A Little Work On The Van

Dad and I had to get some parts to fix up the van, so I put together a shopping list and off we went ot the locate salvage yard...

We needed to get a replacement blower for the rear air conditioning, a power window lift assembly for the passenger window, wing window locks, a side door latch and a wheel center cap. And we were quite fortunate to find practically everything we needed.

When we headed out to the salvage yard, we had to drive through a heavy downpour of rain, but since we were headed south and away from the strong weather, we weren't too worried. When we arrived at our destination, the rain was well north of us and the sky directly above us was completely clear of clouds. After signing in, we walked out into the yard and located the Chevrolet section. We checked a couple of vans, only to realize they were Chevy's version of a mini-van called an Astro Van. Now that we discovered what they looked like, we weren't likely to fall for thinking they were the G20 van we were looking for.

After finding a conversion van like ours, we started assessing what it had in the way of parts we would need. Just as I climbed inside to pick through the interior, it began to rain a bit. I helped Dad climb inside the van to use it as shelter in the rain, and then the heavens opened up on us.

It was at about this time when I looked at Dad and said; "Just like old times, huh?" Seems we've been stuck in a car while waiting out a bad spell of weather in a junkyard before, back when we were both just a little bit younger.

To shorten the story a bit, we found all that we needed, paid for it all and started installing the parts. So, the rear AC works good now, the wing window locks have been changed from black plastic ones to a pair of metal chrome units we found, the latch for the side door was replaced (we even adjusted the side door so it closes smoothly again). And we did all this work in the driveway under the cover while a heavy rain was coming down with a full chorus of lightning and thunder. The following are a couple of pictures of the van after we finished up.