Van Restoration Project

fsmyth said:

just a quickie - 3/4" plywood on the floor will cut down a LOT of road noise.

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X2 on the plywood. Some previous owner put it down in mine. Since mine is a cargo van, I also have an aftermarket steel partition behind the front seats, so road noise from the shell is minimal for me. All that leaves me is the clattery kettledrum sound of my engine -- not a bad thing!

Meanwhile, looks like quite a build, yARIC008. Most vans on here seem to be the early variety; nice to see some love for a later body.... and so much love!

idi_econoline said:

X2 on the plywood. Some previous owner put it down in mine. Since mine is a cargo van, I also have an aftermarket steel partition behind the front seats, so road noise from the shell is minimal for me. All that leaves me is the clattery kettledrum sound of my engine -- not a bad thing!

Meanwhile, looks like quite a build, yARIC008. Most vans on here seem to be the early variety; nice to see some love for a later body.... and so much love!

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Well thanks. I don't think the plywood is going to be in the works for me though. I don't really see how that would work out around the seat brackets, around the door sills, and around other items, and accomplish my like stock but better look and feel.

I'm thinking there aren't many people around these parts with newer style vans as they were only made for 2 years with the IDI in them. I've literally never seen another one in person. I've actually seen more Ferrari Enzos in person than I have IDI vans. I've seen some videos and pictures, but that's all. I bet there are probably no more than 100 vans in the country/world left with the new body style and an IDI motor. Most of them probably were destroyed by cavitation then sent to the junk yard as companies that owned them probably would have preferred just to get a new van instead of repair it.

I'm pretty sure I've only seen one, but it wasnt the newer style, and I'm pretty sure it wasnt IDI to begin with..

yARIC008 said:

Most of them probably were destroyed by cavitation then sent to the junk yard as companies that owned them probably would have preferred just to get a new van instead of repair it.

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Totally agree. I live in amongst 1.5 million people and travel that area daily. Have only seen two others on the local roads since I've had mine, and that's in the low-rust world of NorCali (one early, one late). Have only seen one more at the self-serve wrecking yards (Early model). Grabbed what I wanted that day, and that van was off to the crusher at my next visit.

I believe that when these beauties died after a few years of abuse, the money for either IDI or E4OD repair was deemed better spent on a 7.3 PSD, so off to the scrapyard in a hurry.

Gosh, I do so enjoy the strange looks from the public. No one expects a fairly-new-looking van to sound like THAT.... makes all the money and personal-labor I've spent worth it.

So I've got some wiring done. I think I have my diagram fully completed but installing it is another major task. I was hoping this would be one of the easier parts of this job but it's turning into a nightmare. I estimate at least 20 more hours to finish up the wiring at this point.

I've got the wires in the rear installed and have them just following the existing wiring up along the roof line. I'm hoping the headliner will still fit without issue. I've installed lots of spares for any future projects.

On the D pillar I've got two spares on the passenger side, then four on the driver side. On C pillar on drivers side I've got two spares, then B pillar drivers side I've got 4 spares. I've also run a spare vacuum line to the back incase the original decides to wear through somewhere. I've also got new speaker wiring to all the speakers.

I had been searching for a good place to install the "central hub" so to speak where all my terminals and relays will reside. Previously it was just under the dash on the drivers side but it was really messy as there isn't much room. My new plan is to have everything under the drivers side sill. The black deal you stand on to get in. The plastic is raised off of the metal body just enough for the terminals strips to fit between the spacers. So i'm running all the wires to the drivers door basically, including all the spares. I'm labeling everything to hopefully make any future wiring easier. Everything is labeled on both sides of every wire.


Here wiring is running up along existing wiring. Spares and speaker wires are hanging down at the appropriate locations.


Here is the wiring nexus which is going to be a giant pain to get all done and look decent.

Hmmm,

perhaps I've cornered the market on late-model IDI vans. Somewhere on my computer I've got a pic of all five parked next to each other. Prices have certainly gone up. The D.O.E. released a few more several months ago, and they sold for $2000 - $4000, but they did have excellent maintenance histories and very little wear & tear. No cavitation issues, Uncle Sammy used Texaco lifetime coolant in them.

Yeah, I get grins and thumbs-up from truck guys when they hear that diesel noise coming from a van.

Well Eric, you have all the time in the world. You'll be happy when you have it done the way you want. Its funny, during the time you have had this thread up, I have seen no less than 3 idi vans listed for sale in my local craigs list..haha

Here is an update. Wiring is 99% done, decided to install under dash and under seat lighting as seen in the pics, maybe make it feel a little more modern. Carpet is pretty much done now.

Next step is sand blasting the chair brackets and repainting them, then installing at least the front two seat so I can take the headliner to the local shop to get them to put new fabric on for me. I decided not to try that as there are too many compound curves in it and it's just so big. Could probably do it but looks like a steep learning curve especially if you're doing it by yourself. Once the headliner is in, will work on reinstalling all the plastic trim which will entail repainting pieces and installing anti squeak measures all around to make it all tight. Got some new weather stripping on order for all the doors too.

coming along really nice Eric! Keep it up!

Gunna be a fine unit once completed.

I am sure you all know that you can drop the 4th gen body on the 3rd gen frame so long as it's the 138" wheelbase. Easy von peasy.

Got sandblaster cabinet setup. Need to get dust collector going though... Blasted one bracket to white metal, will be doing them all and re-powder coating them.

Here is some more powder coating. Had some trouble at first, but now it's great.

Here is a striker latch deal before powder


Here is after


Here are seat brackets coming along.




These are engine cover latches. I tried painting them in place but they just looked like crap so i drilled out rivets and powder coated. Looks much nicer and super strong now.


Now i just have another 12 seat brackets to finish. Then also all the other door latches. Then whatever else will fit in my oven is going to get coated too.

So I had been annoyed with the OEM Brake-On-Off switch for a long time. It would come on with some pressure then turn back off until you really got on the brake pedal. Also, there is a little bit of play in the pedal before it would fully engage with the booster. Changing out the plastic bearing things didn't help that much and it still had play. So in an effort to make all my controls have no play i came with a way to get rid of the play and have a better BOO switch.

Basically i fabbed up a bracket that bolts to some existing bolts under the dash, then I have an adjustable bolt on the end. I use this bolt to take out any play in the pedal, it's like 1 or 2 millimeters. Then for the switch i rigged up two relays. The gist of it is that the bracket is fully insulated except where it touches the metal brake pedal. The brake pedal grounds out and energizes a relay. When the pedal is pushed the ground is broken and a relay releases and I have the brake wire rigged up to the normally closed side of the relay. I have attached a crude drawing of how it works. I added another relay in there to keep power off of it when the truck is off.

Kinda wishing I had come up with earlier so I could have made the wiring nicer and found better spots for the relays. But this will work for now.

Will probably after more important things are done I'll pull out the brake pedal and clean rust off and powder coat most of it. Plan on replacing the booster before long too.


Here is bracket before powder coat and insulation.


Here is finished bracket and relays.


Here is diagram.

Pretty cool Eric! Did you have all the front seats out still while doing this work?