1988 Dodge Ram Van conversion
Discussion
I've been perusing the local auctions here in sunny California for the purpose of finding a low mileage, well looked after, classic motor. In the USA there is a way to donate a no longer required vehicle to charity, and get the value as a tax right off. This is where I want to be; little old lady reluctantly gives up her cherished 1973 Cadillac and I swoop in for a massive bargain. I've been trying to find where these cars end up and the answer is in various auctions. Some very dodgy and conducted in Spanish, others a bit more corporate. The local Copart seemed to fit the bill and has some very interesting cars going through. You have to be a business to bid, but as I'm currently contracting and have the mandatory "business license" for a self employed person ("Welcome to the land of opportunity, that will be $60 please if you are self employed and if you don't pay us this upfront tax before or whether or not you make a cent we will fine the crap out of you") I seemed to fit the paperwork requirement; much to the confusion of the admin staff down there (I didn't fit the demographic profile of their usual punter and it worried them a bit).
A couple of weeks ago I took a look at a very nice XJS down there which had a mere 70k miles and was very well kept. A boot full of service history and even the original audio tape that came with the car new in USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siCD7hbXi2I
Battery was flat but the oil looked fresh and I had a reasonable suspicion it was a good one.
Sadly my fantasies of wafting around in that were dashed when the bidding went over my $3k self imposed limit. It went for $3300 the first time but reappeared as (i assume) the seller wanted more. The following week it went through again @$3500 and was not seen again. Sold I assume and a bargain it was too.
So I kept looking and this van looked very nice and well worth a butchers. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a look, the auction site is about 1hr from me and I haven't been able to get down there. Nevertheless I committed 2 cardinal sins of buying a car.A) I bid on it, without viewing B) I bid (slightly) over my limit. I was also not fully aware of all the made up BS fees they charged. I knew about some, but a couple of others magically appeared from nowhere ("gate fee" wtf is that!).
Cue some major buyers remorse, and also a worrying period of how to inform the missus who had seen me looking and given me a speech on "i know you are going to buy one, whether I agree to it or not". Correct!
Anyhow, eventually I told her. it didn't go down well, shall we say. "it's not the money, it's the time you will spend pissing about with it". Good point, well made :-(
So I went down there this morning to pony up the full amount, including a not unreasonable sum for delivery. Still didn't get to see it though, the place is huge and I didn't have time. More to come once it gets here.
a few pics
A couple of weeks ago I took a look at a very nice XJS down there which had a mere 70k miles and was very well kept. A boot full of service history and even the original audio tape that came with the car new in USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siCD7hbXi2I
Battery was flat but the oil looked fresh and I had a reasonable suspicion it was a good one.
Sadly my fantasies of wafting around in that were dashed when the bidding went over my $3k self imposed limit. It went for $3300 the first time but reappeared as (i assume) the seller wanted more. The following week it went through again @$3500 and was not seen again. Sold I assume and a bargain it was too.
So I kept looking and this van looked very nice and well worth a butchers. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a look, the auction site is about 1hr from me and I haven't been able to get down there. Nevertheless I committed 2 cardinal sins of buying a car.A) I bid on it, without viewing B) I bid (slightly) over my limit. I was also not fully aware of all the made up BS fees they charged. I knew about some, but a couple of others magically appeared from nowhere ("gate fee" wtf is that!).
Cue some major buyers remorse, and also a worrying period of how to inform the missus who had seen me looking and given me a speech on "i know you are going to buy one, whether I agree to it or not". Correct!
Anyhow, eventually I told her. it didn't go down well, shall we say. "it's not the money, it's the time you will spend pissing about with it". Good point, well made :-(
So I went down there this morning to pony up the full amount, including a not unreasonable sum for delivery. Still didn't get to see it though, the place is huge and I didn't have time. More to come once it gets here.
a few pics
Neither, I like it just the way it is.
Currently waiting at the dreaded DMV, this is going to be painful, even their own employees don't know the processes and their default position is to say no and dig their heels in.
Car has now arrived. Pics and story of opening day challenges to follow once I escape this hell hole!
Currently waiting at the dreaded DMV, this is going to be painful, even their own employees don't know the processes and their default position is to say no and dig their heels in.
Car has now arrived. Pics and story of opening day challenges to follow once I escape this hell hole!
