This is no longer a Flintstone car

When we first started the project we ripped the floor out of our van with the intention of replacing the whole thing. I soon discovered that no one manufactured a replacement floor for a 1971 model. I had been looking everywhere for a fix for my problem and finally I found http://www.klassicfab.com.













They make this great one-piece replace floor and as you can see it fits very nicely.













I love the days when new parts show up, it like having a birthday in the shop.

We have moose in Alaska!!!!

So looking at the bumper you might be thinking "man that thing is huge". Well, yes it is!! There was a lot of effort that went into the design and construction of this part of the van. It needed to have some style with flowing curves to match the shape of the van. It needed to be more stable than the existing bumper to make our insurance company happy. It also needed to be taller to account for the near 4inch drop that the van is getting. It is well built and a little on the heavy side but I believe that it will create a level of safety that we need from an older vehicle, that way if we do have a car pull out or a moose step out in front of us there will be something between us and it.

Framing the Trunk Lid

You know how some ideas seem really great at first, then they don't seem as good later!!!! Well this one wasn't like that at all, ha. It hasn't been easy working through the whole thing but it really is coming together nicely and the room it gives us has been worth the effort. We been distracted with some other things and I have a new batch of kids with only 1 experienced welder so the welding projects take a little longer because I'm training the kids as we go. When it comes to welding metal stock to sheet metal it can get a little tricky. Jaxon (Junior in high school, wants to be a welder) is practicing a bit before starts some of the finish work on this project. You can see in the picture below the little end caps that Jay made are a great fit but there are some small gaps to fill. Jaxon really wants to be able to tig weld this, but we'll see. You can also see the piece of angle iron that frames the edge of the once jagged opening.



Below you can see the lid itself with the new flange around it it closes nicely and in the end it will get a rubber gasket around the flange to ensure a good seal (no fumes in the cab). In the background you can also see how nice the new rear seat fits (leather, how fancy). The lid isn't quit finished yet, but you can see how nice its turning out. With carpet you wont even know its there.



The lid will be mounted to trunk style hings and attached to linear actuators to hold it up. Makes a lot more room, we love it!!!!!!!

A Little Breathing Room Would Be Nice!!!!

We know from day one that this was a big motor and it would take a lot to get it in, but we had no idea!!!!! As you can see from the image below we couldn't use a traditional engine hoist to bring the engine into place. We ended up using a floor jack and lots of muscle.


Once we got it into position (shown below) we realized that we wouldn't have enough room to work on the top half of the engine. We needed more room!!!!! After much brainstorming and some research on the internet we had a plan. We decided to cut ANOTHER hole in our van (its starting to look like a cheese grater).



So we cut out the WHOLE rear deck. From the fuel tank wall to the back (including the buildt in cross-member), from the right side of the original engine compartment to the left. In the picture it looks crooked, but it is just an illusion. The cuts came out perfect.



You'll notice in the next picture Jay Thompson (8th grade student at the time) built a very nice torsion bar to take the strain that cross-member would have. The new torsion bar can be removed with 8 bolts to make way for the engine and hoist.


When the trunk lid is finished, the torsion bar will be the only thing in the way when we try to work on the engine. We are working on the framing and hinge-work right now but will include more pictures as that finishes.



You'll also notice on the left side we have removed the spare tire compartment. This will be framed in and made into a access panel with a 3x9x24 inch compartment for the ECU, fuse panel and other electrical. This also made room for the air filter, and most likely the inter-cooler.

Emmet grinding the welds to remove spare tire compartment

Thanks to those doing the little stuff!!!!!!

I don't always show all the little things that get done. Not everyone can be grinding, welding, and installing there just isn't always big stuff that is ready. The students are good about finding little things to do and they don't even complain a lot (as long as the music is going). Often the students will ask what to do and I'll have to just give them a section to prep, and sand, an item to clean and grind, degreasing and scrubbing, there is always grunt work to do, so thanks!!!!!!!!

Low Rider! Ok Kinda Low Rider!

Well the Van is starting to look better, I didn't say good. We still have a lot to do, more to do than we have time to do them. But Jay and I did get the front spindles in and there great.
Empty wheel well before new spindles.

Those guys at Wagenswest sure does an nice job.

