Bad Ast Build Thread

[astroracer]

I am going to start a build thread on my Astro Van. I call it Bad Ast. It is being built in the Pro Touring style and is finishing up it's 2nd year under construction. I hope to have it drivable this summer...
I will try to catch you up on some of the more interesting build aspects. Here are a couple of posts from where it stands today.
Mel is a good friend of mine and has been involved in the build from day one. Without his help and knowledge the van would NOT be as far along as it is. I owe him a lot and appreciate his time.

Last weekend Mel and I worked on the rear enclosure. I spent some time spreading seam sealer on the tubs and getting all of the joints packed. This is messy stuff.

We also made up some flanges to rivet to the tubs to carry the bottom of the front enclosure panel.

We made these out of .090 aluminum sheet. Bent them up on the 3 n 1 and ran them thru the stretcher dies to make the curve.

Me workin' hard...

The template...

The fit...

The final product...

We got both sides in, seam sealed and riveted...
Trial fitting with a few clecoes

Setting them in place with a smear of seam sealer underneath. This is a clecoe going in prior to riveting.

The passenger side from the front.

The drivers side.

Had a good day in the shop. Got a lot done and, at this point, I was hoping to be painting this stuff next weekend...

Thanks for looking and if you have any questions just ask...
Mark

 

[astroracer]

We got all of the minor brackets for the enclosure panels done today. Mel did the brunt of the work on these while I was dinking around smoothing out all of that seam sealer I put in last weekend...
Building brackets for the end panel closeouts.

The sealer smoothed out nicely with the stripping disc. It took me a couple of hours to get them ready for paint.

Passenger side.

Mel got the end closures made up. We put a nice roll at the top. I think this looks so much better then sharp corners... The Carbon Fiber panels will have this same roll.

The new closeout and the top panel in place. These will get painted black before being riveted in.

From inside the enclosre. A couple of clecoes holding the pieces in.

The drivers side panel getting fabbed.

This is what paint looks like...
I cleaned the two top panels with some ScotchBrite and shot them with Eastwood Gloss Chassis Black.... Very Nice.

They turned out nice.

I did the same thing to the rear suspension panel.... It started snowing big fluffy flakes right after I started spraying thing... There are a "few" boogers in the paint from the snow...

Mel had left for the day when I prepped the back for paint. here is the passenger side ready to be sprayed.

I used Rustoleum Satin Black. Mixed it with about 15% Mineral spirits and shoot it thru my touch-up gun...

The paint is still wet in these pics;

After it had cured fo an a few hours... I also sat the other painted panels in place for the pics...

Tomorrow I will put another coat on the tubs. Any opinions on using Eastwood's Gray/Black trunk spatter paint inside the enclosure? I really don't want carpet in there but I also want it to NOT show a lot of dirt or scrapes as this will be a storage compartment for tools and such... What do you think?
Mark

 

[Boyd]

Very cool to see you posting over here. I followed your build on pro-touring.com for several years, but I haven't been on that site in quite awhile.

For the members here, astroracer is sandbagging, big time. This build has a ton of engineering and fabrication going into it.

Can't wait to see this thing finished.

 

[Kevin54]

Very cool to see you posting over here. I followed your build on pro-touring.com for several years, but I haven't been on that site in quite awhile.

For the members here, astroracer is sandbagging, big time. This build has a ton of engineering and fabrication going into it.

Can't wait to see this thing finished.

I've saw in the past some of his work on the computer and find it amazing to say the least

 

[astroracer]

Thanks a lot guys, I appreciate the comments. I wouldn't say I am sandbagging... This build has come a long way in two years and that is a lot to catch up on... I probably won't back track to much here unless someone asks, but I'll try to keep the thread up to date as progress is made.

I have posted some sway bar designs in another thread. These are the finals as it stands today. I ordered some parts from McMaster Carr and got a selection of 1/2-20 rod ends off eBay to build the end links. Now I just need to pick up the DOM tubing I will use for the actual bar.
Here are the 3D CAD pics

A close up of the adjusters

The drivers side mounting tower. The angled plate provides a little additional clearance for the bar in jounce. I have the bar ends tucked in close to the rails so i had to move the bushings inboard a bit and this created a clearance issue with the mounting plate.

Here is the passenger side. You can see another issue with the track bar bracket. There wasn't a lot of room to get this thing packaged...

Here are the actual adjusters and rod ends...

I got a very good deal on this set of rod ends from QS Components on eBay. 42 bucks and free shipping. Saved me about 35 bucks over Speedway with shipping added in.
This is enough to do the front bar also.

