Sunday, November 22, 2009

Before Charlie -- J Van Modifications That Make One Wonder




One of the things that's driving me nuts about restoring this van, is not knowing who it was that converted it into a camper and then, later, the other person that hot-rodded it. This interest was recently highlighted once more when I took my gas tank to a nearby shop that repairs radiators. In fact, when I dropped off the gas tank, I could see my radiator's new core awaiting installation (included in the photo above). Now at some point, the gas tank was opened for some reason and then it had this scab patch applied. I wondered why it had been opened, but presumed because there was collision damage on the left side (see photo in earlier post), that it was related to this. However, when I removed the sender unit last week it had had the original little floaty thing at the end cut off and replaced with another, from a separate unit. I could tell because the wire was brazed together. So was the gas tank opened to fix the sender floaty thing? If so, why not just remove the sender? I have this recurring fantasy of one day being at a car show or something and a guy walked up to be announces that he once had a van "like" mine. Of course, then we discover that mine is in fact the same one, and then I ask him why he did all these thing and what type of drugs he used in the 1970s. I don't think it'll happen.

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