Hi new member, just spent the last 4 hours becoming convinced by this great forum that I need to build a camper out of my extra van that I was planning to sell. 
Looking for any all advice and opinions on how to fit the van out. New to the camping world, but would love to start taking some mild road trips and build from there
Specs on my vehicle are its a 1989 Chevy Astro shorty 2WD, RWD. Originally it was a 4.3 chevy V6, but I converted the drivetrain to (now), a mercedes 3.0 617 diesel mated to a T5 5-speed manual.
Other than that, its an empty shell apart from driver and passenger front seats. I originally built it to use as a work van, but as my issues with the drivetrain and getting it worked out bore fruit, I ultimately bought an express van which is bigger and more capable for work. At the end of the day I have an empty short diesel minivan begging for the next step.
Not sure what the picture rules are here for new posters, but will try and add some pics to this post. EDIT- worked, will add more
Van as I first got it. Was a florists van, and needed some body repair parts. Replaced passenger front door, and hood with fishmarket van parts
that got old really fast, and since I was using it for work, was really unprofessional to see pull up, so had it painted a nice classic chevy green-
The 4.3 was reliable and just about 200k, but after an engine fire incident and some other issues, that plus the consistent low fuel economy had me looking around for alternate drivetrains. I love diesels, especially mercedes diesels, so I decided I would convert it to diesel.
I decided also I wanted a manual transmission van after some winter snow and ice fun. If I don't have 4x4, I might as well have a clutch. The originally power application is on and off with a very basic open diff, so this van was one of the worst vehicles ive ever driven in snow.
At first I was going for fuel economy, so went with a 4cyl 616 diesel that I turbocharged. Getting this drivetrain in the van was a lot of work which I will try to condense to move on to my camper plans
First I grabbed a parts van and broke it down for the subframe. (astros are unibody with an engine cradle).
Then the most difficult part was finding an astro specific stick. The T5 is in everything, but the drivetrain for an astro is off center, so the stick handle has a custom adapter to bring it over to the drivers seat. I found a blown original gearbox, and had it rebuilt using an early 90s S10 gearbox. What the astro 5-speed looks like-
I needed to mate this to the MB diesel, so I bought a nice adapter kid offline which included a flywheel-
stock and new drivetrain compared with the 4cyl-
Looking for any all advice and opinions on how to fit the van out. New to the camping world, but would love to start taking some mild road trips and build from thereSpecs on my vehicle are its a 1989 Chevy Astro shorty 2WD, RWD. Originally it was a 4.3 chevy V6, but I converted the drivetrain to (now), a mercedes 3.0 617 diesel mated to a T5 5-speed manual.
Other than that, its an empty shell apart from driver and passenger front seats. I originally built it to use as a work van, but as my issues with the drivetrain and getting it worked out bore fruit, I ultimately bought an express van which is bigger and more capable for work. At the end of the day I have an empty short diesel minivan begging for the next step.
Not sure what the picture rules are here for new posters, but will try and add some pics to this post. EDIT- worked, will add more
Van as I first got it. Was a florists van, and needed some body repair parts. Replaced passenger front door, and hood with fishmarket van parts
that got old really fast, and since I was using it for work, was really unprofessional to see pull up, so had it painted a nice classic chevy green-
The 4.3 was reliable and just about 200k, but after an engine fire incident and some other issues, that plus the consistent low fuel economy had me looking around for alternate drivetrains. I love diesels, especially mercedes diesels, so I decided I would convert it to diesel.
I decided also I wanted a manual transmission van after some winter snow and ice fun. If I don't have 4x4, I might as well have a clutch. The originally power application is on and off with a very basic open diff, so this van was one of the worst vehicles ive ever driven in snow.
At first I was going for fuel economy, so went with a 4cyl 616 diesel that I turbocharged. Getting this drivetrain in the van was a lot of work which I will try to condense to move on to my camper plans
First I grabbed a parts van and broke it down for the subframe. (astros are unibody with an engine cradle).
Then the most difficult part was finding an astro specific stick. The T5 is in everything, but the drivetrain for an astro is off center, so the stick handle has a custom adapter to bring it over to the drivers seat. I found a blown original gearbox, and had it rebuilt using an early 90s S10 gearbox. What the astro 5-speed looks like-
I needed to mate this to the MB diesel, so I bought a nice adapter kid offline which included a flywheel-
stock and new drivetrain compared with the 4cyl-
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