Thanks for looking
Mark

 

[uniballer]

This interests me greatly!
Subscribed!

 

[Smiliesafari]

Keep us posted. This build is awesome.

 

[Kevin54]

Astro....do you still have a link to your folders with your builds. I remember you posted it on one other website. One folder had your custom made bumper, another was your garage addition and so on.

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice looking. Would have been nice to see the preceding work but I understand the not wanting to go back. Great job and nice fabrication skills.

Mike.

 

[astroracer]

Hey Kevin,
I updated the link in my signature. Should take you right to my account.

Thanks Mike,
If you want to spend the time, the entire 31 pages of the build (so far) are documented here:
http://www.pro-touring.com/showthread.php?20086-The-BAD-AST-Project-Faze-II/page31&highlight=bad+ast
The first 8 pgs deal with most of the design stuff and the actual build gets rolling on pg9.
The thread doesn't get a lot of comments so it's mostly a lot of fab pics.
Mark

 

[grego]

Very cool, subscribed to also. I can't wait until it's finished

 

[astroracer]

Very cool, subscribed to also. I can't wait until it's finished

Thanks! Me either...

Mel and I decided to remove the old fuel filler bump on the inside of the van. This not only cleans up the interior but will make interior panel fab easier.

Didn't make sense to leave it as the fuel fill will be in the back now.

We used an air chisel to get the old seam sealer out. Couldn't get it all so using the plasma cutter was just making a mess of it. We ended up cutting it out with a cut-off wheel on a die grinder.

This left the flange spot welded to the body so we used a spot weld cutter and the air chisel to get that off.

Bump is all gone...

Made a pattern and cut the patch panel out of some 22 gauge.

Used the rotary shear to trim off what we didn't need.

Mel laid out a pattern for spot welding and punched the holes with the "bench" punch...

Put on a 90 deg bend in the 3 in 1 and set it place.

After a few welds and a touch with the flap wheel it's ready for seam sealer.

Laid in some sealer and it's ready for primer when this is cured.

With that done I shot a few coats of the satin black on the middle floor section. This is ready to go in now.

Mel and I were talking about how hard it would be to work on the back of the van with this piece installed. It's MUCH easier to work standing up then trying to do all of this on your knees...

That's it for van work. Thanks for watching...
Mark

 

[theknurl]

I have posted some sway bar designs in another thread. These are the finals as it stands today. I ordered some parts from McMaster Carr and got a selection of 1/2-20 rod ends off eBay to build the end links. Now I just need to pick up the DOM tubing I will use for the actual bar.

Mark;
you sure about using DOM tubing for a sway bar?

check the Chevy Power Manual for the rates on different diameter bars......my '66 El Camino has a FE-7 Kit 1 1/4" diameter front bar on it, yes, its stiff

 

[astroracer]

I guess I should have clarified. 4130 Chrome Moly. Should be okay. I will be keeping an eye on it though. If I need to have them heat treated I'll make new ones and get that done...
Thanks for the input. I wish there was an off-the-shelf option but that just isn't going to happen on this build. Nothing is off the shelf on this thing.
Mark

 

[MillerMav]

Subscribed....

 

[astroracer]

How about an update?
Haven'l gotten a lot done on the van until today. Been real busy at work and the early hours and long drive is starting to wear on me. Have been real busy with house stuff, you know, spring cleaning, yard work and a lot of honey do's.
Have gotten a few things done though. Last Saturday we spent building a "bender stand". This will hold my Pro-Tools tubing bender and the HF tubing roller all in on stand. Got the plans off ebay and it went together well.

Built from reclaimed 2 x 2 x 1/8 th wall tube for a total cost of about 14 dollars...
Here it is with roller mocked up on top and a HF furniture dolly for a rolling base.

I am waiting on an air over hydraulic bottle jack I ordered to arrive so I can finish putting it together. The jack will mount to these two ears.

I don't want to weld them on till I have the jack so I can verify alignment to the bender.

We did get some van stuff done today.
These are all of the brackets for the rear sway bar. The axle brackets. The first one made on the right and the second one (on the left) in all of it's flat plate glory....

And both of them complete. These will get welded to the housing during fitment.

http://images50.fotki.com/v1522/photos/5/904975/12064735/MVC009F-vi.jpg[/img

These are the frame brackets. The will carry the ES bushings out on the frame. They are being bent along the dashed line on the SWAG bender.
[img]http://images61.fotki.com/v138/photos/5/904975/12064735/MVC011F-vi.jpg

This is a nasty pic with the flash on. I'll get better ones tomorrow. The little brackets in the middle will get welded to the ends of the sway bar and the link will run between those and the L bracket on the axle.

