The BAD AST Project - Faze II

[astroracer]

Thanks guys, Will, Martin. And "Dug"... what can I say? Thank you for the compliments! I am glad you are enjoying the build AND the posts. And, as far as Mel is concerned, he is a good friend and has been a major player in getting the van to this point. I've said it before and I'll say it again, without his help and ingenuity this build would not be as far as it is today. Progress has slowed down a bit but it's not for a lack of wanting. Just time... The program I use is an old UG program. It's out of date by a long shot but it works well enough for what I do with it. And yes, this is what I do for a day job. I am a Senior Designer at AM General (the HUMMER people) I am running UG NX 5 there but have also worked on NX 6.
Overtime is good though and I did very well on profit sharing and tax returns this year. I have the green light from the "BOSS" to finish up the trans and start pulling together all of the little things I need to get this build finished. I just got a big box of Autometer Sport Comp 2 5/8ths gages from Summit yesterday and I am talking to Jakes Performance and Steve Chryssos about TH400 kits and torque converters.

Mel just sent me these pics of the hubs. He took them to a local automotive shop yesterday and lined them up on turning down the O.D. to fit inside the Vette rotors and they also pressed in new bearing races and swapped out the 7/16 lug studs to 1/2".

The bigger studs are Astro van pieces. The one on the right still had the spindly 7/16ths in it...

These will clean up nice in the blast cabinet and look great with some gloss black paint on them.
Thanks again guys!
I hope we can keep moving forward!
Mark

[dug]

The hubs turned out nice so far after being turned. How did you get all of the body dimensions into "UG?" Did someone have that file handy or did you actually have to dimension the van? I could see that being a project in and of itself.

[astroracer]

The hubs turned out nice so far after being turned. How did you get all of the body dimensions into "UG?" Did someone have that file handy or did you actually have to dimension the van? I could see that being a project in and of itself.

The hubs will work great! Wait till I get them blasted and painted!
I have a lot of time into what you see there and it is far from perfect but ,where I needed to be meticulous, I spent alot of time measuring my own van and plotting points. I have reams of hand drawings and rough dimensioned sketches... What I should mention is, once I had a door or body side done it is simple to mirror that data over to the other side... Model one side and the other side is done also. Like the hood. I did the drivers half and mirrored that to the passenger side and united the pieces to make "one" hood. It really goes fairly quick once you get a couple pieces done.
I worked on the Astro van as a designer back in '82 when it was just a concept. I did the initial instrument cluster design and packaging. I had a lot of data in my personal files from back then. Everything was done on manual layouts on gridded mylar.

[dug]

wow, no wonder you have an inherent love for the astro then. thats pretty cool. I understand what you're saying when you talk about mirroring one side of the hood to make the other side etc. I work with autocad 2d at work often and it (as I'm sure you know) has the same functions as far as mirroring. However, I havent messed with the 3d autocad too much and it's a tough one to learn- not very intuitive. I would really like to get into being able to design something like you are but I just know the software is ridiculously expensive for personal use.

[astroracer]

Got some work done the last two weekends. Welding and grinding on the wheel rear tubs last weekend with Mel getting the spindles set up for the brake abutment adaptor brackets.


Drilling and tapping holes for those. We had to do some plugging to relocate one of them for better caliper positioning but the other was a straight drill and re-tap for both holes.

Today I put off doing any welding. Worked on the alternator brackets. The brackets that came with the engine are set up for the drivers side. I have NO room for an alternator over there so it has to go on the pass. side. The pulley is out of alignment on this side so I made up a couple of spacers to push the whole bracket forward 3/4's of an inch.



You can see the spacers behind the bracket. The belt lines up beatifully now. The next job is getting an adjuster plate down there. It is getting fairly close to the lower rad. hose but I think it's do-able.
Thanks for looking.
Mark

[astroracer]

We also started cutting up the pass side front wheel well. The whole front corner was removed in the process and there is a huge gapping hole in the floor and firewall now. You can see some of the carnage here.

We did this so we can get the tire wheel into full jounce and steer to set clearances and rebuild the wells.
We also started assembling the front suspensions. Pressing in the lower ball stud and bolting in the uppers, we actually assembled the front pass corner on the van for the first time!


The amazing thing to me was that it actually went together and looks right!

Even the calipers bolted up as designed. I was feeling pretty good by the end of the day! Even though we have a long way to go, things are coming together and it seems we are doing something right. Moving forward is good!


I tried bolting up a front rim but the studs are too short (I knew they would be and I have loner ones from Summit on the bench) I need to change those out so I can get a wheel on.
Thanks for looking
Mark

[linkstar69]

Cooler than cool!

[wellis77]

Looks great Mark!!!

[Martin71RS]

suspension looks great! this is a nice milestone :-)

[Tig]

Wow, everything is coming along quite nicely. Those spacers look great as does the front suspension.
Keep up the good work man. Look forward to your updates.

[astroracer]

Thanks guys, work is progressing slowly. We are into a stage where there is a lot of little things to do before we can get big things done. Last week was spent pulling together all of the parts for the trans build. Runnning the trans and rebuild kit up to Fred in Bay City after work Thursday night. I got home at 5:00pm to a flooded shop (TONS of rain) and spent an hour getting that swept out. I will have to mop and clean the floors before I do any painting this year.
Saturday was spent working on the hubs. Sandblasting, priming, painting.
Before blasting...

