RacerX

Well, I dont know if you guys have done anything with your taillights, but they dont make fancy Euro style lights for the G van like they do for the C/K pickup. BUT the taillights are 4x4" and when I got the van I thought what I would do is rotate the housing 90 degrees, respectively, so that the reverse light was closest to the doors. Didnt work, the housing is so oddly shaped that it doesnt work that way. BUT it is the REVERSE MIRROR image of the other side. Which means the Left side will work in the Right side and vice versa when inverted UPSIDE DOWN. SO thats what I did. I mounted them with the reverse lens toward the sky and the red lens on the bottom. Perfect fit. I ll post a picture tomorrow, its dark now. And I am the only guy I have seen with the square taillight upside down.

Now I know this will work on 1985-1995 Gs, earlier Gs, I couldnt be sure because the taillight was smaller and the screws are in a different place.

And since these lens tend to crack at the bottom I had to put some silicon paste in there because it was raining so much in October that the crack was pooling water in the taillight lens.

Tip #1, silicon paste the lens when its dry and clean and remember a little dab will do you, you dont want it to look sloppy.

Tip #2, to remove water from a taillight housing(or anyone), drill a tiny hole at the bottom of the housing for water to pass through.

RacerX

See, the left side fits on the right side if you turn it upside down and vice versa perfectly. I used some scrap film I had left over from doing the windows and tinted the lens on the taillights and turn signals in the front. I didnt do the back-up lights because I didnt have a piece of film long enough to do both of them. But I m working on it...

This taillight redux also works on the Ford E-Series Van from 1992-on.

vantasy1

Cool, looks good. Other then changing my turn signal bulbs I haven't done anything. Where do you keep your spare tire? inside the van or outside(under the van).

What type of window do you have on the drivers side? from that picture the body looks very good, do you have any rust/rot issues on the van?

RacerX

The spare is in the car behind the rear seat bolted to the floor. Its the 8 lug wheel.

This has regular windows and is what should be called a 12 passenger Beauville, but its a Sport Van G20. I dont know if Beauvilles came as G30s? I never got the line of demarcation between Beauvilles, Chevy and Sport Van. Nor the Vandura, Rally, Rallye, and Rally STX over on the other side. They screwed Marmaduke when it came to truck marketing. Ford had that thing locked down. Econoline says it all. E-series says it better. I mean, even Dodge had it together before the Ram Van when they called theirs the Sportsman and the Tradesman. The shop manual identifies it through the VIN as a 12 passenger bus 1-ton chassis. The VIN says it is a G20 but the build sheet has it equipped as a G30, I was impressed. I think it was a shuttle coach in New Jersey where I got it from. The original color was Burgundy but they painted it white. I want to paint it also but I think its cheaper to get a vinyl wrap like they do in the city buses. Nothing fancy, just a 2 tone blue/white, blue/grey, blue/something set-up.

I went to Lowes a couple of weekends ago and I notice some rust bubbling under the paint on the rim of the wheel wells in the rear and on the smaller barn door on the passenger side there is some rust out on the bottom of the door. I poked my finger through and when it gets warmer I m going to poke all that out, spray some vulcanizing rubber in there to cover up the rust and exposed areas inside the door. I ll rivet diamond plate over the section I gutted.

vantasy1

Well if you get a parking ticket you can dispute it if the
cop writes down the wrong model number, haha.
I don't know much about those vans. I have only owned 2 different G20's an 1986 and my current one 1995.

Don't paint the van, it would be very expensive. Work
on those rust spots since it spreads pretty fast up here
in the northeast. I am thinking about one of those mobile
auto body repair guys from Craigslist. I have holes in the
back behind the tire as well as right above the running
boards.

But what concerns me most is the floorboard and undercarriage. In between the front seats I put a small
piece of wood and a piece of carpet over it. Underneath
it is rotted, if I were to take my foot and stomp on it
I would see the pavement underneath. I would be driving
like the Flintstones, haha.

vantasy1

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RacerX

I dont think they prepped the bodies that well before the Express came. I dont have the kind of rust you have there on your that runs down the bottom of the body from the front door to the rear wheel.



All I have is some paint flaking in the lip of the wheel well.


I m going towards a wrap versus repainting because it is easier to do and allows me to also consider renting the side of the van as ad space.

In my experience NYC is easier on cars with respect to rust than NY State. It is almost like the pour the salt right on the car up there with so much rust.

I d stay away from those mobile auto body guys. Who needs some gypsy showing up drilling holes in your body and slapping bondo on it?

vantasy1

I know very well about those gypsies. I was at the parking lot of an auto parts store once in south Brooklyn and this guy driving around in a late model caddy asks me if I needed any bodywork done on my van. I guess he worked out of the trunk of his car.

Well I am not going to take it to an auto body shop, that is the most expensive option. The main thing is the floorboard, the rust on the body I can probably take care of myself.

Yeah they get way more snow upstate, but still they throw a lot of salt on the roads of NYC. My fault for not washing/waxing it more often.