After over a year now I have finally found a van that is what I have been looking for. It's a cargo van with no windows in it except for the windsheild and driver and passanger doors.   This van is a 2004 chevrolet 3/4 ton with a 4.8L V-8 with 115,000 on the motor. It has been fleet maintained and oil changed every 5000K with penzoil and motor uses no oil and tranny shifts good.
A small car lot up the road from me has it and I know the person and he said he would let me have it for $5400.00

I was wondering if any of you knew about this particular model van and if it is dependable. I drove the van yesterday and everything seems to work good and it drives real well. The van is in great shape and has no signs of abuse on the inside and the outside has a small ding in the rear corner that is hardly noticeable.

I think it is a good deal but was wanting you alls opinion as well

I was wanting too make a bike hauler out of it by putting in a wall out of plywood like most of you do and plywood on the sides and ceiling and putting in the inside/outside carpet on too.

Sounds like a great deal!  If you have the dough and like it...Swoop it up!  Then, post pics of your moto-hauling mods!

I will........But I will have to wait till monday to go get it.   Hope to hear from some people that has or had this type of van.

From experience the drivetrain will serve you well. That engine is very reliable, and the trans should hold up just fine.

Well thats good to know.......I just was hopeing that with 115,000 miles on the motor and that I would be doing a lot of add ons too it like.......for example....building a wall and putting plywood on the sides and the floor and adding stick on tile that I would be able to get a lot of use out of it.

I will only use the van for driving just on days I race or go to the track to ride which will basicly be on Saturdays and Sundays only.

UPS is running chevy 4.8's in their full size step vans.  The guy that picks up for me hot rods the crap out of his, he got like 180k out of his first engine.    That poor engine is SCREAMing when he drives off.

Sounds like a pretty good score.  The GM OBD II ECM's are the most embraced control platform out there as far as tuning goes.  I assume you have seen all of the child-proof cookie cutter tuners out there like the Hypertech Max Energy.  Most guys are happy with popping in a tune and enjoying a little more response and efficiency.  You may, however, want to look into HP Tuners http://www.hptuners.com/ pro level software suite.  It allows unlimited adjustments and changes to timing and fuel maps, along with allowing adjustment any other parameter the ECM monitors and controls.  Want to adjust a few things?  Do it.  Want your own GM answer to Ford's ECOBoost idea?  No problem.  Turbo it.  This software allows your stock computer, harness, and sensors to control any combination from stock, mild cam swaps, to full race.  Fun example:  My friend at work uses HPTuners on his 2000 Trans Am to get over 500 hp to the rear wheels, and 31 mpg with 4.10 gears (6-speeds are cheating)!  Gnarly huge camshaft, CNC ported TFS heads, huge intake manifold with a throttle body large enough to birth a child.....and it idles like Grandma's Sunday morning ride.

Inspect the rear axle.  Count your cover bolts.  GM put 8.625" 10-bolts into almost every 1/2 ton creature they built.  Beware of these.  Your fleet package may actually have the 9.5" 14-bolt, but I doubt it with the small engine.  In the trucks with 5.3's and the earlier 5.7's they have quite a few failures up here in plow-truck country.  The achilles heel of these units is the Gov-Lock limited slip differential.  They tend to explode to bits when floored on uneven traction surfaces.  If you don't drive it like a cowboy, you'll be okay.  If it grenades, trust me, the world won't miss it.  There's your chance to wedge in a steeper screw (a 4.10:1 would be cool with the overdrive trans) and a Detroit TrueTrac diff.

Sounds like a cool combo, keep us up on the project!

I drove over to the lot awhile ago and snaped off a few shots of it to show you all and to see what ya thought about it.  Here is one pic of it from a distance.





If you look closely you can see a crack in the windsheild just above the steering wheel and another that migrates from the corner heading upwards and across towards the passenger's side.




This is the drivers side door and all that is wrong with it are these three holes that are in it and the bottom two are not holes but some kind of square headed metal rivit or something.




If you notice on the back doors where the windows are there are these same holes like in the drivers door. Also I wonder what that bracket is that is at the top of the side of the van? There is one on each side and aslo down below these brackets on each side of the van are these posts of some kind that move in and out or up and down which ever way you want to say it. These posts are something like you would put a flag in.



