My BadAst Project

I have been "working" on this van for while now. Design actually started in '04, had a few false starts building the frame and really got serious this spring. At this point the frame and front suspension are 90% complete and I am sneaking up on the rear suspension at 75%.
As an over view this is an '88 Astro van that will have a new full frame, re-designed front and rear suspensions, a BBC moved rearward and down and a 9" with True trac and 3.75 gears.
The frame is on the rotisserie and we have been fabbing rear suspension brackets the past couple of weekends.
Here are a few pics as it sits right now.
The chassis

The front LCA build. We made this fixture board to build all four control arms on. Worked very well.

Upper and Lower Control Arms mocked in place.

There is a lot more if anyone is interested.
Thanks for looking
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

wow, that's slicker than I thought it'd be...you're doing your own control arms?  I think THAT should be a future article. not to put the pro companies out of biz, but since pro touring likes to update suspensions, an article on how to do it the right way would be a great direction to take...  
Just because you can't do it...doesn't mean its impossible

Looks great, nice fab work, you have some great skills there...  
"Fill Your Library Before Your Fill Your Garage"  3836bbl alias Budnicks

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the compliments!
I sat on this project for so long that I was getting very discouraged. Getting out and actually building this van, getting real work done, is still amazing me...
I have to thank my friend Mel for all of his time and help. He drives out to my place from Flint and works just as hard as I do. He also keeps me focused. I tend to overthink things and he puts "issues" into perspective.

This is a few pics of the control arms as they came together. Here is the fixture set up and ready to go. We were able to fit both lower arms together and get them tacked with this simple jig.

This a pic of the lower ball stud cup with an uncut arm ready to be fit into the fixture.

I did the bends on a pro-tools bender. The tubing is 1.25 O.D. by .156 wall. All of the connecting structure is .25 inch steel.
Did a little thinking on these cuts. Compound angles make for difficult cuts to keep everything tight for tig welding. Cut long, grind to fit...

Didn't do to bad on fitting the arm... Only made one "test coupon" fitting the first one.


Fitting the forward arm. This is with a nice bevel added for welding.



Every thing tacked up and waiting for the lower shock mount.
 
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

Here are a few shots of the RH Lower Arm as we were finishing it up. Tacked together in the fixture with the lower shock tube in place.

This is upside down in the fixture. We had to do that because the mandrel support "structure" was in the way of the inner cross tube...

Here are some pics of both lower arms tacked together and out of the fixture.



While I had the welder running to tack the arm I also stuck the UCA fixtures together.

Thanks for looking.
Mark
 
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

The rear suspension is well on it's way. have a few things to tidy up so I can get the rear hung and the frame brackets finalized. i am hoping to have a full suspension under the van by the end of the day Sunday.... we'll see how it goes.
Last Saturday was spent in Kawkawlin wrapping up the housing mods. This time Pat and I finished up the narrowing, getting the bearing ends welded back on and figuring out axle lengths.
I will be ordering axles this week.

We also borrowed his neighbors lathe to bore out the upper bars to except the weld bungs I got from Currie.
Bored out bars and bungs... The upper bars are 1.5" OD

Brought everything home Saturday afternoon. Finished housing and brand new Yukon 3rd member.
I stopped at Withers steel on my way home and picked up a 24 x 36 piece of 3/8ths steel to start building a "Big Boy" welding bench. I also picked up a 4 ft piece of 1 " OD x 1/8 wall DOM for the panhard bar.
Sunday I spent hurting my back unloading all of that steel. (If you have never juggled a freshly built 3rd member you are missing out on a fun time) I got the upper bars built. Cut to length, fishmouthed and tack welded.
Fitting the bushing sleeve.

Tonight I got the lowers cut out, fishmouthed, beveled and tacked.

That's a tape measure for scale...

Tomorrow afternoon I am taking the bars out to EVI so Brett can weld them for me. I REALLY need to learn this TiG stuff better...
Thanks for looking at my junk
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

Here are a few pics of the bars after Brett at EVI welded them for me. He does very good work and I highly recommend EVI for any fab work you need done.



Thanks for looking
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

Got some work done this past weekend. We were making more brackets... Lower shock brackets and a couple of extensions that I added to the rear axle shock brackets so I can use my 6" inch travel Vari-Shocks in the rear.
We also got the rear axle mocked into place. Clamped some scrap tubing to the frame and set the axle on that to get the height established.

I cleaned up and painted the 4 link bars tonight. I used Rustoleum primer and "Hammer" gray. I think they look pretty good for a rattlecan job.

I masked off the monoballs rather than take everything apart.

I'll get some better pics when they are dry and I can lay them down.
Thanks for looking
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

mel and I hit it hard again this weekend! I got the new battery for the shop camera Thursday so I got a few update pics from last weekend.
This is a pic of the housing panhard bracket tacked in place. With the panhard bar mocked in.

Another angle.

Here is a pic of the whole suspension hanging in the chassis.

