After a few weekends spread out over the last month or so of somewhat lackadaisical work, too many beers, and sunshine, I've finally got my 97 Astro in shape for my upcoming trip to Moab/Flaming Gorge/Jackson Hole/ Missoula.
The van started out as a cherry 97 AWD LT model. Inclusions were the much sought after GT4/ G80 tow package with 3.73 gears, tranny cooler, and just about every other interior option you can get, including powered leatherette seats, rear AC/heat, and my personal favorite, compass/ outside temp guage. I bought it off a little old lady with 114k on it and meticulous maintenance records. The van looked like it spent its whole life in a garage.
After a winter of driving it to and from the mountains, i started to get the itch to camperize the interior and prep it for the summer adventure touring season. I'd had a previous Astro that I performed extensive work to the interior of, but ultimately it wound up being a total piece of ****, and I traded it to some dude in Denver for a pair of skis and some cash. While it had a certain cozy feel to the interior...
...I ultimately decided that on the new van I needed to keep my ability to put seats with real belts in it. So, taking the lessons learned from V1.0, and armed with plenty of Full Sail brews, my uncle and I spent a couple rainy weekends in his shop building a better, more removable storage container/ camp kitchen counter/ folding bed. I found some hooks at home dept that happened to perfectly grab the bottom of the stock seat recesses, and put sturdy handles on the sides of the box to both aid ease in transport, and to provide a means to strap the back of the box down to the stock luggage anchors (sorry, no pics of the attachement at htis time).
Here's the concept in its folded up platform state
And unfolded into a bed (floor flanges to screw the 1/2" pipe "legs" into reside on the top of the box)
From the back, I added slots for two butcher block cutting boards (9.99 at Ikea) that slide out to provide cooking counterspac, as well as extend the foot area of the bed in sleeping mode
I also added new carpet and fresh struts to the rear hatch after my fourth concussion from having it drop on my head i cold weather. I also rigged up a nice little riff on the classic clothesline using paracord, carabiners, and a turnbuckle to adjust tension. This thing takes up zero room, but allows me to gain a ton of soft goods storage if needed. Keeping stuff off the floor in front of the storage platform is of paramount importance, since my girlfriend and I tend to sit in this spot in our low REI camp chairs and read books when the weather is ****ty outside and we are camping. Also I added stick on LED tap lights to the ceiling to avoid draining the battery.
The storage line
A saucy little thing to wiggle her lady bits at us when we hit the dirt.
From there it was time to turn the attention to the exterior of the van. Following many useful bits of info from Astrosafarvans.org, I was able to piece together my own homebrew 3-4" lift kit using the time honored S-10 springs, Rancho shocks, and lift blocks/ torsion crank in the front. Unfortunately my torsion adjuster bolts were nearly bottomed out when I got the van, so I got a hair under 3" in the front and initially 4+ in the rear, though this has since settled down to more like 3.5" in the rear. I also took the time while installing all these bits to change my worn idler arms, and fix an exhaust gasket leak.
After all of this, all that was left was to throw my Thule bike trays or Yakima ski rack on top, and swap the rear hitch mount Swagman rack for my dirt bike carrier depending whether the weekend plans include skiing, mountain biking, or dirt biking, or some combination of the three.
The exterior
After finishing it all up yesterday, we had to take it out for a little shakedown cruise/ shooting match/ wood stealing expedition to nearby Mt. Hood. It was a hazy day, but the old girl gobbled up the buttery gravel like a champ.
Keeping it classy, post target practice style...
Hazy beauty
Top of the world..
At this point, I'm pretty much done with phase one of the build. I was originally going to order up and fit a new set of 235/75/15 AT3's (decided against 30's for gas mileage purposes), but after realizing how long my trip is going to be and noting that the stock tires are in great shape/ don't look too stupid with the lift, decided to wait until later this summer. Might as well burn up the stock tires on our epic trip coming up this Friday where we'll be hitting Moab, Flaming Gorge, Jackson/ Tetons/Yellowstone, and Missoula in a 2300 mile loop. We'll be packing the mountain bikes on top to ride in Jackson and Moab, and my DRZ-400SM on the back to tour the national parks on and get to out of the way hiking spots while the van holds down the fort in camp. I built it to be the indespensible accessory to my lifestyle, and it's looking pretty good in that respect so far. Look for a TR on the upcoming trip on here in the next few weeks....
