the Brain

well I pulled the trigger on the rust turd, it looked worst in person. here's the starting list of fixs.
1. stink removal.
2. cleaning the flithy dirt imbeded into the vinal seats.please recommend cleaner
3.new driver side power window motor.
4 of course the rusted though rockers was planing to glue a sheet of aluiminum and revito, there's enough good metal to revito to.
5. very rear hole though quarter panel aluiminim glued behind hole then smear bondo.
6.the lower hinge on the driver side side door is broken, man said the hinge is bolted to door jam and can be removed & swapped by removing inside bolts, will only a driver side door hing work or can a pass side hinge be flipped?
7.there isn't a trailer hitch wiring, man showed me a available plug that connects to the pass. side tailight wiring.directly behind pass tail light not sure if this will work w/ a 7 pin connecter remember my trailer has surge brake it has the blue wire thats for keeping the brakes unlocked during backing up.
the good is didn't see any blue or white smoke out tail pipe while he cranked her up and reved.
didn't see mud in radiator.
all fuilds where dirty but full.
more bad I observed the rearmost exhaust manifold studs broke so there proballey leaking some power.
I have more but this is good for right now.thanks Guys for advice.
edit she did run decent and shift decent w/ cold AC however I couldn't figure out how to shut off the rear blower is there a switch in the back?

William Kisselstein

As far as I know the door hinges are welded on on these vans. At least on 97-02 they are.

Usually those with rear climate have switches on the dash and on the roof

You can put a four flat on with an adapter to the taillight harness, a 7 pin may be more involved.

If you don't have to fill those holes I would just cut them square and seal the edges. I guess in some states you have to patch them to pass inspection.

Seats, probably some heavy duty cleaner like an Oxy and let it soak a bit. Here, I can go to the junkyard and get bucket seats $25-ish a shot so if they were really bad I might just swap them out.

the Brain

The rear most interia light seams to wanna stay on even after the doors are locked.

I think this light is designed to stay on for one minute for unloading during the nighttime then turn itself of , mine seams to stay on even after closeing & locking doors an waiting 2 minutes.it actuelly did this yesterday while looking at trailer wireing then it did go out.

I drove the van home today (she cruised good 75mph for 150 mile taking off from a dead stop differnt story kindof slow pickup)an this rear most light was on the whole time.

There are a few buttomes under the headlight switch I’m not farmiail w/.

My car has same light I can turn on/off w/ the dimmer switch and it stays on if the hatch is open. Not seeing a dimmer switch on dash of van.got fed up and removed bulb, don’t need a battery drained overnight.

The rear AC blower seams to be stuck on not seeing a way to turn it off.I don’t see a need to have rear air is there a fuse I can pull.



This man explained the 4 pin wire adaptor wiring harness pretty good etrailer | Tekonsha T-One Vehicle Wiring Harness Installation - 2019 Chevrolet Express Van - Bing video maybe I can find a used adaptor at pull/part. Weird that the van has a hitch but no wire adapter.

You know these conversions aren’t made to be dissasembeled so I’ll proballey end up tearing up the inside panels to access those plugs.

Problem is I need 7 pin. I wonder is the saab97x which is realy a trailblazer has these piggy back harness behind there tail lights and is they are interchangeable w/ the express?

Edit I rarely see express’s at the pull part but do see a bunch of yukon’s maybe they have the harness, that will fit the express?
edit2 never heard of oxy cleaner where are you getting this? I have simply green cleaner seams kindof strong mite be to stronge for vinale. thanks

the Brain

link would'nt work.Cruised to the dmv today to register and inspection. When I left I observed the yellow kettle idiot light for low oil preasure, didn’t see or maybe I didn’t notice yesterday bringing her home.

The oil was full but very dirty,there was a wallmart oil change sticker last oil change 12K miles. The seller has a tire shop so he couldn’t have let oil change go for that long unless he’s a complete fool.

Anyway wasn’t expecting over 6 quarts & initialley shooting backward so far , I’ve now made a 4 gallon oil change catcher. Weird the mobil1 full syn. 5w-30 claims 10K miles protection.

Do you Guys leave even mobil1 full syn. In that long?
doe's the savana have a engine revolutions counter that informs driver when oil is worn out?
oil that drained out did'nt have any metal particals I circled my magnet though oil.neither did the magnet on drain plug.

I feel the oil preasure to be a tad low like idel is below 40psi cruising just above 40psi doesn’t increase much over 40psi I will keep a close eye on preasure and report back.w/ extremely worn out oil which leads to slugde doe's that lower preasure?



The trans fuild appears clean & full.I observed what appeared to be a trans fuild drain built into the forward section of pan how can that be? I used to getting covered w/ red crapola, thanks gm for getting smart.

Next I’ll check the rear diff. I’d like to change the brake fuild but I don’t have a assistant at the monet.

dissappointed in offline acceraltion she takes off like a dog. tad better in third. when cruising back yesterday cruise control set at 75 when going uphil if the mph dropped 3 mph the trans would drop to 3rd gear untill at creast of hill. I think she lacking some power.not sure what the rear diff. ratio is wish I had a manuel, will be looking for code label to desifer stuff.

I have been informed this van could have been sitting to 2 years.
the seller didn't register it for 2 years more weirdness.

Plan one for starters new fuel & air fliter.chevron fuel injecter cleaner & high test93 octane. Not sure if she needs spark plugs. Think I’ll calculate the mpg, like what mileage are you Guys getting?

I calculate each quarter of a tank of fuel is 7.5gallons I went 160 miles at 75mph on one quarter so that’s 20mpg right?I was going downhill majority of trip.so a full tank on flat land 600 miles seams kindof high or are my calculations way off?



Will a bolt extracter reverse drillbit remove the aft. Most exhaust manifold bolts those are the broken ones I see right now, rememeber I haven’t even removed the dog house for a lookie.

sorry to be so long I just expected a little more power from the LM7.