Hey everyone. I've been lurking and learning for a while, finally registered and now posting.<br /><br />About to enter my sophomore year of college, studying engineering, primarily interested in programming, comics, and miscellaneous arts, and I hope to be vandwelling by the time I graduate. Since that's a few years off, I didn't expect to purchase a vehicle for a while, but I found a good deal on a Chevy G20 that was nearby and jumped on it.<br /><br />Like the first-time used car buyer I am, I chalked the uneasy feeling it gave me up to nervousness and two weeks later I was sitting at the mechanic's waiting to see how much it would cost to get the engine running again. Everything seemed acceptable when I bought it, but it quickly got worse. The van was running pretty weak, getting past 15 miles per hour became a challenge at times.<br />Eventually it began to stall out if I put it into reverse gear, and then it began to stall out if I ever took my foot off the gas. I could keep it running if I had my foot on the gas a bit, which meant driving with both feet, fighting the engine with the breaks at stop signs, etc. Extremely fortunately, the problem wasn't in the engine (bad fuel pump), and it wasn't too expensive. Got it a tune up while I was there (spark plugs looked original from 1995). Still need to get it in for some new antifreeze, but I'll do that once my savings recover a bit.<br /><br />With the new fuel pump it is like a whole different vehicle, it starts right up and can accelerate like the car I used to drive. It's in great condition on the inside, which actually sort of disappoints me because I'm going to be ripping most of that out. I'm going to be taking the conversion process very slowly, since I have the time to.<br />I fear batteries because I don't understand them fully, and I'm very dependent on having electricity. I have rough ideas of how I'm going to handle most of the rest of my day-to-day needs. I'm pretty excited for the future on this subject, and look forward to learning more before I start my vandwelling.
Hello everybody.
- Thread starter MrTanner
- Start date