)Ok, she rides!!
Delivered without any drama, there was a discussion about driving it off the transporter but we failed to get the bonnet open and the battery was flat as a pancake. In the end the guy put it in neutral and just rolled backwards into the driveway. A benefit of living on a hill.
So first impressions.
-It is as good as it looked and I had hoped. A few blemishes in the paint here and there (many touched up which shows a caring former owner), It's 31 years old so a bit of wear and tear as should have been expected but overall exceptionally well kept. Phew. I think I have good judgement on these kinds of things and fortunately this was the case here.
-Does it work? I have yet to fully find out. Attempts to get the bonnet open so I could charge the battery lasted about 4hrs. The hood pull would move a bit but didn't do anything I had to strip off the grill (which wasn't easy because some of the screws were inaccessible with the bonnet closed, and take off both headlight surrounds. A bit of bending of metal panels/shields (easily bent back) and eventually I got some tools into the latch (which i broke a bit but managed to repair) and popped it open. So why in the world would it not open? It was because of this f*****g thing, which is some crappy security device designed to stop people opening the bonnet..... Why that is so crucial I have no idea, its not exactly easy if you don't have access to the hood pull inside the car as I proved. It is pretty effective though I guess..
This is what is looks like on the inside. There is some electrical gubbins on it too, which was already disconnected.
There was no key for this. In the auction pictures there is one of the engine so it wasn't locked when it got to Copart. There was also a picture of the 2 keys that I got. I can only assume someone looking at the car pushed this thing closed by accident when checking out all the switches thus rendering all further inspections of the engine bay not possible.
Once I got some juice flowing every single light and electrical item jumped into life. The wipers, AC, interior lights, the TV (did you notice that!), the CB (yes...!) radio etc. Every car i checked out at the auction had a flat battery and my theory is that people who are interested in a car leave a few lights on so the next person can't start it and check if things work, hence being more cautious in their bidding and lowering the price.
So I did try and start it off a charging station, and it started straightaway, sounded fine but i hadn't checked the oil/water at that point so I shut it off pending some further basic checks like that. The battery has been on charge all day. I hope it's OK because it is huge and will probably be costly to replace. 5.2l V8 BTW, most of which is housed between the driver and the passenger.
The kids are very excited and can't wait to go camping. My wife doesn't want to talk about it... She'll come round when she sees that
-all the chairs swivel 360 degrees.
-the backs go flat,
-the rear seat DOES have seat belts (I was worried about that)
-and also folds flat electronically to make a bed which joins with the other seats to turn the whole thing into one big orgemobile.
I'll throw up some more pics of the awesome 80's interior later.
DMV wasn't too bad in the end, although I was getting a bit worried with one form that asked me for my "dealer ID". Turns out driving licence number is acceptable as well. One of them I do have.. I have spent a lot longer in there on other projects. They need a smog to register it, which of course I can't get until it is registered. She looked at me oddly at that point in the discussion, which I think was her way of saying "you should have just driven it to the smog station. Everybody else does". So I've got a 5 week ticket to put in the screen so once I get it running real smooth, I'll run it down the road for the smog and see what happens.
Delivered without any drama, there was a discussion about driving it off the transporter but we failed to get the bonnet open and the battery was flat as a pancake. In the end the guy put it in neutral and just rolled backwards into the driveway. A benefit of living on a hill.
So first impressions.
-It is as good as it looked and I had hoped. A few blemishes in the paint here and there (many touched up which shows a caring former owner), It's 31 years old so a bit of wear and tear as should have been expected but overall exceptionally well kept. Phew. I think I have good judgement on these kinds of things and fortunately this was the case here.
-Does it work? I have yet to fully find out. Attempts to get the bonnet open so I could charge the battery lasted about 4hrs. The hood pull would move a bit but didn't do anything I had to strip off the grill (which wasn't easy because some of the screws were inaccessible with the bonnet closed, and take off both headlight surrounds. A bit of bending of metal panels/shields (easily bent back) and eventually I got some tools into the latch (which i broke a bit but managed to repair) and popped it open. So why in the world would it not open? It was because of this f*****g thing, which is some crappy security device designed to stop people opening the bonnet..... Why that is so crucial I have no idea, its not exactly easy if you don't have access to the hood pull inside the car as I proved. It is pretty effective though I guess..