Thats about it. It's hard to believe it's been exactly two years to the day that this started... It's time to get this thing running...
Mark

 

[astroracer]

Anyone interested in some updates? I know it's been a while and there is a bit of progress so I'll throw some in from the last couple months.

I received delivery of the Air/hydraulic bottle jack I ordered. I got it mocked up in the mounting plates and lined it up with bender mounted to the stand.

I ended up moving the plate location by 3/4's of an inch or so. Glad I waited for the jack to weld them on.

You can see here how much farther I moved the mounts as compared to the layout lines from the plans.

Had to replace one of the bender arm spacers with a smaller diameter tube that will slide through the hole in the end of the jack stem.

I used 5/8 x .058 wall as I had it and the 1/2 in bolt will slide through it.

Once I wrapped up getting the jack connected I cleaned the stand up a little with a flap grinder and degreased it for paint. I used Rustoleum Hammered Silver.

These welds were still kinda warm when I painted the stand...

Doesn't look to bad for home brew...

 

[astroracer]

To make the stand "mobile" I cut down a Harbor Freight furniture dolly.
You can see it here, sitting under the stand from when I painted it yesterday. It's a little long.

I pulled off one set of casters and cut 5 inches off the length.

I also removed the carpet and, once the frame was back together, I painted black.
B4 paint. I used 1 1/2" long #14 screws to bolt it to the stand from underneath.

All put together and ready for a test bend.

Ran a piece of thinwall 1" through the bender for a test. The jack cycles out in pulses. It doesn't shoot out real fast. It is slow and steady and very controllable. I was concerned about how the jack would work but now have no issues with it.
About a 30 degree bend here.

Getting upwards of 90 degrees now. I had to reset the drive pin in the die at about 60 degrees. Not any real difference then if I was using the stationary tool post other then I am taking it easy doing it... This is going to be great. Being able to use the tubing bender at any time, without having bolt and unbolt the tool post, is going to make the bender a much more versitile tool!

Just an overall with a piece of tubing bent to 90 degree's without breaking a sweat!

I also tried out the Harbor Freight Tubing Roller on a piece of conduit. It rolled it like it wasn't even there. I got a little heavy handed with the "down" roller and kinked it but that was my fault in going to fast.

 

[astroracer]

We also built an aluminum box to carry the electrical stuff in the back of the van.
Mel and I built the box and I mounted all of the components .
Starting with a sheet of .090 aluminum Mel laid out the box and cut it out.

The box is fully enclosed and has 3/4" wide flanges on the inside for the lid to bolt to.

Doing all of the bends was no problem until we had to close up the last two sides.
The top flanges just wouldn't let the 8" finger pass to do the complete bend. We got about 15 degrees out of it.

We decided to make a couple of 2 1/2" wide stepped fingers so the flange will slide past the finger and let us complete the bend. Here they are mounted in the brake.

And a close up of the clearance we had to the inside flange during bending.

Here you can see the opposite side is already bent and the last one is well on it's way.

All bent up and welded corners

Mark

 

[astroracer]

I bent up this little riser plate that rivets inside the box. This gets the relays up, off the floor, so components and wiring can pass by underneath.

I used some light duty aluminum riv-nuts for the relay mounts. I only plan for two relays back here but you never know...

With all of the components laid out.

I also decided where the Master Disconnect Switch and Starter Solenoid were going to live... THIS is what took me some time. Just figuring out where I was going to stuff all of these components!
The MDS is going to mount at the back lower corner of the battery bracket.
Here is a mock up with a foam-core "bracket".

I then made a cardboard pattern which will get transferred to more of that .090 aluminum.

Finally getting some real work done...

All bent up and ready for holes.

Transferring the hole pattern. You noticed I dropped a nice leg back to the battery bracket at bottom. Adds a ton of stiffness to the switch bracket!

Ready for riv-nuts.

The bracket bolts in, underneath the battery bracket. Nice and clean.

The starter solenoid bolts into the end of the battery bracket. This keeps all of the cable runs very short and the holes in the bracket allow easy routing of the 1/0 cables. These pics are with the battery tray removed so you can see how accessible the cables will be.

Most of the wiring will remain out of sight. Of course all of this is going to be enclosed anyway.

