Recently we made an arrangement with an old coworker of mine to work on an old truck he had sitting along side his house for the last eight years. That truck is a 1980 Ford F100 long bed pickup. I will showcase that vehicle in another article but in the meantime I will focus on the next vehicle we picked up from him. After bringing the F100, nicknamed the DOB for Dirty Old Bastard, we also had claim to an early 90s GMC Safari minivan that he also had along side his house, behind the DOB. Now you may wonder WTF do I want with this vehicle? Well the main reason, actually two reasons is first, I want the powertrain from this van. The van has a 4.3L V6 with a 1st gen 4L60 auto transmission. Both components are relatively low mileage as our friend had them swapped out sometime before parking the vehicle so they still have plenty of life left in them. My plan is to drop this powertrain in the 46 Ford, since its on an S10 frame, this powertrain should slide right in. Second reason is that I want the rolling chassis. Since this is a wide wheelbase van, and after measuring the length of the wheelbase, it was only a few inches shy of being a perfect fit for the 51 Chevy Suburban body. I figure that I can put the 51 Chevy on this chassis with only some small variations, allowing me to have that old body on a more modern chassis that I can work with, for the same reasons as the 65 Mustang and the 46 Ford will have more appeal. Until then though, the main reason is to get the powertrain out. We had to roll the van off the car trailer then use our neighbor's tractor to drag the van over to this parking spot in the midway of the yard. I will pull the engine at this spot, then be able to pull the van backwards around the east side of the yard around to where I would set up the dog house, on the southeast corner of the fenced in yard. Of course this van is a biohazard due to it sitting longer than the DOB did, so mold and mildew are abundant throughout the interior. I will have to gut the interior as much as possible, of course trying to sell what I can at salvage prices just to move the parts as I remove them. I would at least like to cash out on some of these parts versus just scrapping everything that I'm not keeping. I may hang on to the seats if they appear to be a good fit for the 46 Ford or even the Elco. Its amazing how engineers would decide to try and cram an engine in the tight quarters that's present under the little hood of this van. It looks like it would be a nightmare to work on for just about everything. At first I was afraid I might have to literally chop the front off the van in order to get the engine crane in there to pull the engine and transmission straight out. After a thorough examination, I found that the substructure in the front is made to be removed after pulling the radiator, grille and other components out. I can remove these sections of the substructure and it will open things up enough to be able to pull the powertrain straight out. I did have a wild plan for the rest of the body of the van though. After stripping everything and even pulling the body free from the frame, I thought about using the body as the basis of a doghouse. Just like with the car chicken coops, I could make a dog house with the body. Since the body wouldn't be on a rolling chassis, I would mount it on a foundation like a small shed. I can build the body up like I did with the chicken coops, with light, plumbing to feed an automatic watering dish, even build a bulk feeder that can be reloaded from the outside and feed the dog on the inside. If I get a good power feed to the doghouse I can also install a cheap window AC unit and space heater for climate control so the dogs can go in the doghouse in comfort. This is worth considering since this would allow us to leave the dogs in the fenced in confines of the yard, knowing they will have a comfortable shelter to go into where our caretaker would only have to verify the feeder is topped off since they'll have water and free reign of the yard in which to relieve themselves.
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