Thread: Bad Ast Astro Van Build

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I get real excited about your project, knowing the amount of engineering you are doing to the suspension. then I see your photoshops, and am reminded it is...

a mini van..

heh heh. To each his own.

Please keep the updates coming!

Not much to update but the van is back in the yard minus motor, trans and fuel tank. It looks pretty forelorn sitting in the driveway.
I spent last weekend cleaning and straightening in the shop. And sorting magazines. I have too many old car mags...
Anyway, I hope to get most everything cleaned and straightened by this weekend so I can put my truck to bed for the winter and get busy on the van.
First up will be stripping both front and rear suspensions out of her and building a body cart/rotisserie. I'll keep you updated.
Mark

Just curious what your plans were for the front wheel houses. I've been involved with a few Astro build ups and it always seams to be a lack of front wheelhouse room when lowering these things. I have a shop Astro for hauling parts and trailer that has been lowered 2" with spindles and springover, it will bottom out easily. Do you plan on tubbing the front as well? Keep the photos coming.

I plan to re-work the front wheel houses also. Once I get the front suspension built I will install the cradle and cycle the suspension through jounce, rebound and right and left steer. I will only remove as much as is necessary to get about a half inch of clearance at the extreme tire positions.
I also plan to have "soft" contact surfaces where the tire will not see any sharp edges. Cutting out the original wheel house and re-using it is the plan with pieces added to get it where it needs to be.
Mark

Well, I have gotten a few things done on the computer the past week or so. I had to rebuild my big computer at and lost a lot of data in the process. I think it was a good thing though as I found a few more mistakes on my part...
After a big hiccup with geometry points earlier this year I have finally gotten the data where it needs to be. After plotting all of my spindle points from the actual parts I found my first design wasn't as far off as I had thought. It was off but only by 1/4" or so and not the 2" I had previously thought. I spent the last couple of days verifying my points are correct and redesigning the upper and lower control arms.
Here are a few pics of my 3D Data.
http://images19.fotki.com/v26/photos...rtsusp2-vi.jpg
http://images16.fotki.com/v31/photos...rtsusp3-vi.jpg
http://images19.fotki.com/v353/photo...rtsusp4-vi.jpg
Everything looks good right now. I need to rebuild the motion file to check clearances but this suspension isn't far off from the original so I'm not real concerned...
I also need to rebuild the front cradle and rear frame but those are pretty straight forward now that the front is complete.
Thanks for looking,
Mark

I've been following your gallery and your build, really nice workmanship. Your shop is sure a lot more organized than mine.

Don

Thanks Don, the kudos are appreciated. As far as the shop goes, getting it cleaned, painted and organized was an all winter project this past year... Before that there was only a path through the heated side... I love my shop now and it is really nice to go out there to work...

I have gotten a lot of 3D work done in the past week. Getting the front suspension done was top priority and, with the completion of that, I moved on to the front cradle and rear frame designs. I finished those up (to a point) last night so I snapped some pics...
This is the front cradle as it sits right now.
http://images19.fotki.com/v27/photos...sm_0001-vi.jpg
http://images17.fotki.com/v28/photos...sm_0003-vi.jpg
I plan to add some triangulation between the upper and lower rails but haven't decided how to do it yet.

This is an overall shot with the left front suspension in place.
http://images16.fotki.com/v31/photos...sm_0002-vi.jpg
And a close up of the cradle/suspension assembly...
http://images16.fotki.com/v29/photos...sm_0003-vi.jpg

I am hoping my back eases up a bit so I can get back out into the shop this weekend...
Thanks for looking
Mark