The BAD AST Project - Faze II

[Chadman27]

Mark, as I sit here and watch this O's game (any Orioles fans on here... been a while since a playoff birth) this is the first time I've gone through your entire post, and I must say, you are god amongst men :-) This is hands down the most badass van I have ever seen!

[astroracer]

Mark, as I sit here and watch this O's game (any Orioles fans on here... been a while since a playoff birth) this is the first time I've gone through your entire post, and I must say, you are god amongst men :-) This is hands down the most badass van I have ever seen!

Thank you sir but you've got me all wrong... I am quite proud of what Mel and I are doing here but, in no way, do I consider this build perfect. It is far from that. I have cobbled up some sheet metal parts and built a chassis but what I am doing here is amatuer work compared to what the pro shops do. What we are doing gets the job done and no one will be the wiser after paint and carpet.
Thanks though
Mark

[astroracer]

Things are moving slowly on the van. I have been working on another "project" and the fall weather is making me take care of some "around the house" projects.
I have gotten a couple things done though. I ended up ordering some chromed pulleys from Jegs. Just to get the front dressed out and let me finish the alternator brackets. The pulleys needed a bit of work to get them yo fit right but I did that last week and got the alt brackets done over the weekend.
I made the mounting studs from 3/8-16 threaded rod. Cut two to length and threaded them into the aluminum head as far as they would go. I will pull them out and put a little anti-sieze on them for final assembly. I will probably put some acorn nuts on them to clean them up.

Here is a creen shot of my UG file for the bracket design... Looks pretty close doesn't it?

I used 1" dia aluminum to make the spacers. Bored them out on the lathe and put a nice polish on them after I faced them to length.

The brackets will get sand blasted and powder coated black after I smooth out the edges.
The pulleys will get the motor running and drivable but I plan to upgrade them to polished aluminum when the van is on it's way to completion.

I have a chromed fan and pulley for the alt and am waiting on the power steering pulley to show up.
Mark

[astroracer]

Here are few pics of the wire spool I made to hold all of the wire I got.

This is pretty simple as it's only a heavy cardboard tube with dividers made from heavy cardbooard and hotglued in place... A scrap of 5/4 deck board made the base.

I put hooks in this and it hangs right over my wiring bench so the wire is easy to reach and stays out of the way.

Here are some pics of the battery box. The rear most position just isn't good because it's way to high in the van.

I thought about putting it in the floor in front of the passenger side wheel tub but that is a lot of work for no real gain. Also it would be in the way of my planned exhaust routing.

I've made up my mind to put it up front. Centered in the frame as low as I can get it yet keep it above the bottom of the lower frame tube.

It will be sitting fairly low and will not even see the radiator. This is also going to simplfy the wiring by leaps and bounds! No huge mass of cables running front to back now.
Mark