This is what is looks like on the inside. There is some electrical gubbins on it too, which was already disconnected.
There was no key for this. In the auction pictures there is one of the engine so it wasn't locked when it got to Copart. There was also a picture of the 2 keys that I got. I can only assume someone looking at the car pushed this thing closed by accident when checking out all the switches thus rendering all further inspections of the engine bay not possible.
Once I got some juice flowing every single light and electrical item jumped into life. The wipers, AC, interior lights, the TV (did you notice that!), the CB (yes...!) radio etc. Every car i checked out at the auction had a flat battery and my theory is that people who are interested in a car leave a few lights on so the next person can't start it and check if things work, hence being more cautious in their bidding and lowering the price.
So I did try and start it off a charging station, and it started straightaway, sounded fine but i hadn't checked the oil/water at that point so I shut it off pending some further basic checks like that. The battery has been on charge all day. I hope it's OK because it is huge and will probably be costly to replace. 5.2l V8 BTW, most of which is housed between the driver and the passenger.
The kids are very excited and can't wait to go camping. My wife doesn't want to talk about it... She'll come round when she sees that
-all the chairs swivel 360 degrees.
-the backs go flat,
-the rear seat DOES have seat belts (I was worried about that)
-and also folds flat electronically to make a bed which joins with the other seats to turn the whole thing into one big orgemobile.
I'll throw up some more pics of the awesome 80's interior later.
DMV wasn't too bad in the end, although I was getting a bit worried with one form that asked me for my "dealer ID". Turns out driving licence number is acceptable as well. One of them I do have.. I have spent a lot longer in there on other projects. They need a smog to register it, which of course I can't get until it is registered. She looked at me oddly at that point in the discussion, which I think was her way of saying "you should have just driven it to the smog station. Everybody else does". So I've got a 5 week ticket to put in the screen so once I get it running real smooth, I'll run it down the road for the smog and see what happens.
Edited by Stigproducts on Tuesday 19th March 21:00
Just took it for a quick spin up and down the drive. Engine ran OK, bit smoky(or maybe steamy) to start with but was OK once it warmed up. Neither of the front electric windows work, oil pressure gauge not working (or possibly there is no oil pressure but engine sounded fine), engine when revved settles down and almost stalls (any suggestions? Right now I'm going with either "because there is no oil pressure!" or alternatively its a bit gummed up after doing less than 5000 miles in 15 years and probably none in the last 2or 3. And lastly AC not cold - I'll try charging up the refrigerant (never done that before but the main thought i have is where did the last lot get to? Out of some hole presumably) but not optimistic. Bit disappointing but really, what was I expecting! It runs. moves back and forth and stops, so that's a pretty good start really.
3rd row seat in down position
Crazy curtains
Can anyone tell me what the hell the purpose of this wooden thing is? It looks like there are spots to hand clothes at either end, fair enough, but whats the point of the middle bit? is it just a single shelf + pole holder which doesn't block the rear window view?
Interior shot from back; note CB with radar decector beneath
3rd row seat in down position
Crazy curtains
Can anyone tell me what the hell the purpose of this wooden thing is? It looks like there are spots to hand clothes at either end, fair enough, but whats the point of the middle bit? is it just a single shelf + pole holder which doesn't block the rear window view?
Interior shot from back; note CB with radar decector beneath
You surely didn't expect the AC to work... get a re-gas and see how long it lasts, then decide from there. There will likely be a hole/s and likely perished seals, which you may or may not need to attend to. My '78 yank tends to only need a re-gas every year or two, so maybe you'll get away with periodic top-ups.
TacoExcellence said:
Its very cool, but those seats being so plush must be horrifically grimey!
Amazingly they are not too bad. There are a few marks here and there but nothing really worrying. I'm so glad because they will be a b
d to clean with all those folds and pleats. it looks like the top section of the seats are a separate cushion but it is all one thing, stitched to the vinyl. I am going to give it a good vacuuming and that is all it needs really. The door cards up front have a grimy oblong on them where the speakers are behind, nothing that I am going to worry about for now though. Need to get it on the road as priorityThe whole interior has a bit of "not seen the light of day for some time" smell to it, that I'm pretty confident will air out with a bit of use.
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