The van started out as a cherry 97 AWD LT model. Inclusions were the much sought after GT4/ G80 tow package with 3.73 gears, tranny cooler, and just about every other interior option you can get, including powered leatherette seats, rear AC/heat, and my personal favorite, compass/ outside temp guage. I bought it off a little old lady with 114k on it and meticulous maintenance records. The van looked like it spent its whole life in a garage.
After a winter of driving it to and from the mountains, i started to get the itch to camperize the interior and prep it for the summer adventure touring season. I'd had a previous Astro that I performed extensive work to the interior of, but ultimately it wound up being a total piece of ****, and I traded it to some dude in Denver for a pair of skis and some cash. While it had a certain cozy feel to the interior...
...I ultimately decided that on the new van I needed to keep my ability to put seats with real belts in it. So, taking the lessons learned from V1.0, and armed with plenty of Full Sail brews, my uncle and I spent a couple rainy weekends in his shop building a better, more removable storage container/ camp kitchen counter/ folding bed. I found some hooks at home dept that happened to perfectly grab the bottom of the stock seat recesses, and put sturdy handles on the sides of the box to both aid ease in transport, and to provide a means to strap the back of the box down to the stock luggage anchors (sorry, no pics of the attachement at htis time).
Here's the concept in its folded up platform state
And unfolded into a bed (floor flanges to screw the 1/2" pipe "legs" into reside on the top of the box)
From the back, I added slots for two butcher block cutting boards (9.99 at Ikea) that slide out to provide cooking counterspac, as well as extend the foot area of the bed in sleeping mode
I also added new carpet and fresh struts to the rear hatch after my fourth concussion from having it drop on my head i cold weather. I also rigged up a nice little riff on the classic clothesline using paracord, carabiners, and a turnbuckle to adjust tension. This thing takes up zero room, but allows me to gain a ton of soft goods storage if needed. Keeping stuff off the floor in front of the storage platform is of paramount importance, since my girlfriend and I tend to sit in this spot in our low REI camp chairs and read books when the weather is ****ty outside and we are camping. Also I added stick on LED tap lights to the ceiling to avoid draining the battery.
The storage line
A saucy little thing to wiggle her lady bits at us when we hit the dirt.
From there it was time to turn the attention to the exterior of the van. Following many useful bits of info from Astrosafarvans.org, I was able to piece together my own homebrew 3-4" lift kit using the time honored S-10 springs, Rancho shocks, and lift blocks/ torsion crank in the front. Unfortunately my torsion adjuster bolts were nearly bottomed out when I got the van, so I got a hair under 3" in the front and initially 4+ in the rear, though this has since settled down to more like 3.5" in the rear. I also took the time while installing all these bits to change my worn idler arms, and fix an exhaust gasket leak.
After all of this, all that was left was to throw my Thule bike trays or Yakima ski rack on top, and swap the rear hitch mount Swagman rack for my dirt bike carrier depending whether the weekend plans include skiing, mountain biking, or dirt biking, or some combination of the three.
The exterior
After finishing it all up yesterday, we had to take it out for a little shakedown cruise/ shooting match/ wood stealing expedition to nearby Mt. Hood. It was a hazy day, but the old girl gobbled up the buttery gravel like a champ.
Keeping it classy, post target practice style...
Hazy beauty
Top of the world..
At this point, I'm pretty much done with phase one of the build. I was originally going to order up and fit a new set of 235/75/15 AT3's (decided against 30's for gas mileage purposes), but after realizing how long my trip is going to be and noting that the stock tires are in great shape/ don't look too stupid with the lift, decided to wait until later this summer. Might as well burn up the stock tires on our epic trip coming up this Friday where we'll be hitting Moab, Flaming Gorge, Jackson/ Tetons/Yellowstone, and Missoula in a 2300 mile loop. We'll be packing the mountain bikes on top to ride in Jackson and Moab, and my DRZ-400SM on the back to tour the national parks on and get to out of the way hiking spots while the van holds down the fort in camp. I built it to be the indespensible accessory to my lifestyle, and it's looking pretty good in that respect so far. Look for a TR on the upcoming trip on here in the next few weeks....
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