Makes me want to paint the wheel wells instead of undercoating them.
I'm not liking the paint job on the brake shrouds and I think they are going to chip very easy, so when we get the powder coating equipment going I think this will be one of the first parts to do.

The new rims and tires with the drop spindles. Looks nice!! You can see how the whole thing is tipping forward a little without the rear drop in.

wow, those wheels are going to look nice!

Square Peg into a Round Hole

Well the engine is in the van but this was not an easy task.

First it was very difficult to get the engine balanced at the correct angle to go in, and there wasn't enough room to bring the engine hoist in all the way.




To make things worse there was STILL some oil in some of the return line and stuff and then on the floor, our shoes and our knees. MORE floor dry!!!!



We balanced the whole unit on the floor jack and Paul, Jay, Thor and I muscled it into place. put the 2 bolts at the front of the tranny. Then we put the 2 drive axels in place, this really helped to get things lined up.

Fun Time

Even on a work day there is still time to do a little dreaming and playing. Thor and Jay took a little time to dream about what it will be like when everything is done and we can actually dive this thing.

The Front Suspension

You may have notice in the picture with the new wheel under the front that it is just sitting in there not attached to anything. Well that is because the front spindles have been removed and sent out to WagensWest in Salem, OR (http://www.wagenswest.com/). They hand build custom suspension part for VWs. Nice guys, talk to Nate!!!!! They sent us some beautiful re manufactured drop-spindles for the front and are sending the horseshoe plates to drop the back. The whole van will be dropped by about 3.5 inches when all is said and done. The spindles came in today and we should have them back on the van in a couple of days. I'll post some pictures when they're in.

Van Tires and Seats

The new tires and seats for the van came in a few weeks ago, and everything is now coming together nicely. The tires that were purchased for the van have a very high efficiency, which will help to increase the gas mileage. We also got low mass aluminum rims to go with the high low rolling resistance tire. The two things that we we're aiming for with the tires were style and efficiency. Judging by the picture I think we did it.

























The new seats we got are out of a newer Dodge Nitro that we found totaled at North West Auto in Anchorage. They're black /grey Leather, and they're heated. So, uncomfortable seats on a long road trip definitely wouldn’t be an issue in this van.

Installing the New Oil Pan!!!

We had a Saturday work day not long ago, we worked the whole day to get engine and transaxel into our slowly progressing van. It took hours, and it didn't start well. We hooked it up to the cherry picker and up onto the metal table it went. After getting the 800 pound engine/tranny on the table, we started taking off the original oil pan. What we didn't know was that there was still a lot of oil that hadn't drained, and we had a huge mess on our hands. We had a oil spill that was running everywhere. Having a wood shop next door generally works well because we can use sawdust to clean up oil messes. The only problem was that the shop was actually clean for once and there was almost no sawdust to be found. So off to Napa to get some dry floor. So it took longer then it should have to change an oil pan. Also the bolts from the original sump and oil pump were to long to fit the new angled set, so the runner was sent back to Napa. It took a lot of patients, but its done! As you can see in the last picture Thor installed the passenger side motor mount.

Go Green or Go Home!!!

"Go Green or Go Home" is quickly becoming our moto, but until recently will really didn't have any GO. Our engine came to us late this last fall but as you can see from the picture it really is a bundle of wires and hoses to be sorted out. Well, we've recently put the engine up on the table and mounted the transaxel to it. It really is a site! To think that this modern motor will be the drive in our new van. I order to get it into the van we need to build a new motor mount for the side of the engine with the turbo. The newer turbo would not fit with the original van motor mount. This will give us the opportunity to use the milling machine to make a really awesome mount. That will be on the blog soon.

