different van. Are you tired of reading yet? Here's a little more. The front suspension
was a lot of work but was pretty straight forward. I sandblasted the axle, springs, knuckles, backplates,
you know, all that stuff you want to look real clean when your putting it back together. King-pin bushings,
drums, wheel cylinders, hardware kits, bearings, seals, front brake hoses, the steel lines I mentioned
earlier, a set of tires, heck, I almost was ready to road test her again. You should have seen me limp
back into the parking lot, dragging the gas tank by the ground wire, it looked like she had just given
birth to a gas tank!!!!!!!!! Evidently the tank straps were so rusted that after a few chuckholes, it didn't
want to stay with the truck anymore. Talk about embarassing. I'm sure I would have laughed pretty
hard if I'd seen it.

That's just a little bit me and my van, how I found her, the weird stuff thats happened, and still is for
the most part. Left out lots of stuff but I'll save for you next time.

Later,
Duane
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