Here is a closer view of the window area of the left back door. The other window area of the right back door has two small holes.








Here is the passengers side door that has some sort of crease in it. It is not really a dent that is pushed in but more like a crease of some sort. May have been a dent at some point and then later poped backed out.



Other than the things I showed yall that is about it on all the dings or what not in it. Nothing really major .......just minor 8 year dings I guess.

All the tires are still good and have tread on them. The right front tire is a new one and the left front is looks to have about 8k on it. The back rear tires are half worn.

The tire sizes are a 225 75 R16 but the front drivers side tire is a 220 75 R16

Another thing I haven't seen or rather noticed on a cargo van before is that this van has side doors on both sides. I have just seen them with a side door on the passenger's side.

All though this van is not an extended one and has double doors on each side ......I still wonder if a wall could be built in the back and still have room for a bench seat behind the bucket seats?

Checkout the sticky of motovan builds some guy did have a bench seat in addition to a wall in his standard length van.

79yamdt, on 26 February 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

Ok!  I'll do that......    also found out that the salesman is having a windsheild put in it in the morning so thats a +

I bought the van today and he took it to the inspection station today to get a sticker put on it where he had the windshield put in. The inspector is a good friend of mine so he knew I was getting the van cause I told him the salesman was coming this morning to get it inspected.

My friend made sure that he went over it real good.  I got new brake pads put on all the way around and new rotors,new wipers,brake light bulb and signal light.    My friend said that it was a real good van and the ball joints were all good.

I drove the van most of the day and it drives like a Cadillac (straight as an arrow) and smooth.


I'm not going to put a wall in it because it has double doors on both sides of the van. However I will put plywood on the sides to put shelfs and hangers and on the doors also for cans,sprays,oil ect....


To tie my bike down I'm going to go with the Risk Racing Lock-N-Load

I am jealous.......

U can do a LOT with a van........and i dont mean the perverted stuff.


BB

I'm going to do some plywooding on the inside tomorrow and see how it goes hope to accomplish some things on it tomorrow.  I'll take some pic's as I go along.

I have a 3/4 ton with the 4.8. Bullet proof so far.

Brother Deal, on 28 February 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

Thats good to hear!   what model is yurs and?

It didn't go to good today in making a wall on the sides of the van.  With this particular van i have which has double doors on each side of the van makes it impossible to put plywood on the sides.

As you will see in these pics what I'm talking about..........







Does any one know of a way that would be possible to get maybe a 50 inch long by 30 inch wide piece of plywood up where the window should be too at least be able to mount and hang a few things?   I was using 1/4 inch plywood but there wasn't any ribs on the sides to brace the plywood up against too where it would be straight up and down. When putting the cut piece of plywood against what ribs were there the plywood would have a curve to it,so if you hung a basket or such on the plywood after you got it hung the basket wouldn't be level. It would be tilted toward the floor.


Here are is a picture of the inside of my trailer with some of the wire shelfs and basket's that I have in it that I would like to put on the sides of the van if there is a way.







I was thinking just leaving the inside as is and only buying one of those pressure washer holding water storage tanks that are flat on the bottom and can be straped down to a track and putting it behind the two front seats of the van in the middle (in other words,between the two double side doors in the floor) so that way I could use the water tank as a wheel chock and then by a good strapless tiedown system of some kind like the Risk Racing Lock-N-Load.

any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.  First race is this Sunday so i guess i will just have to back the bike in and use the back doors as a chock and load all other stuff in and around the bike.

I believe I got myself in to more than what I thought.

what about making one of the side doors permanently closed? or just never open it.

samras121, on 29 February 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

  Well I thought about that.......but thought since they were there that I would just use them.  This is a regular(standard) length van and is not going to have the room of an extended one so I accepted that and decided to leave out a wall(partition) and load the bike in straight down the middle.......but would like to have a strapless system!

put the front wheel between the seats with a motocinch or risk racing thingamahijg. use the front fender as an arm rest lol

Between the seats is where Ivan lays.......lol.  But that was a good Idea.