did you see the other link? the craigslist one? i think that would be perfect. check it out. look at the pictures of the inside. we need to get that. and its cheap.
Omg. It's PERFECT. Too bad it's in Las Vegas. We need to get one exactly like that, with the cabinet and table. I want it to be like a home.
las vegas isnt even that far honestly. its like 5 hours. what we can do is we can go over night and take another friend with us who can drive [maybe krisstal] and they can drive it back for us. cause if we left at like midnight we could get there early in the morning and get it and drive back and be back by like noon.
Now slow down a minute, you are doing the exact last thing one should ever do while looking for a vehicle, namely rushing off with intent to purchace it based soley on it's features and appearance without any idea as to if these features you love so much are even functional. See if your Dad has a Mechanic friend who could come along and inspect it for you, dont rush in there with your eye's all lit up and in love with your preconceived expectations of what this Van is, much like a relationship, if you get involved with someone, make sure you love them and not simply your illusionary perception of them. Even if this thing has all the bells and whistles you wanted, make sure those bells and whistles will still play the tune you want them to and at least appear as if they will do so for some time to come. And dont fret if this van turns out to be a piece of shit, it's allot easier to install a fridge and a sink with a fresh and wastewater holding tank than it seems. You can put this same stuff together only do so exactly as you want it to be laid out. Maybe a bunk bed in back, maybe a shower would be nice (A bit cramped I'm sure but would be handy, maybe set one up externally with a detachable shower curtain on the right side of the vehicle??) I've been thinking about building my own RV for a few months now (Using an old 50's era 1 ton dually pickup as a base vehicle, ahh money, I'll have some soon...)b, stuff like sinks and AC power inverters suitable to provide 800 watts for running the coffee maker and the desktop PC etc can be had cheap if you shop around. In fact what will probably cost you the most of all of it is getting the tools together to do it but theres always Harbor freight and flea market / garage sale finds.
our parents aren't gonna want us buying that van or any other van really so we cant really tell them. ill see if one of my friends that knows something about cars will come with us and check it out for us. thanks for the advice. cause your right, that would probably be a good idea cause i know nothing about cars. i dont know how we'd install any of that stuff ourselves so i'd rather just have one that has all that stuff already in it. but its not really a big deal if it doesnt because i wasnt even really expecting it to before when i wanted to buy a vw. and i had a suggestion about building your RV. what if you built one and then sold it for more money to someone, kinda like flipping houses. and then built another one and did the same thing until you have enough money to build an awesome one for yourself. i dont know if cars work the same way as houses but people make a ton of money from flipping houses. just a thought.
That's about what I'm thinking of doing really, Old school truck bodies, overhauled mechanicly and done in that old 50's style teardrop aluminum skin camper back / rv. The only setback is startup funding and total lack of tools a.t.m. but I've got my simple lapidary gear so theres cash on the way, one day at a time and so forth. And if ya do buy that Van, make sure your ride is a Pickup truck with a tow bar just in case the beast dies on the trip back. Nothing worse than a blown radiator hose in the middle of the desert, and we're heading to the upper 80's later this week.
ah well i wish you the best of luck for your RV building. have you tried having a garage sale to make money? since you said a lot of people where you live are collectors of strange things. okay so i need to: bring a friend who knows a lot about cars and has a truck with a tow bar. im gonna write that down as a sort of check list.
okay so my friend and i were looking up things closer to where we live and we found this: http://bakersfield.craigslist.org/cto/1641246914.html so i was wondering what your thoughts were on this cause again, i know knowing of cars. and if we call them, what questions should we ask them? it has a wheel chair lift which would be so ridiculously fun cause my friend has these awesome rave lights and we could get a fog machine and have SUPER dramatic entrances everywhere we go. it would be intense.
get a toyota van. you don't need the "vw" logo to have an awsome time in a van, get a cheap reliable van, you will be better off, spend the money you would have spent on repairs on fun things on your vacation!
On a 1980,,, Ask how may miles on the engine Ask how many on the transmission Ask what sort of shape the suspension is How much play is in the steering? How are the brakes? Ask where it leaks oil, dont bother asking if. Dont ask him, but when you get there, and make sure the engine is cold, check the radiator fluid, take off the cap and see what color it is. It should most likely be green. Keep an eye out for brownish oil floating in it, or pinkish oil (Keep in mind that some antifreeze is pinkish, but that stuff will be all pink/orange, not homogenously mixed). Also keep an eye for sawdust floating around or tiny metallic silver flakes as this can be a sign they used "fix-it-in-a-bottle" or otherwise cheap methods of fixing a leak which wont last long as a rule. Another thing, check the motor oil, make sure it's not greyish brown and frothy, thats a cylinder head crack, or probably just the c.h. gasket which is letting the oil and antifreeze mix and either way one big pain in the ass to fix in a van. Check brake fluid Check power steering fluid If either are low it could mean you need to replace a line, or it could be something worse like a master cylinder or power steering pump. But if ya get a cheap toolset and the repair manual, either of these things aren't too tricky. Bleeding the brakes can be a pain, but not impossible. be sure to spray the shit out of the bleeder valves with PB Blaster the day before you try loosening them and again the same day, might even want to heat them up a bit. On a 1980 I'd also suggest replacing the bleeder valves altogether ($1.50 at worst) as they're a cheap alloy and get weak with age. Nothing worse than having to easy-out a broken bleeder valve from the wheel cylinder. I'll warn you now though, with that body, you'll be lucky to get 12 miles per gallon with the wind on your back. In fact, you might be just as good looking for something like an old Bread delivery truck or box van. Check the driveshaft (the long shaft that runs from the front to the back of the van underneath), make sure it doesnt twist back and forth easily or all that much. 1/2" or more and you may need new U joints which isnt a hard thing to change and is pretty cheap, but should get attention a.s.a.p. Nothing will make you shit your pants faster than dropping the front end of a driveshaft on a van while driving down the highway at 80 miles an hour. (Think pole vaulting.) Another thing to check is when the van is running, slowly shift it from park to drive to reverse to drive to low gear (or 1) and back to park. Listen for any ungodly loud "CLUNK!! noises as this is another indication that your U joints are going bad, could also be soemthing with the differential. And keep in mind while test driving this road hog especially if you've never driven a big vehicle before, it's a top heavy road pig and you should not make sharp turns quickly or you may just roll it which wont be a pretty picture on the news.
