There and Back Again.

Haven't had a lot of time to update the blog with working on the Van and Mark heading off to the Army.

Here's pictures before we went to Fisherman's Bend..

New Aftermarket Steering wheel and you can now see a horn button next to the Stereo for the new air horn.

Here you can see my first attempt at mounting the cooler on the rear bumper

Could have the spare tire on and open the cooler so I went without it.. Fisherman's bend is only 30mins east of Salem. If we got a flat I could always get the spare if needed..

Cooler fits alot of drinks and still had room for the food!

Looking good before the trip! I did paint more of the green brown.

So with all the work on upgrading the fuel system and switching to all MSD we had the Van running pretty good. We did disable the vacuum advance and reset the timing and that made a pretty big difference in the driving.

So Friday we Headed out fisherman's bend for Mark's last weekend of Camping before heading out to the Army.

Was a nice day for Camping!

Mason insists that the passenger should be petting him since they have nothing better to do.

We Made it there with no issues! After last time it was kind of a nervous drive hoping I had really found all the major issues.

Still need to fix the step!

Have to say I really like camping in the Hall.. We even had everyone in our camp come sit and have breakfast. I was glad the seats worked out so well.

It was a great trip and it felt good to get the Hall out for a real camping trip after all this work the past 2 months. Well probably will be awhile until the next post. Going to take a break on the Van for a while.

Always Something that could use a upgrade or Repair

Well after the failed attempt at taking the Hall camping I have been busy researching, buying parts and working on the Van. Here's a few pictures I took last night. The good news is the Van is running slick after bypassing the stock 5 pin system and going all MSD. Starts right away on the first try. I did however notice my alternator was quite lose and would have self destructed at somepoint. So i got a new one. Hopefully I have that and other stuff installed by the weekend and I can take some more pictures and video.

New Gauges since my Oil Pressure and Water Temp OEM don't work. Not sure where I am installing them yet.

Got to have a pressure gauge and a regulator when going to an eletric fuel pump with a carb engine. 

Installed the Red Holley eletric pump I had left from one of my mustangs and a large high flow fuel filter that never fit my mustangs. I hard plumbed the Pump to the filter.

Another view of the new filter and pump.

So the stock horn not only doesn't fit the size of the Hall. It would do it primary function of getting someones attention or expressing anger. Normally I am not a horn user but when I do I like it to be loud! Hopefully these do the trick. :)

Also on Deck is cleaning up some wireing, Aftermarket Steering wheel, new belts and seeing if the driving AC works.

Breaking down behind a Dairy Queen

Well we started off about 11:00am on Friday. Got ice in the cooler, food for the trip and filled the tanks with gas. We met up with everyone else that was going grabbed lunch and hit the freeway.

Well about 10 mins in the Van backfired and died. We pulled over to the side of the road and checked everything out. Nothing was obviously wrong and it fired right up again so we keep going. We got off the freeway and headed over to 99. Just when you'd think well maybe it'll be OK it'd die. At time I was thinking it was a fuel issue from filling the tanks. What ever it was it was getting worse and so we decided to stop in junction city and try and figure it out. Well a fuel filter, Electric fuel pump, Ignition control module (can't believe they had it in stock.) and 2 1/2 hours later we decided it wasn't going to be fixed today. We sent everyone else on and called AAA. It wasn't the 6th wedding anniversary we pictured when we headed out but at least we together. Someday I'm sure we'll look back and laugh. Well it was almost 6:00 before the tow truck came.

Sad day to see it jacked up like that.

Anyways After a very cramped ride in the tow truck (poor Mason was squished on the floor)  We got it dropped off in front of the house. My Parents let us borrow their Pleasure Way Van. So it was about 8:30pm before we were able to hit the road again after transferring all the gear.

We decided to stop and get Ice Cream at the Dairy Queen we broke down at on the way there since we didn't get any.

After a long but uneventful drive we made it to Honeymen in Florence. It was 11:30pm so we unpacked and went to sleep. We woke up to Rain.. not unexpected but we had been hoping the forecast was wrong. We made the best of it as we always do. 

My Parents Pleasure Way

Mason is Trying to keep dry

Nice Camp Ground

We did manage to make it out and rent some Quads to take out on the Dunes. It was fun but you sure feel it the next day. 

Picture of generally what the dunes look like.. It was misting pretty good though.

http://www.duneguide.com

Pretty much Packed up and headed home the next day. 

Came down with some sort of Flu/Cold but Should start back working on the van this weekend. I know there are a number of things needing to be done before our next trip to make it successful.

New Wheels and Tires!!

So it worked out and the New wheels and tires went on today! Here's a picture at Les schwab. The old rear is leaning against the post (in much better shape then they said (oh well))

The fronts are 16X8 8-6.5 ALLied type 887 Tires LT225/75R-16 10 ply

The Rears are 16x10 Tires LT295/75R-16 10ply

Rear

Fronts

Now I know the clearence seems too tight on the fronts but I had to do a lock to lock turn to get out of the tire place and there was no rubbing. Also hit some bumps and nothing so I'm good to go!

Makes it look nicer.. this picture doesn't do it justice. I'll snap more tomorrow.

So finished up by installing the longer bolts for the seats and cleaning. I have a lot of re packing and little stuff to do tomorrow after work but everthing is working and ready for friday!

The following are a bunch of pictures showing where things are at inside..

Lots of trash

Drivers area

You can see the dual gauges and new drivers seat

Center console, Dog house and new passenger seat

New passenger swivel seats installed with seat belts! I need to paint/cover the bases later 

Kitchen cleaned up. (not sure I'll ever use the oven but you never know)

Better picture of the vanity area.

Note the wireless switch mounted on the wall.. (This controls the powerstrip in the next pictures)

Here's the new bedroom Tv installed! I even got several channels!

My cheesey antenna for now..

Here's my way over kill mount .. I bought it for something else but worked good here.

Here's that powerstrip controlled by the wireless on off switch. At some point I'll get a seporate breaker installed for this.

I like how the stock table has several modes of use.

The power of the swivel seats!

Looking good inside!

Well thats all for now.. Lots o packing to do tomorrow! Wish us luck on our first major trip in the van! 100 miles to Florence Oregon.

Seats, Seat Belts and Windows that open..

It was getting late but I took a few pictures of the seats installed. I need a couple of longer bolts to get it finished up but the tough part of drilling holes without damaging anything underneath is done. TV installed. Doors now all lock. 3 out 4 windows open now. Tonight the new wheels and tires get installed. Things are coming together.

Tires and Seats

Well got a call from the tire store saying everything was in and if I rushed doiwn there they could install them right away! So I rushed it down there and came back an hour later to find nothing appeared to have been done. Turns out they ordered the wrong lug nuts. So they are ordering them and they should be in Wed night. So hopefully they get it right this time. They asked if I wanted to leave it there but I couldn't lose that much time working on the van before we go.

I did get swivel seats in the van and have two bolts in each seat bracket towards the outside. I am working on the inner ones tonight. The trick is not drilling into something bad and the added downside that I had covered all the old holes when I red did the floor. Oh well its slow going but should be done tonight and I'll get updated pictures.