Thanks for looking. I hope I am back on track for a while.
Mark

 

[astroracer]

I got the box mounted in the back of the van. Spent about 4 hours playing with the Tig machine. I made up two little brackets that I welded to the top of the box and bolted the box to the tube structure for the rear enclosure.

There is another screw in the diagonal brace down low in the box to keep it from "flapping". It's good and solid here.

With the cover in place.

And an over all shot with the box and MDS in place.

Well, got a lot done. I am waiting for my snap bushings to get here from McMaster Carr. I need to drill out the wire pass throughs but want these on hand just to verify hole sizes.
I am planning to start working on the dash harness this week. Cutting the old cluster connectors out and making an adapter harness to adapt the Autometer gauges. Everything is all labeled, just need to do it.

Should be fun.
Mark

 

[astroracer]

I have been picking away at the wiring. Along with doing a few car shows, fixing mowers and pressure washing my 23 yr old deck I haven't put a lot of time into the van this summer. I finished up the front relay center last night. I'll blow this all apart for paint before I get it wired into the van harness.

This box carries the relays for the three cooling fans, with their respective manual switch relays, the start relay for the rear mounted solenoid and a spare. The add on box on the right is for the adjustable temp sensor for the rad fans.
This is a pic after I got the fuse panel and ground strip mounted. You can see by the relay labels I did some repurposing before i started wiring. I needed two relays for the trans cooler fan so I decided to move the Park Neutral and B/U Light relays inside under the dash.

Here is a back view of the box. All of the wires exit through the back and should be fairly well hidden after I get them mounted and loomed. The 4ga power wire will connect directly to the power distribution block which is fed from the alternator and also connects to the battery for charging. This panel will have power at all times so the fans can run for a short time after the engine is shut off for some residual cooling.

I also have a good start on wiring the rear relay box. This one isn't as busy because I had the room to make it a bit larger and there isn't as much "stuff" going into it.
You can see the general layout here. A 200 amp Maxi-Fuse on the left. 6 position fuse panel in the middle with a barrier strip on the bottom and the relay bridge on the right.

The maxi-fuse will pull power off the switched side of the master disconnect and send it too the front through a 4ga cable. This cable will also be the charge wire from the alternator block up front. The fuel pump relay is the only dedicated relay in this box so there is a LOT of room for anything I want to add in the future.
Here is some of the wiring in place. I pulled power to the fuse panel off the fused side of the maxi-fuse.

Because I have all of the circuits designed I know how many wires will be coming into and out of the box. I cut short lengths of the required wire sizes to use to establish the snap bushing sizes. I wrote the required drill size beside the hole locations. I used a step drill to drill these holes.

That's what I've been doing, how about you?
Mark

 

[stinkity stoink]

very impressive! looks very neat and professional .awesome job

 

[1953mercury]

Nicely done. It's still a lot of work, but it's easier starting basicly from scratch than trying to basterdize a stock, or worse yet a 50 year old harness. Getting to put things where you want them and where they will function optimally, "priceless" as they say in the spend more than you make commercials. Mike

 

[Lhorn]

Nice sheet metal work. Astro vans are cool.

 

[Smiliesafari]

The guys over at Astrosafari vans would like to see some updates.

 

[41ratrod]

I'm enjoying your build thread. I built one 13 years ago for drag racing .
It had a SBC 383 with a powerglide and a 9" ford rear end 488 gears.
It was a lot of fun to race, had to put a wing on the back for better control.
With a 150 shot of NOS it would carry the front wheels off the line. In 2007 the place I worked at closed down. So the the fun was over, I sold it.

 

[41ratrod]

here is pix from 2006

I also chopped the top on it 6" and repainted it red satin w/off white top I don't have a picture on here .

 

[astroracer]

Nice looking Astro, how quick was it?

I got some more wiring done on the van this weekend. Got my order from EFI Connection Friday and used a few of the 2 pole weatherpack connectors to start the process on the trans and radiator fans and the fuel pump.
I also got the front distribution block mounted. This is a GM piece used on the 3rd gen F-Bodies. It mounts in a couple of holes on the front of the passenger side fender.

These blocks have a couple of molded on lugs that lock into the fender so there are no fasteners involved.

I wanted to be able to simply bolt this down so I trimmed off the lugs and drilled some holes for a couple of 8-32 screws.

Here is where I am mounting the block. This will be fed directly from the alternator and will route power to the existing GM harness and also back to the battery for charging. All of the cables will be 4 ga like I used in the back to supply the fuse/relay box.

