Take that, Gloria! (1991 G30 Conversion Van)

[Eazy]

Hello,

About a month ago I was looking at purchasing an Xterra to build up into an overland rig. My daughter just turned 8 and camping/hiking have become some of her favorite things, but my body doesn't take too well to tent camping. I didn't want to buy a truck and pull a camper, so I thought a nice 4x4 with a roof rent would be a good compromise. I've been lurking this forum ever since looking at various Xterra and XJ builds, never noticing the Camper Vans section.

Long story short, I couldn't find an Xterra that fit what I wanted and wasn't crazy expensive. I was still looking when I got a message from a friend of mine that he had found a sweet deal on a conversion van.

So I followed up on it.

Meet Gloria, my 1991 G30 Extended Body.



I just brought it home two days ago.

It was an estate sale find in Washington a couple years ago. The guy I bought it from picked it up with 9k miles on it. He drove it around Washington and then out to Idaho for work. A couple weeks ago he found a sweet deal on a Quigley cargo van, so he decided to let this go.

It currently has 18k on the odometer. The original conversion kit (Trail Wagons "Regency SJ") is still intact and even has some of the factory tape on the curtains. It's sun-faded and needs some electrical work, but other than that it drives really well.

My plan is to build it up into a mean road trip/camping machine. I figured I would start a build thread for two reasons.

1) There's little to no information on these conversions out there, so I'm hoping that as I uncover thing it will be helpful to anyone else who stumbles across the same kind of van.
2) Build/adventure threads are a lot of fun.

So thanks for having me. I'll try to keep up to date with the process.

-Ian

 

[Eazy]

Of course the picture is upside down. I'll figure it out at some point, I hope.

 

[Buddha.]

There you go.

Looks like a good get. I'd be worried about every bit of rubber on it being dry rotted though.

 

[Corneilius]

Interior pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Eazy]

There you go.

Looks like a good get. I'd be worried about every bit of rubber on it being dry rotted though.

Thanks, I can't post links yet for some reason...and when I attach images they attach upside down.

From what I can tell, the rubber is all in pretty good shape. My idea of "good shape" may be flawed since I've spent way too much time working on barn find Volkswagen buses, but I think they all look okay. There's a small leak in the front windshield when you really blast it with water, but other than that I haven't found any seal issues.

Interior pics or it didn't happen.

As soon as I can figure out how to make pictures attach without looking like they were taken in Australia, I'll post some interior pictures.

 

[Bbasso]

I dig it man, that's a cool looking van. As mentioned before be aware of parts that can go bad from time and age. As you mentioned there isn't much information about it, and I would do as much research as possible to find out about Oddball replacement parts before you start investing money or Wheeling it.
Other than that I would throw a set bgf a/t tires on it, clean it up a little bit then enjoy the day.

 

[Eazy]

Funny story.

I've spent the last few days trying to find ANYTHING on this conversion. Manuals, pictures, just anything I could. The only trace of information I could find is this car auction website. A lot of pictures, but not much else past that.

(I would post a link here, but I'm still not allowed to do that for some reason.)

I couldn't help but notice that my van and the van in the pictures were almost identical. Same rust spots, same colors, etc... I thought to myself "maybe they just only did one color combo."

So in my search for documentation, I went back to this website with the intent of trying to track down the current owner of the van in the pictures.

Tracked the new owner down...

Spoiler Alert: It's me...

 

[philos]

Haha, nice detective work!
I like it, the high top is rad.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Eazy]

I just sent emails to everyone I could find that worked for Trail Wagons/Chinook in the early 90's to see if they still had access to any of the original information.

Let's hope I hear something back.

 

[Corneilius]

My friend has a E150 Turtle Top camper conversion, also very rare, only a few pictures of others online. We called Turtle Top, no help. We basically had to go through the whole thing flipping switches and pushing buttons with a volt meter to figure out how it all worked. Only took about a week off and on. Yours being complete and low miles makes it a lot easier. His had a bunch of random snaps and hooks that took a while to decipher.

 

[Eazy]

My friend has a E150 Turtle Top camper conversion, also very rare, only a few pictures of others online. We called Turtle Top, no help. We basically had to go through the whole thing flipping switches and pushing buttons with a volt meter to figure out how it all worked. Only took about a week off and on. Yours being complete and low miles makes it a lot easier. His had a bunch of random snaps and hooks that took a while to decipher.

My problem is that the previous owner pulled fuses and disconnected a bunch of the accessories. So I'm kind of guessing what went where before I test it. I think I found a "junction" type area last night while I was looking for the switch to lay out the middle seat (still can't find it) and I also found what appears to be the ancillary fuse box.

Probably won't take a look at it for a couple weeks though. New shocks should be here tomorrow and then I'm taking it on it's first camping trip next weekend. I'll start dealing with whether or not the "mood" lights turn on after that.

Here's that link again...if it works anyways:

http://www.2040-cars.com/Chevrolet/...-117-pictures-and-hd-video-no-reserve-663351/

 

[Eazy]

Spent the weekend in the Carbou-Targhee National Forest this weekend with my friend and his Geo Tracker.

Got muddy and nearly froze, but it was a solid first outing for Gloria.

I spent this evening replacing the shocks. After years of working on exceptionally low Volkswagens, it was a nice feeling to not need a jack to replace parts. It was even better having the end product be a comfortable, safe ride.

 

[Eazy]

License plates came last week. Trying to cut off the "free candy" joke at the pass.

 

[Buddha.]

I like it.

 

[SHAFT]

Quality, always good to have another GFOP on here....
i blame my van problem on my grandpa having a '88 beauville diesel that your van reminds me of....same interior door bag things and all