Picked up a new van this weekend

[mr_elijah_gardner]

I don't full time. I use my van as a mobile office and Weekend getaway. I sold my last van I built the other week to a young kid who will be full timing. I picked this one up saturday. It was stale inventory on a lot. I knew he has had it for about 6 months and buried in the back of the lot. Needed some small things like fluid changes and battery from sitting. I negotiated a good deal and can't imagine he made more than a couple hundred bucks profit off me.

I pulled the sagging headliner out and found small leak where a CB antenna had been run. fortunately no rust and I was able to seal the hole up. The clear coat on the roof is pretty bad but I think I can make it look "better" the rest of the van paint is good.

Went to the car wash to clean the back of it out. Had motor oil and grease. The lot had apparently used it as a shop truck a few times. Never occurred to me until I was at the car wash.  People might look sideways at someone pressure washing the back of their van out at the car wash.... or maybe that's just my sense of humor.

Its a 1996 Dodge Ram B3500 with a 318. Its solid no rust. Completely stripped. I've narrowed my build ideas down to the best 1000 choices. Anyway just wanted to share some pics. More to come later.

 

[Dgorila1]

Nice find! What did you pay for it? How many miles on it? Can't wait to see the build.

 

[mr_elijah_gardner]

Nice find! What did you pay for it? How many miles on it? Can't wait to see the build.

I gave $1300. It's got 112K on the odometer.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

Can't beat that deal. Congrats! I've pressure washed the back of a few vans in my day, it's very satisfying. One was my Dad's van that I inherited after he passed, he was a life long smoker and his white van inside was a dull yellow. I did one side at a time, so after the first side was cleaned, you could really see how bad it really was. After that and having the seats and short headliner above the cab cleaned with a commercial water extractor, she was as good as new.

 

[John61CT]

Very sweet value deal that!

 

[mr_elijah_gardner]

I did some shopping today and found a few things for the van. The pics are very rough placement. Just wanted to start situating things around and see how it works out.

My plans for my layout have been started to be figured out. It's going to have a table/bed setup. I found my sink and my stove. It's a start.

https://ibb.co/iZ8Xmv
https://ibb.co/di8MeF
https://ibb.co/mMadRv

 

[OutdoorFT]

Awesome find!

 

[user 37446]

Ok you had what, a nice older G20 or something before, right? Did you want more room, stronger springs or what was the reason?

TWIH

 

[mr_elijah_gardner]

I had a 99 Doge B1500 Mark 3 conversion. I wanted a 1 ton with a V8 because I do haul trailers from time to time. The old van could do it but it was hard on her. 

This is an update video on my build.

 

[breeze]

Nice! It looks like a M mile van. Excellent deal.