When I decided to move into a vehicle, the first step was to figure out which one. Mercedes Sprinters, Ram Promasters, and Ford Transits were popular choices for more upscale builds, but these were out of reach for me personally.

What I could get was:

• a car (numerous options here)
• a minivan (ideally a larger one, like a Toyota Sienna or Honda Odyssey)
• a work van (Ford E-150, Chevy Astro, Chevy Express, GMC Savana, etc)
• a conversion van (a work van transfigured by a third party company into a luxury roadtrip/vacationing vehicle)

After some initial canvassing I began to realize that the condition of the average work van vs conversion van differed quite significantly. Many if not most work vans available in the NYC metro area were completely beaten to death by a combination of “urban hazards” and incompetent and/or negligent owners. They also tended to be completely disgusting on the inside. Conversion vans seemed to live far happier lives in farflung suburbs; they featured “amenities” like raised roofs and comfy carpeting while also generally having much better service histories. The aesthetics and extra headroom of the conversions were obviously a plus, but since anything I could afford was at least 15-25 years old, having an owner that kept up on maintenance during the past few decades of use was the dominant priority.

Meeting Iron Van

After much searching and spreadsheeting, a promising candidate appeared out in Rosyln Heights on Long Island. It was a 1991 Chevy G20 Explorer conversion in a nicely faded red, equipped with the 5.7L engine option, and listed for $1600. I journeyed out to survey it via the LIRR (once I figured out how to buy a ticket) and found a well-loved conversion van parked in an idyllic suburb. The owner was in his 80s so his son and daughter-in-law had made the actual post to Craig’s List. This older gentleman was quite the character, and would smack part of the van with his cane when describing something that might need attending to (leaking sunroof, etc). A red minivan with better access for the mobility impaired was parked in front of the house. “All of his vehicles are red,” said one of his family members. (Well, all of mine would be too. 🙂)

He’d purchased it in 1992 when his buddy who had bought the van for the ~$40k list price had gotten laid off a year into ownership. While this was not technically one of the highly prized single owner vans it was certainly something very close to it. He had owned the van for over 23 years and his (now middle-aged) children had grown up roadtripping down to Florida in it. The van was seasonally sent to nest upstate in a barn in winter when it wasn’t needed, which boded well for the undercarriage. It had a bit over 177,000 miles on the odometer and came with a stack of previous maintenance records. I snapped a few pictures and sent them to my mechanic friend for a quick evaluation, went on a short test drive, then gave the guy a $100 deposit to hold the van until I could come pick it up the following weekend. I was pretty open about my intentions to live in the vehicle. When I mentioned I planned on renovating it, he proudly pointed out that the back bench already transformed flat into a perfectly fine bed. (The second generation quietly assured me I could do whatever I liked with it, LOL.)

The family had taken good care of the van over the years as befitting its position as the treasured family steed. They even had the original manuals and brochures to pass on to me, which was incredibly charming. The son and daughter-in-law gave me a lift back to the LIRR station after finding out I had walked all the way there (it was quite a ways…).

The next weekend, the older gentleman was kind enough to drive me around to the bank to withdraw the cash to pay him and the DMV to submit all the paperwork and pick up license plates. This was my first time buying a car and I was fortunate to be guided through the process by this rather wholesome family. They even put the license plates on for me.

Finally, we concluded our transaction and I was ready to depart. My plan was to drive it into NYC, load my apartment into it over the next few days while finishing up my internship, then roadtrip to Garrett’s house in Ohio for some renovations. With all paperwork complete, and license plates affixed, it was time to roll out to West Harlem.

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Parking in Manhattan for the first time.

Over the course of the next few days, I packed up, rehomed, or discarded my remaining possessions and then set out for Ohio.

Roadtrip

The first time I stopped to put gas in my tank and air in my tires in NJ (I tried a few places in NYC and all the hoses were destroyed), the van wouldn’t start. The headlights were also quite dim. Perhaps it had drained during the street cleaning, van loading, or stop/starting at all the gas stations looking for an air hose? I wasn’t sure. Luckily, I was at some combination gas station/oil change shop, and the Indians who ran it were able to give me a jump. Hopefully, with the long stretch of highway ahead, there would be plenty of time for it to catch up on its charging. But it did lend an air of background tension to my journey.

I went as far as I could, but driving through the night I became exhausted and pulled off somewhere for a nap. (But not too far off the road in case the battery died again.)

Sitting in completely stopped traffic. The van came with a cb radio but sadly, it did not work.

Tire Troubles

When I got to Ohio, I unloaded my crap onto Garrett’s enclosed backyard deck and then we inspected the van together. The front right tire had been low on air and seemed to be leaking (given that it was already low again) so that was one of the first things to investigate.

The first of that day’s TILs was that you can easily check how old tires are: it is imprinted on the outside of the tire itself. You can walk up to any car and look at how old their tires are (if you wanted to, for whatever reason…). My front two tires were over a decade old and very much at the end of their life span. My rear tires were only a few years old and judged to have a reasonable amount of tread remaining.

This was my first time being in the market for tires, so Garrett recommended I check out Discount Tire. They sell tires at very affordable prices and will even patch an ailing tire for free (so long as it isn’t 10 years old and dying as my front tires were). I did some preliminary research on what was in stock nearby, conferred with Garrett on what the very best least-worst cheap Korean tires would be, and made an appointment.

Of course, when I woke up, I found that the tire had died in its sleep overnight…

I was very fortunate that the tire lasted long enough to get me where I needed to go. That would turn out to be a trend with this vehicle: during my nearly 10 years of ownership, I was always able to get to a safe spot if things went wrong, and they very rarely did. In this case it was blind luck, but overall it was in large part attributable to the excellent preventive maintenance work done by Garrett. That the owner before me kept up with the oil changes and such surely helped a lot, too.

Fortunately, the spare tire was ancient yet viable, so it was time for me to learn how to change a tire and use a car jack. :) It wasn’t too bad and required less physical strength than I had feared. My main concern was making sure I installed it “correctly” so having an experienced person guiding me through the process made it incredibly low stress. One important thing I learned was that after hand screwing the nuts in, you should tighten the lug nuts in a star pattern so that the wheel is held on with even pressure from all sides. Before I put the spare on, Garrett inspected the front brakes and then had me take the rear tire off and on again as additional practice so he could peep on the rear brakes.

The things behind the drum brakes in the last image are called leaf springs and you see them from time to time on things like old school vans and steam engines. (Esteemed company, for sure.) After this, I donutted my way over to Easton and putted around my old workplace while my front tires got new duds. The best of the old tires was cuddled up into the rear tire holder.

Snack Attack

When I went to start sorting my crap on the deck I found that I’d had some night time visitors. The bin(s) containing my various shelf-stable food products had been raided by parties unknown and dragged all over the deck in a feeding frenzy.

Whatever they were, they’d forced open this screen and squeezed through to gain entrance to the enclosed patio.

I think they wanted to take their tasty finds with them, but couldn’t manage to drag them back out.

At night I kept an eye out the back kitchen door and soon I spotted the thieves returning to the scene of the crime. As it turned out, our unauthorized pentesters were…raccoons!

Unfortunately for them, I had already moved all the yummy food products inside the house.

Back to the Van

With truly startling speed Garrett assessed the rest of the vehicle and whipped up a RockAuto list of parts for me to purchase. These would take a little while to arrive in the mail. In the meanwhile, I would begin carefully disassembling the inside so that I could install my own interior…