Aibrushin

I did some airbrushing for an art show tomorrow. Got another panel to finish up in the morning. Drew an econoline too but I'm not sure it looks so great. I'll scan it in later. Anyway here are some pictures of my first van. It was all blue shag fur. Ok,keep on truckin.

looking to sell my 77 dodge tradesman

seeing if theres any interest ......i have a 1977 tradesman 100 van for sale or maybe trade .......with all the 70's goodies visor,sunroof,power window kit, wing,venturi air vent......just had a tuneup plugs wires and distributer.....brand new wheels and brand new tires runs great...brakes work good...not many 4 speed vans around these days.....went thru interior floors no rust sanded down and coated with por15 ..... so no rust again inside has been striped bare ready for you to customize it how you want...will include a rusty set of keystone wheels dashpad 2 engine covers a service manual and a brand new set of hooker stainless sidepipes...theres some surface rust on roof so i would have that taking care of asap......otherwise a very clean truck for an east coast van.....it has a 318 holley 4 barrel carb aluminum mt valve covers edelbrok manifold has chrome sidepipes now that rust has taken over........motor can use a good powerwash and cleaning....been sitting in a garage in vermont for years....previous owner claims to have under 80,000 on motor.....my mechanic says that seems about right that its a really strong motor with alot of life left in her.....dont wanna sell my van but i dont have the space for it anymore and wanna buy a harley davidson wideglide......price is 5500.00 obo.......email me for more pictures and or questions thanks for looking...........vander@deathscience.com

utopia, bad ass, and the omen

Utopia was originally built by Marty Sooby. I have some pictures of it in 83 when it was just a bolt on truck all the way to it being full custom. Marty sold it to a guy named Kim, later it caught on fire and marty restored it. Today it has a 502 engine in it. Utopia also looks a lot like the van The Omen built by someone else. I don't know why they are so similar but they are. Marty also built a short chevy called Bad Ass that looks similar to utopia. Cool style he has. chopped, tilt front, big flares, sealed back, gullwings, shaved drip rails. I dig it. Side note: I borrowed a few pictures from marty's web page http://utopiacustoms.com/. Gotta let ya know!

Bad Ass with utopia in the back ground.

The Omen. Again built by someone else but the two are very similar and emerged at similar times. I'd like to know the whole story on that.

THE GURU

You know what I dig? Vans obviously but anytime someone manages to get rid of windows. I'm not too into windows as many vanners aren't. Who wants to drive a rolling fishbowl? Not me. so Here's the guru. This was a window van but with the back doors sealed up, and two windows on the drive side sealed up. then on the opposite of those sealed up windows they put on panel doors but left the little triangle windows and the long back ones. Pretty slick. This was built by Ron Cassebaum. An old school airbrush artist from Illinois. He's still around somewhere. Wish I had some pictures of the other side though. I'll have to dig through my mags some more.

striping

Bluegrass member scott let me lay some lines on his pillar and really where ever I wanted to on his van. Here's the outcome. Dark blue and ivory were the colors of choice. He also asked me to letter "Scrap Iron" so the back doors would read scarp iron dodge.

I actually like the pillar a lot more before we added the tan. it just popped so much more than the dark blue that it completely overwhelmed it, and then I got sloppy. oh well.

bring your van to this show!

and show it the fuck off! car motorbike van show. bands playing inside. all money goes directly to japan. spread the word! drive your van to LA!

alex and his rig

bluegrass vanners member alex drives a 79 chevy that he calls "frankenstein 79". Alex lives in his own world and doesn't give a fuck what other people think about that. Having known him a few years I can vouch for that. His van has a 350 V8 sporting open headers and no engine cover. We also swapped his van from an auto trans to a 3 speed on the floor with an old hurst shifter. Alex has a hood scoop that I made for him and swapped back to a 77 style grill and round headlights. The front bumper is gone. The interior is pretty bare featuring a malibu bench seat in the back, two tires for storage of his classic punk tapes, and a place to put his tape player. Up front he has a rat fink t shirt over his seat, a pbr can and a rat fink statue held in place by loose wires from inside the dash. He has no working gauges, and barely has head and tail lights. He was once pulled over by kentucky's finest and the ticket at the bottom said "A nuisance to the road". Alex takes that as a compliment. He probably wouldn't want me to post his van but fuck it, he's rad so here it is.

bumper sticker reads "BAN GUNS make the streets safe for a government take over"

Yeah man..........

I scored some hard wood for the floor in my van.. I can't wait to lay this shit down....... it's gonna be like a bowling alley.................. haha.........

Club meeting, new econo etc.

here are some pics from our club meeting last weekend. Also some pictures of birdie's 77 chevy. this thing has been a party wagon since he bought it in 76. never seen a day of work. It's taken him 33 years to build it. We just put some new headers on it so I decided to get some pics of it for ya. Also my buddy john just bought a 67 econo. I have some pics of it too.

Polished TH 350 continued

So I spent basically another day on this polish transmission. I have two pictures to show the outcome. The polished trans which I'm very happy with and what I looked like after 4 hours of polishing. I look kind of like those old hobo statues you see in trinket shops. Not bad for home grown. More van stuff tomorrow. my buddy john is buying a 67 ford supervan tomorrow so expect pics of that.

side note: my camera is broken. anybody tryin to unload a digital camera for a good price? el cheapo point and shoot is right up my alley. somethin I can beat up in the garage. let me know.

Louvered hoods

Ever wonder how louvered hoods are made? You strip the paint off the top, cut the inside support out of your hood, make a grid, and then you stamp it out on the louver press, then weld the inner support back in and paint it. That's it. A friend of mine ordered a chevy hood from me so we went down to my buddy Brad Starks In Paducah, KY and asked him to punch it out.

the press has a piece on the stamping die that lines each louver up with the last one that you punched giving you a consistent line of louvers. That first punch is crucial!

vans are kewl!

a couple earlies for that asss giiirrrl.

polished TH350

I used to bug my fellow bluegrass vanners club member spence about gullwinging the slider on his 77 chevy everytime we got drunk. He finally let me do it and he was very happy with the result. The gullwing looks great but now his engine has taken a shit. He put in a new cam, lifters, and springs in his van about 12 months ago and for some reason ended up with 7 worn out lobes and a really poorly running van after a year. He called lunati and they said tough shit. That's about the time I bought a 68 chevy no door and decided to get a fool injected motor for it. So we've been disassembling some vans and putting some together. After I gullwinged the door he's been much easier to convince to do some cool custom shit. As a result of that tonight I decided to polish his transmission for him. He didn't even mind the fact that I started out by busting out the grinder and removing the casting lines. He's been re-painting the engine and it looks great. I also picked up a bitchin new air compressor last week so I'm really excited about that. Oh and the plan with my old van is to chop it!

the trans before polishing

You can see here I ground off the casting lines and it's getting shiny but it needs a lot more work before it looks like chrome.

The engine is lookin good.

Spence's van

The new compressor

my 68 no door.