This is the outer gusset for the panhard bar frame bracket tacked in place.

The upper shock xmbr tacked in. I will be making gusset plates for this to tie it into the rail better and it will also carry a set of down tubes for the cage.

Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

This is a pic of the custom decals I had made for Bad Ast Motorsports.

I am putting the stickers on all of the suspension parts as they are finished.

Storage for the 4 link and panhard bars.

Today and yesterday the chassis saw the light of day AND the underside of a certain Astro Van... We started marrying the chassis to the body Saturday. Cleaned out a LOT more of the crossmembers (all of them to be exact) made a few notches in the forward rail sections and got the chassis shoved up in there...

Making way for the new chassis... There were 8 of these "tabs" left, spot welded to the old rails that we cleaned off today

After hitting them with a plug cutter and chisel...

Cleaned up with the grinder...

Rail notches for frame clearance. I will plate these in over the winter. The drivers side is a bit more "notchie" then the pass side.


After a couple of days worth of cutting and grinding we got the frame up in a near semblance of it's actual position.



I found this...

INSIDE the right hand rail section... WHY would a bird want to get in the rail? Probably to make a nest but it couldn't get out... Sad, very sad.
Thanks for looking.
Services and funeral are this Thursday at 11:00AM.
 
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

man, somewhere there's a bad pun about the dead rail bird...glad to see you're progressing on the project (posting about it gives some inspiration, huh? lol).

I suspect you're going to get a rubber snubber or two for the rear axle when it "bottoms out" due to a pothole and a full load of people/luggage (hey even the Bentley Turbo R did it when they first came out at $125,000 a pop)...will you put it on the nose of the pinion like Mopar did as a traction device, or just put it on the axle tubes where they would contact the C notches you put in the frame?  
Just because you can't do it...doesn't mean its impossible

It's looking really good...  
"Fill Your Library Before Your Fill Your Garage"  3836bbl alias Budnicks

Ahh, thanks guys? Snubbers? Snubbers? I don't need no stinkin snubbers...
I worked on trimming down body mount bushings during the week and got the chassis centered up and aligned so Mel and I could get the mount brackets finished up and tacked on today. We got all of that done AND pulled the chassis out and put it back on the rotisserie AND took the van off the lift and rolled it over to the cold side of the shop so I can putter with it this winter. I hope you enjoy the pics.
Trimming the mounts. I set them up in the horizontal bandsaw and trimmed them down to one inch high.

This 7 of the 8 I did. I still need two more to finish them up.

After squaring up the chassis we measured how much we would need to notch the body mount brackets. 1" by 2" was the magic number.
Running the tubing through the verticle saw.

After getting all of the brackets ready I tacked them to the frame. We re-used the 6 old cradle mounts and added 4 new (two per side) towards the rear.


We fabbed up the rear mounts from 1/4" plate and some short sections of 2 x 3 tube.

These are just tacked right now. I am going to start the finish welding tomorrow.
As they look in the van.


We got the van off the hoist and onto the body cart. It sure did roll around nice.

My wife had a good time taking us for rides...

Once we got it rolled back in the shop we raised it up off the cart and set it on some jack stands.


The chassis is back in the shop. With body mounts! Have a few additional brackets to make and finish the welding. That will be tomorrow.

Thanks for looking
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

Well, today was another good day. We got a crap load of "little bits" done. Capping off and reinforcing the upper shock crossmember, capping off the body mount brackets and getting the support tubes made for the lower shock mounts and panhard bar mount on the rear end. I also did a LOT of welding today. The housing has some to do yet and the chassis is probably about half way there.
One of the caps... Man, these little bits take a lot of time.

You can see the some of the other pieces we made today already welded in.

The passenger side.

I will be using these areas to carry the roll cage down bars so we plated it in with a flat area for the tube to sit on and weld too.
Fitting the lower shock mount support bars.


The panhard bar support.

I tied the lower shock and panhard bar supports into a small plate welded to the housing.
It's hard to see here but the plate welds in over the lower shock tube and bottom edge of the housing and the panhard bar tube sits on it. It also very effectively spreads the load over a larger area.

One of my welds. I am getting better.

Body mount weld.

We got a ton of work done this weekend.
I will be plugging away at the finish welding this week. I have a few early welds I need to grind out and re-weld so that is what I will be working on.
Thanks for looking
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."

We have gotten a lot done since i last updated the thread. This past weekend was another milestone! WE HAVE PAINT!!! The chassis is primed in black, the upper and lower control arms and panhard bar are in dark gray hammered and the spindles and rear housing are black hammered. I think I will spray the frame with the black also... It comes in a quart can and I think it looks nice.
The chassis as we got parts primed. We started at the back and worked our way forward.
Saturday.


Sunday

Didn't wait for the paint to dry for these...


The chassis stil has some work yet, front bumper brackets and some roll cage work but at least now it can go thru the winter in one color.
Thanks for looking
Mark  
"Just because I did it... Doesn't mean it's possible."