It's Alive!

   Ok, so let's bring you up to speed, so to speak.  A few days have gone by since my last confession.  Haha, just a jokey.  A few days have passed time wise since yesterday's blog post, so ya gots to know what it been...
  

It didn't look too bad here, other than being a sludge and grime factory. However, something sinister lurked beneath...

       So I pulled the doghouse to see if the field mice had nested inside the air cleaner or anything, but was dismayed at what I saw.  When I pulled the shroud away, 'cotton candy' insulation came down from above, from up under the dash. The picture above is actually taken after being blown out with the air hose.  I leaned in and looked underneath the dash, and the little fucker had stuffed insulation in every nook and cranny within the dash region. That dash was insulated better than a 58-foot Reefer trailer.  I will admit to gagging twice from the smell, and vomiting in my mouth once from a rat turd nearly dropping into my mouth.  They don't call them 'droppings' for nothing.  In retrospect, it's probably best to wear an N95 mask during the first journey into the dark unknown...
   Here are some pictures of the horror which lied beneath.

Not what I wanted to see. On the good side, there wasn't any in the air cleaner housing...

I mean EVERY little nook and cranny was filled with this shit. Literally.

And this nonsense falls down at me, adding further excitement to the scene.

   I knew at that point I was committed to pulling the dash out and going over every square-inch (or every deci-whatever for you cupcakes) and refurbishing this entire 'piss bomb' zone.  As I had suspected, the pink panther had struck, and packed his insulation throughout. And he was even kind enough to chew through a few essential wires, and ruin one heater vent control cable with his urine-fest.  At this point, my tongue was plenty lubed up with cuss.


What lies beneath...

   All in all, it took me ten minutes to remove the dash, including dropping the steering/shift column, and about an hour to thoroughly remove the waste and properly clean it.  I put the cleaner to it and let the garden hose have it's way with the dash area, so it was like new again there, behind the scenes.  Almost. 

Clean and ready to live again.

    By now, I was half-frustrated from the whole ordeal, so to turn my frown upside down, I wanted to hear it run.  I checked the oil level, half a quart low, and didn't look too black actually.  Checked the radiator to see if it was dry, and to my surprise it was half full of antifreeze.  Great!  A visual inspection shown that the rat-sized mice had gnawed the tops off a couple of spark plug boots at the distributor cap, exposing the tip of the electrode.  That, and a little 'condensation rust' kinda thing going on, and everything else under the hood looked to be in order, more or less.

Meet the 292 cid Chevy L6, aka 'the big six'. You can Google this motor, and guys are building them to this day for racing and street. Turbo motors!

   I poured a gallon of fresh fuel into the tank and grabbed a local battery and threw it in the van.  At first it wouldn't turn over due to the battery terminals not making a good connection.  After a litte twisty on the clamps I got it to turn over.  Sounded like an old tractor lumping over on a cold winter morning.  I shot a squirt of ether in the snout and the motor kicked right over.  It took a few minutes of cranking and approximately 30,000 gas pedal pumps with the trigger foot, but eventually got it to run on its own, without the panther piss.  It was alive!  I mean, I was told "it ran when it was parked", but you never know for your self until you hit the key.  The 'three-on-the-tree' shifter was bound up, but I finally got it to go between first and second gears.  So I put 'er in low and let out the clutch and away we went.  Right over the horse manure mound.  Right past the satellite dish duck pond, made it all the way up to the shop, and into freedom.  This was fucking excellent.  I had motor, power, brakes(ish), steering, all the things that make a choo choo boogaloo.  Now I had to fine tune a few things before I took it any further.


Clean machine, and on the scene.

   With the dash out and a plan in my mind, I quickly got to work repairing things.  All wiring was checked and I ended up only having to re-terminate four wires, and solder one back into the headlight switch plug.  Likely, I will replace the headlight switch, but I will try to refurbish it first.  I pretty much have zero budget on this project, so I will try to recycle any item I can from the van or into the van.  With the exception of the necessary items bought at O'Reilly's to make the van run right or be safe, there will be no other items purchased for the van.  My goal is to make it a formidable and fun camper and cargo hauler, if necessary. 
   There won't be any spaceship gadgets or plush-van doo dads here fellows and ladies.  Just the bare bones.  Anything this project will need will have to come from in-house.  Meaning I will have to find it lying around, or build it myself.  Yet my needs are simple.  Utilitarian camping, perhaps.  Whatever it is, this van and I are connected.

  So here is where I am at right now. At my computer.  Haha, just a jokey.  I poured half a quart of automatic transmission fluid in the crankcase and ran it for a while to loosen up any deposits and what-have-you.  The thing sounds like a Singer sewing machine with some clackety going on up inside the valve cover, and the trans fluid mix has already quieted that down.  It now runs a bit rough and backfires through the carb when you get into it, so a valve may be sticking.  I'll run it again tomorrow and maybe run some Seafoam through it.  I have a new oil filter, oil, pcv valve, air filter, fuel filter which I will install tomorrow.  I have already replaced the alternator belt, smoked it off during initial startup.  Other than that, it will still need a tune-up and maybe a tire.  I had to replace a bunch of bulbs in the dash and front turn signal bulbs.  Tracking them down one by one.  I realized that the 'idiot' lights in the dash are not very informative.  Staying within the parameters of the budget, I swiped the gauge trio I had originally purchased over a year ago for my El Camino.  I figured the Elco could do without them for now, since it was having the motor rebuilt.

Factory 'idiot' warning lights.  Pathetic, at best.  Accessory, at most.

Test fire of the dash lights and gauge lights. 

   That's about where I stand at the moment.  I may have an in-dash stereo to replace the 'brick' of a factory radio.  By the way, the dash is now matte black, that blue color was hideous.  The replacement stereo will actually reside in the panel above the original, and accessory switches will take the place of the factory radio, mounted in an ABS panel covering the hole. 

Oh, hell no.

   Tomorrow is Friday and I will have some new pics and maybe a vid of the motor purring. We'll see, gotta lotta shit to do...