Here is a little bit about my Brother's 83 Dodge B150 shorty.
The van is a half ton chassis powered by a 225 slant six mated to a 1974 A-727 transmission. It has an 8 3/8 rear axle with 3.2 gears. The only options ordered on this van originally were power steering and an automatic transmission.
My guess is that this van started out life as afleet vehicle, posisbly a fire dept. vehicle. it was originally flat bright right with dark brown carpet and a parchment interior. Not the prettiest color combo. We bought the van in 2000 from a Russian construction company owner. He was selling the van because the slant six didn't have enough power for him. He had, however, repainted the van a metallic dark red, much nicer than the original fire engine red.
The original motor had over 100,000 miles on it and had had a rough life. It was nearly dead, and somebody had gone an removed the lean burn computer and all emissions items. The van drove okay for awhile, but then the motor died. I gave my brother a 225 I had recent had rebuilt. It is a 1976 motor out of a Plymouth Volare that had been rebuilt to 76 specs. The motor ran great, but then the transmission died, so I gave him a 1984 727 tranny that had also been recently rebuilt. All was well and my brother moved out shortly thereafter, taking the van with him.
Over the next couple years I heard of the van's fate. First, the "rebuilt" tranny failed. My brother took it back to the shop that rebilt it and they ogt it working again. Then my brother managed to leave the van in neutral while filling up at a gas station and the van rolled down a hill and ripped the driver's door off (why he didn't put it in park is beyond me). So he got a replcement door from a boneyard but it was blue and silver. So my family bought him a gift certificate to Maaco and he had the van painted the dark blue and silver colors you see in the photos.
Shortly thereafter, the tranny again stopped working. The van was not passing emissions and was running bad and getting bad gas mileage, so my brother decided to park the van at an outdoor storage lot until he could get around to getting it fixed.
It sat there for four years.
Flash forward to January 2006. I volunteer to help my brother get his van back in working order, so the van is delivered to my house on the back of a flatbed.
Holy crap, what a mess. The windshield was cracked, the paint was fadd and moss had eaten rotions away, the tires were cracked form sitting, the factory chrom Street Van rims which I had given him had clouded over the chrome, but the worst was the interior. When the van was painted Maaco removed some trim but left the holes open. Also, the replacement driver's door didn't have any weatherdtripping on the outside of the driver's window. The end result was that the van sat for four years in rainy Washington getting damper and damper. The original carboard ceiling had collapsed, the carpet was about 50% mold and there was an ant colony by the driver's chair. The original parchment interior panels had lost their stiffness and were filthy, but the worst was the front two doors. My brother had gotten the blue interior doorpanels form the van he got the door from, so the van was a hodgepodge of fire engine red, dark brown, silver, parchment, and blue. Oi.
I ended up completely gutting and rebuilding the interior except for the captains chairs and bench seat (the rearmost bench seat was a junkyard find). I cleaned the van up, swapped out the tranny for a used 727 EricW, put on new tires and shocks, swapped the van to a two barrel carb, replaced the distributor with a recurved one, and voila! an emissions passing, decent performing, smooth running, and reasonably good looking van. Actually, voila! makes it sound too easy, and there were many other little bits and side projects that also occurred.
A big thanks to Eric for that transmission. Without it, this roject never would have gotten done! Thanks a bunch buddy!
I wish I had some before pictures to how but I was too stunned to take any.
Not bad for five months of weekends. All the replacement interior bits came from Lowe's, excpet the wooden dash surround. That was an eBay item. The walls, doors, and ceiling were very covered with a light colored maple panelling, with the carpeted boards used to fill gaps and cover seams. I originally did the front doors with just panelling, but then decided to carpet them so the edges wouldn't show.
Probably the best part of this project was my recovery of the chrome Mopar Performance slant six valve cover I had found in a junkyard back in 1999 and had given to my brother with the engine. It is now back in my hands waiting to be put on a motor where it will be seen more often than in a van.
