my 1979 Quadravan

HammsBear

New member
Hello all. Here are some photos of the last two years of working on my van. When I got it, it was a little rough. I have replaced a few different body panels and cut others out. I painted it in my barn. its not fancy but I like it a lot. I built the roof rack myself with some help of friends. I still want to put an interior in it and build a rear bumper. But I did take it out last weekend and drove it around on the sand dunes. It was a ton of fun and everything worked really well.

If anyone knows the part numbers for the front drive train/steering I would love to hear from you. I am specifically looking for tie rod ends right now.

N55By.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]










And this is pretty close to how it sits now. I am really happy with how the rack turned out. The wood is white oak. I used an upgraded harbor freight tubing roller to make the bows to hold them up. I know the 8 lights is a little overkill, but i had a space to fill... lol.

The tires are 37's Mil spec hummer tires. They make surprisingly very little road noise, and did way better then i was expecting in the sand.









I am hoping to get moving on the interior soon. I will put some more photos up as that gets further and further done.
 

colierar

Observer
That's a pretty sweet barn yard paint job. Cool rack on top, will it support your weight so you can hang out on top and watch an event and such? What I am asking is can it double as a deck?? Nice work.
 

spencyg

This Space For Rent
How the H.E. double hockey stick did you get 37's to clear up front? I had to slice the rear corners of the lower fenders off with my '86 just to get 33's to clear! Love the rack!

SG
 

HammsBear

New member
Yeah. Im a pretty big guy and it completely supports my weight. So far we have had 3 guys up there at a time no problem.

To clear 37s.... well I did some fender triming. Like all the way to the door. And then I pshed the front axel forward 3/4". I just took the radius arms off and put in spacers. It worked out well, and I dont rub. Well, mostly I dont rub. I may need to do a little more to totally not rub.
 
Last edited:

tgreening

Expedition Leader
Man, I like the front ends on those older body style vans way way better than mine. That's a fine example.
 

HammsBear

New member
Thanks everyone. I will try to get some pictures of the bumper when i get home this weekend. I took the giant one that came with the van and cut the corners down. Its a bit of a monstrosity but it will do for now. The PTO winch works. I havn't need to use it, yet, but i'm sure that day is coming. Someone on the "post pictures of your van" thread asked for more pictures of the roof rack.






You can just barely see this, but one of the most frustrating parts was counter boring all the boards. The boards are held to the cross bars with u-bolts. If I were going to do this again I would try to find j-bolts.. lol. Half as much drilling / counter-boring. But it did turn out nice, and the u bolts stay just below the surface of the wood.
 

HammsBear

New member
Im not sure how much it weighs. I used .095" wall tube... if I had to guess I would say around 400 lbs. But maybe more. I was worried that much weight on top qould make it sway really hard, but I havnt noticed any issues with that yet.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,531
Messages
2,875,588
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top