Astro 4x4 Adventure VAN

Sharkfox

Observer
This Thread is LONG overdue.

I bought my VAN about 3 years ago to use as a utilitarian motorcycle hauler. Somewhere along the way it became a self sufficient camper that's seen over 25,000 miles of overland travel in the last 10 months.
This is about what it looks like now...



Now to rewind.
I sold my Subaru and bought the bare bones 2002 Astro AWD from a painting company. The idea was to use the VAN to haul derelict motorcycles back from Craigslist purchases and dirt bikes to and from trailheads.

This is what it looked like on that fateful night I bought it.




It stated out as a typical cargo van.
Relatively low miles. Good condition with no rust. Anyone in Minnesota would consider that nothing short of a miracle.



Typical of a work van, the rear was full of rickety shelving and shoddy repairs.
Notice the speaker wire loop to open the rear door...



I gutted the interior. It was actually pretty clean despite being used as a painter's van.





My first order of business was to disguise that unsightly chalky grey bumper.
A can or two of Plasti-Dip did the trick.

Before:


After:


I had a trip from Minneapolis to Lexington Kentucky planned so I needed to get some tie downs in the VAN. A couple strips of e-track and a removable motorcycle wheel chock.

I tried various configurations of this setup but ended up settling on three transverse mounted sections.



The wheel chock clips into the e-track and straps hold everything in place.
.


...More to come.
 

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
Subscribed! Need more Astros on this forum.

Do you access that roof box very often? I have several but can never get serious about using them because they're so high off the ground!
 

boardrider247

Weekend warrior anarchist
I tried buying this van but the seller was out of town and didn't respond to me until after I had bought another vehicle.
As I recall it was a great deal! Glad to see it put to good use......
 

Sharkfox

Observer
Subscribed! Need more Astros on this forum.

Do you access that roof box very often? I have several but can never get serious about using them because they're so high off the ground!

I don't use the roof box very often but when I do, I can access it from the rear bumper or standing on the tire or side door sill without much issue.
 

Sharkfox

Observer
This build began with little or no real direction. Basically just to haul motorbikes. Small additions were made along the way piece by piece out of necessity. If I had known how it was going to be used, I would have done many things differently.

On with the build details...

I drove to Kentucky loaded like this. As you can imagine, it was a loud trip. Lots of metal parts rattling around inside an already noisy metal box.
After that, I knew I needed some insulation.



I applied some elastomeric acoustic damping paint to the floor and cut the original rubber floor mat to fit around the e-track.
This combination cut down on road noise quite a bit.
Here it is installed on yet another motorbike outing.




I also insulated the sides with fiberglass insulation and made some walls.
Not my best work, but I never intended on these being permanent...but hey, they are walls. They were secured to the VAN with barbed push-in automotive fasteners and held up surprisingly well.

.

.



The walls are made from paneling covered with indoor/outdoor carpet.
Pretty cheap project to eliminate more road noise and try to control the temperature somewhat.
 

Sharkfox

Observer
The next order of business was the lift installation.
I had gone back and forth on whether or not to lift, what type of lift, what size tires will fit...etc. I didn't really need new tires so it was hard to justify buying any. After pricing components and tires, I had sort of lost steam.

That is until a set of FREE tires dropped in my lap!
My dad's Blazer just happened to give up the ghost and he had just put a set of tires on it. It's hard to cram big tires under and Astro without a lot of fender modification but the 235/75-15's were perfect. So on with the lift.

This called for new wheels. Cragar Soft 8's all around.


I don't have any pictures of the lift install unfortunately.
Although kits are available, I was able to (with the help from other Astro Van forums) piece together a homebrew kit. The front was lifted with 2" body spacers and a little torsion bar adjustment. The rear got some taller S-10 springs. Other small modifications needed to be made but it was a pretty straight forward install.

The end results were just what I needed. It's raised up about 3.5"-4" all around.
Minor tire rub on the front bumper was remedied with a little plastic trimming.




I was pretty excited about my lift...........until I parked next to this guy at work. Dangit..



My pizza cutters should be ashamed of themselves.
 

k9lestat

Expedition Leader
I love those h1's. I like your van too. But most péople with H1's are usually scared to scratch the paint. Lol

Sent from my QMV7A using Tapatalk
 

Sharkfox

Observer
I had some issues with the encoder motor not engaging in the AWD transfer case. By issues, I mean it wasn't working at all. To most people this would be a headache and mean an expensive mechanic bill.
I saw this as an opportunity to pursue the 4x4 transfer case swap I had no real reason to do at the time.

There is a wealth of knowledge online about transfer case swaps that I have to thank my Astro van forefathers for.
I sourced an NP233 transfer case from a 2000 Chevy Blazer. Since the Astro and Blazer share the same engine and transmission, quite a few parts are interchangeable or adaptable. The NP233 is a direct swap. It even uses the stock Astro drive shafts.





Although it is possible to integrate the electronic shifting, I wanted to shift it manually for a couple reasons. The first being that I didn't want to deal with integrating it into the Astro's wiring harness. The second was because I just had the encoder motor fail on my AWD t-case leaving me high and dry. And finally, an all mechanical system could be repaired on the trail or shifted with a wrench if it came down to it. Keep it simple.

I removed the motor and pulled out it's guts to see what I had to work with.



I turns out a 9/16" wrench fits right on the shift shaft. It took a surprising amount of force to shift with the wrench. Shifting linkage lengths need to be determined to design a reasonable amount of leverage into the shifter.
Measurements were taken to determine the appropriate lengths for the shifting linkage.





Lengths and approximate angles were determined for each selectable gear and used to design the components of the shift linkage.
 

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