This stuff is what you want to use for loosening rusted bolts and whatnot. If someone tells you it's ok to just use the can of wd40 they have on hand, kick them "squha' inn tha' nutzz" ala Cartman style. And even if the Guy says the oil has been changed recently, and it might have been, the engine is probably full of sludge and crap, so pour a quart of this in and drive it a few hundred miles and change the oil again. Marvel also makes a bottle of the same stuff but diluted a bit to put in the gas tank right before you fill your gas tank so it mixes up well.(Or just use 1/4 cup of the stuff from what you add to the oil either way, same result), this will clean out all the carbon and varnish deposits by the valves, the intake and the topside of the pistons, very good to do. It will also help to clean the carburetor out and works fine on cleaning injectors too, basically cleans anywhere the gas goes.
Another thing to do would be to turn everything on, the heater then the AC full blast, wipers, hazard signals, radio, high beams etc. just to see how well the alternator is doing it's job. If it dies, it could mean the regulator is fried, pretty cheap & easy to change yourself. Alternator isnt too bad but in a van anything can be a pain in the ass depending on how things are laid out. Oftentimes it's easier to remove the radiator and grill just to get at things. If anything else comes to mind I'll let you know.
oh my goodness. im taking everything you just said and printing it out and then going to find a friend who knows cars and making him check all that stuff in the van for me. hahah. cause thats a lot of stuff and i dont know what half of that means. seriously though, thank you. it really means a lot to me that your helping me out. not many people would take the time to type all that out just to help someone they've never even met before. it makes my day. i tend to forget that there are genuinely nice people still left in the world.
Well I couldn't just let some sweet innocent run out and buy a Camper Van without warning her like that, wouldn't be right at all. Especially not a relative neighbor. And then of course what point is it to warn someone if you don't offer alternatives right?
I advise.. not getting a VW bus. As much fun as they are to drive, you'll be stuck doing a lot of maintenance, and if you can't do the work yourself.. you'll be down to huffin' it down the road. I own a 73' VW bus, had for eight years now.. and just spent 22,000 miles during the year of 2009 doing some traveling. I am my own mechanic for it.. if I wasn't, I would have left it in New Mexico. Practically every 1000 miles you have to do some sort of work on it, and every 3000 you have to do a valve job, unless you have hydraulic lifters. It's a constant struggle to keep it going but a fun one, specially when it's painted and you wander into babylon for picture money. Was a 500$ investment when I was 19.. now stands at 12000$ worth of money I've paid keeping it alive.. and two motors later. If you want a van, i'd go for a chevy of some sort. Good, solid motors and transmissions. Easy things to fix on them.. as long as it isn't fuel injected, it's like a giant lawnmower. Strong vans too... Toyota has some good vans as well. Stay away from VW Vanagens, those 80's water-cooled engines.. are another horrible story in it's own.. as the VW tries to relive it's minibus dreams. I guess the Third Reich finally found a way to resurrect Hitler and told him to make it water-cooled, and this piece of crap 83' water-cooled motor was made as the result. I'll share a little vdub story while I'm on the subject. In Barstow.. Cali... ohh the hellish place. Anyways, my dog knocked the bus out of gear (e-brake is broken), and the bus rolled and hit a wall.. fuck, my clutch is stuck in gear! I managed to putt it and eight kids, two dogs, down too the Daily Manna and settle there for a few days. No VW mechanics or shoppe's in town.. I'm screwed for parts or a shoppe to work out of, time to bring the stoner part inventor into play. We spend three days dropping the motor in the parking lot next to Daily Manna, cleaning out the tranny, checking the clutch rod, bearings inside it, the pressure plate, the whole nine yards... the whole time I'm staring at the clutch cable.. thinking, something isn't right, but it's not broken or stressed. Finally, after sitting in hell long enough, and gaining one more straggler.. we load up nine kids, two dogs, and drive, synchronizing the gears to drive down the interstate with no clutch all the way to Kingman, AZ. Finally in Kingman, we find a VW shoppe.. they had no advice for me... back of my head I'm still thinking of the clutch cable, so I shake down the kids and manage to come up with 15$ for a new cable, slap it on.. and we regained the clutch of a fully functioning manual transmission. A little, two millimeter section was stressed, and I couldn't tighten the wingnut (yay wingnut!) down anymore on the old cable. I'll cease my rambling..
ahhh that sounds scary. i know nothing about cars so a lot of that didnt really make sense to me to be honest. :/ you know, ive always wondered why parts cant be taken out of cars and replaced with different kinds of parts to make it so the car wont break down as easy. that probably doesnt even make sense but it does to me. hahaa
They can, it's done quite often, but they're not generally te kinds of parts you buy at autozone. You have to find something like a magazine devoted to the specific make of vehicle or a fan club etc. and they should have a number of sources for high quality aftermarket components. but you're going to spend 4 to 10 times as much on those as the cheap parts. i.e. pick up any Mustang magazine or Chevy mag and theres tons of vendors in the classifieds and the ads selling heavy duty parts. VW's too I'd guess.