I was beginning to get nervous about taking care of the rust issue on our van. We have access to a very large sand blaster, but to ship the sand to run it would cost a huge chunk of our budget. We have been treating some of our rust with various products but none of them seem to work well. In my search for a better product I found Rust Bullet LLC. which should be the solution to our problem. It will save huge amounts of time in the fact that the prep is greatly reduced, and the end product should be far better. Above and beyond making a great product Rust Bullet has decided to sponsor our project and donate the supplies to rust treat our whole vehicle. Now that's great!!!!!!
Here is a link to there web page, check it out it is the perfect product for any restoration project. http://www.rustbullet.com

Our new transaxel has arrived (Thank you Rancho performance Transaxels)

Today our custom built transaxel showed up in it's crate from California. It was like Christmas for the shop kids. They gathered around the crate while I took the screws out and opened it up. As it was opened, I heard a lot of comments like: "wow that's so awesome", and "that's the coolest thing ever". We had originally intended to use the transaxel that was with the bus, but Diesel engines run at a much lower RPM. Mike at Rancho Performance Transaxles had the solution for us. He put in a taller 3rd and 4th gear to lower the RPMs at highway speed, and help with the efficency. The original gasoline motor would have had about 70 horse power, but the new diesel engine will have somewhere around 130 or more horsepower, for this reason Mike welded 1st and 2nd gear. The tranny was also beautifully painted with stainless nuts to accent the black. He also installed a diesel bellhousing and a short input shaft to accomadate the 1.9 liter TDi engine. Mike is also doing his part to support education by donating all the labor for this undertaking, meaning we only paid for the parts and shipping. Thanks again Mike!!!!! Here are some pics of the new tranny and a 7th grader (Tim) changing over some of the brackets and the throwout bearings. You'll find a link to Rancho Performance Transaxles in the links section, check out his webpage; it's cool.

Every good project starts with a plan!!!!

The students are quickly learning that it's easy to have big ideas, but harder to make the plans. The key part of that sentence is that the students are learning! Here are some pictures of the design and manufacturing class working on some design components of van. They are making conceptual drawing of the van. what they think the van should look like when it's done. They are also planning things such as; what the interior should look like, the ergonomics of the new dash, and what the new interior panels should look like. This class has a lot to do with dreaming, so it's tuff for me as a teacher to look around the room and see the dreamy looks on the kids faces and not say anything. We spend time looking on the internet at cars, engines and tools; just what every boy wants to do (dream about cars). It's not all fun and games, the students are learning to run a complicated 3D drafting program, they have learned a great deal about hand drafting, and learned just how hard it is to have an original idea.

Local Business Shows It's Support for Our Project

Our local energy company, Naknek Electric Association (NEA) has taken an interest in our project. NEA has been known for the efforts they have made in our region to provide cleaner, cheaper, and sustainable energy. They have upgraded our local powerplant to one of the most efficeient in the state, and they didn't stop there. Somewhere thousands of feet below us there is a resource of energy cleaner and more reliable, and they have their sites set on it. Geothermal energy will be our regions next step toward cleaner energy. Even smaller, local companies can do their part to change the way the world makes and uses energy. Thank you to NEA for their contribution, they are providing support for the future and our education.

The Van Gets a New Floor

The floor in the cargo area of the van was by far the roughest part of the vehicle. The through rust was threatening to tip the seat over and really we didn't need that much ventilation. We removed the original floor and the replacement flooring, because it just didn't seem to fit the project. So, we replaced it with a sheet of diamond plate aluminum (much nicer, and it won't rust).

The VW finds a new home!

The wood shop was an ok location, but I was always worried about possible fires and the van took up the space that we use to build our larger wooden structures. Well, the van has found a new home in the metal shop, where it belongs. We now have full access to the tools and equipment that we need to complete the project!

Making Some Progress!!

It's been 1 year since the van was first rolled into the shop. We've made some progress, but not as much as I would have liked to over this year. With the van originally being just a restoration project we had limited time and limited budget. The students and I decided that the van could be a whole lot more then just a restoration project. With fuel prices going threw the roof and global climate change, becoming a real concern it only makes sense to make it into an alternative fuel vehicle. The students chose to use a diesel engine because it's so flexible and so much can be done to increase the efficiency. The student recently put a lot of work into making a presentation of there plans. They put together a DVD that outlines there plans for completing the van and a trip around the United States to teach people about conservation. We presented it to our School Board, and were given a full blessing to continue full steam. We are in the process of finding sponsorship for this huge undertaking project. The fact is things are starting to cruise, so expect more postings in the near future.

Bondo

The bondo mix and the hardener before it got mixed together.

When mixing bondo, it must all be mixed together very well so there isn't any soft spots.

When the bondo was getting put on, it had to be put on very quickly before it got too dry to work with anymore.