There are two existing holes here that held the old fuel pump relay bracket. I'll make a new bracket out of .090 aluminum.

here is the bracket sketched out along with a piece of 90 thou I cut for the job.

After laying out the bend lines I bent the piece up with the 3 in 1.

After drilling a few holes. I'll put a couple rivnuts in the bracket for the block screws.

Bolted in and ready to install.

The holes on the firewall just needed to be opened up a bit for the rivnuts.

Bolted in.

Lots of room for power take-offs here.

Thanks for looking.
Mark

 

[astroracer]

I also got some more routing done. I drilled two holes in the right rear corner for snap bushings. One of which will carry the 1/0 negative cable to ground the frame and body and another for the fuel pump wires.
Here is a long view of the corner.

Here is a close up.

Looking from underneath you can see the routing for the fuel pump wires. I REALLY lucked out here... All of the holes in the brackets were there AND they all were the perfect size for the snap bushings... Very nice.

Of course all of this will get cleaned up and painted before the wires are installed for keeps. I will also cover the wires with loom before final install.
Thanks for looking.
Mark

 

[moonpool145]

Very nice work.. Impressive attention to detail.

Thanks much for sharing

 

[41ratrod]

I got to run the 1/4 mile once at 130 mph in 10.28 sec. I just happen to me in line after the street cars running .
The track runs car 1/8 th. and 1000 ft. cars that run quicker thin 12 have to
run the 1000 ft or 1/8 th. .
1000 ft 9.69 at 115mph
1/8 th. 6.96 at 109 mph its been 6 years so these times maybe a little off.

 

[racingtadpole]

Not sure if what you're doing is pure genius or certifiable lunacy either way the build quality is up there. I'm following

 

[astroracer]

10.28 is no slouch for a brick... And thanks guys, I am certifiably certifiable...

I was holding off crimping all of the big stuff until I ordered one of these hydraulic terminal crimpers off eBay last week.

Harbor Freight sells this for 70 bucks. I got it for <55 dollars and free shipping...
I got it today and tried it out on a 1/0 cable terminal. I can say it worked very well and I am glad I waited to do these crimps until I got this tool...
Here is the lug I am going to crimp. As you can see this is pretty big. The tool comes with dies to do up to 2/0.

Excellent investment and it makes some nice looking crimps. I am going to look into hard mounting it to the bench. It gets kind of busy trying to hold the cable in place while trying to actuate the hand pump on the crimper.

I clamped the lug in the vise and tested the crimp. It will take a lot of force to pull the lug off...
I finished up the crimp with some heat shrink and called it good...

Of course I have at least a half dozen of these to do on the big cables and as many or more on the 4 ga. stuff. Should be fun now.
Mark

 

[MillerMav]

......
I finished up the crimp with some heat shrink and called it good...

Mark

That is a solid looking cable. Nice work and nice tool!

 

[astroracer]

Thanks MM! Appreciate the kudos!


I modified my crimper yesterday so it will easily clamp to the welding bench. Frees up a hand for holding the wire in place.
I marked out a pattern for a couple of drilled and tapped holes in the head.

I will be screwing it to this piece of 1/4" plate with a couple of drilled and counter bored holes.

I clamped the tool in the drill press vise and drilled two holes out to .149 for tapping for a #10-32 screw.

Here is the plate getting drilled and counter bored.

Test fit. Bolted up nice and was very sturdy. This will work great when I get to crimping all of the van cables...

Cleaned and painted the plate.

This will be good to go and, if I need it do any crimps in tight places, the plate will come right off.
Mark

 

[Garage Coffee Roaster]

Nice and Clean. Thanks for Sharing.

Jim

 

[tinbender 66]

Had to subscribe, this is awesome stuff! Very nice workmanship.

 

[motobilt]

Nice work.

Dan

 

[porschedude996TT]

Thanks MM! Appreciate the kudos!


I modified my crimper yesterday so it will easily clamp to the welding bench. Frees up a hand for holding the wire in place.
I marked out a pattern for a couple of drilled and tapped holes in the head.

I will be screwing it to this piece of 1/4" plate with a couple of drilled and counter bored holes.

I clamped the tool in the drill press vise and drilled two holes out to .149 for tapping for a #10-32 screw.

Here is the plate getting drilled and counter bored.

Test fit. Bolted up nice and was very sturdy. This will work great when I get to crimping all of the van cables...

Cleaned and painted the plate.

This will be good to go and, if I need it do any crimps in tight places, the plate will come right off.
Mark

So why didn't you just chuck this thing in a vise with soft jaws? Just asking...