After blasting... Cleaned up real nice.

I painted them the same hammer black as the spindles. Looks okay. Not that you will see them after they are assembled anyway...

We pressed in new, longer 1/2 inch studs today and stuck it back on the spindle.


We also spent some time working out the new alternator bracket design. Took a lot of measurements and I designed the new bracket last night.


This will move the alternator up about two inches which will get it out of the way of the lower rad hose and still clear the engine cover. I will talk to the fab shop at work about laser cutting these for me...

[astroracer]

Getting the hubs done with longer studs let me get a rim and tire bolted on.

This pic is with the fender in place. What you see here is full jounce

We also mocked up the steering rack so we could get an accurate lock to lock on the tire.
This is full right lock/full jounce. We developed all of our trim lines from this position.

This is from the pass side door before any extra trimming. We trimmed enough to give the tire a full inch of clearance.

This is full left lock/jounce.
We'll build a new inner fender to cover the suspension and tie into the firewall and new front structure.

Mel got the old inner wheel house cleaned up and we'll use that as a base to rebuild the new one.

We got a lot done today. Everything went together very well and we don't have any real issues other then the lack of time...
Thanks for looking! I think this van is going to look BAD AST... What do you think?

[CruizinKev]

oh nice!! wheels look great under there!

[Bjkadron]

Looks great! I like the wheel choice!

[astroracer]

Thanks Kevin, Thanks Ben, I think the wheels look right on there. Simple and uncluttered.

Going up to Bay City in the morning to pick up the trans. Talked to Fred Thursday and he was painting it. Said it was ready and it will be one stout piece. He said I couldn't have found a better core if it was brand new... Good. I will haul the Gear Vendors unit up there so he can take a look at it.
He sent me some pics as he was stuffing the trans...





Thanks for looking
I have tomorrow and Sunday so look for updates.
Mark

[Protour_Pinto]

The stoutest 400TH I have ever rebuilt was out of my 1 ton Suburban.

[astroracer]

A buddy found this one for me. It's a '71 out of a motorhome... Low miles on it although Fred found evidence of an amatuer rebuild. Nothing major, just a couple of snap rings in the wrong spot and a missing parking pawl spring. He said it was perfect otherwise.
Here are a couple of pics of the Gear Vendors "J" model overdrive I got off eBay. It took me over an hour to uncrate it and it seems to be in fine shape. We'll go through it at Freds shop tomorrow.

Manuals, Wiring harness and a speedo adaptor.

The CRATE...
Drywall screws and bolts man...

[astroracer]

A box full of Autometer gauges came in from Summit the same day the O.D. did...


I will be building these into the dash center-stack. I have a '98 dash that is a lot more "curvey" then the '88 was. I will strip the pad off it and recover it in carbon fiber.

Spent time modeling up the dash pad and gauges tonight. This is just a quick and dirty but you can see what I am going for. Everything will be covered with carbon fiber. I changed the color of the gauge pod so you can see it.

The lower set of gauges will be built in under the HVAC controls

The alternator brackets are getting laser cut shortly. I sent the files to my buddy in the fab shop yesterday. KOOL!

[wellis77]

Great to see this come together Mark. Keep it up!

[astroracer]

Thanks Will, that's the plan. Got a four day coming up this weekend. I promised one to my wife and I hope to get the right front wheel well installed and the left front well on it's way.
last weekend I worked on the rear tubs. They are about 80% welded right now. I will get those finished up this coming weekend and get them installed also. This will be a big deal. getting the tin work wrapped up means we can start moving forward with the doghouse reconstruction and actusally slinging some sealer and paint!
Last weekend was spent tack welding and building the Right Front wheel well.
While I was welding Mel made a pattern out of the last of the green cardboard. We laid that out on a sheet of 22ga and stomp sheared it to shape. After getting it to fit well in the opening we taped a piece of 1 inch heater hose to the tire and spun it to check clearances. We had a close condition at full jounce/right lock as you can see by the witness marks inside the black marker "oval".

We cut this out with the plasma cutter and decided to make a "bicycle fender" to improve the clearance.
The clearance pocket from inside the van

From underneath

Sunday we made a hammer form out of a piece of 1 x 12. We cut a slot out to duplicate the clearance pocket, routed the edge with a round over bit, clamped a piece of 22ga in place and went to town with the BFH and numerous forming tools made from chunks of lumber and a few body dollies ...



After a few minutes we had the shape well on it's way.

Drawing out the corners with a body dollie.

Fairly complete at this point. Took about 10 minutes to make this piece.

Pulled the "die" apart to check the damages... Of course the parts are flat as we made them in a flat die. Here I am trimming off the flanges.

To get the "fender" to match the contourof the inner well we ran it through the shrinker.

A little shrinking on both sides pulled it into a perfect arch to match the wheel well radius.


Still have a lot of fitting to do but the hard part is done...

Have to do a little more trimming on the old structure to get the pocket where it needs to go.

This will work very well. A lot of work for something you won't even see. right?

Thanks for looking
Mark