Now that the keys are all cut, price we have to lay out the frame.
As I said, I don’t have strict engineering plans for this thing, I’m going by the seat of my pants. But I know what the materials will be, so I’ve laid out the frame – it’s 1-1/2-inch aluminum scaffold tubing, held together with Hollaender Speed Rail and then the keys ride on custom-fabricated 1/2 x 1-1/2-inch aluminum stringers … (more…)
By now you’ve probably gathered I’m not an engineer. None of the XyloVan team is, really.
As a result, this build blog is more a chaotic pile of raw coverage than a fetishistically neat, step-by-step how-to.
This rolling concert instrument (I do dream of a fleet of instrumental art cars – DrumVan, or PianoBoat, anyone?) is taking shape in a raw, organic form in our minds .
I’m not computing engineering challenges ahead of time. I’m figgerin’ ’em out as soon as I get my hands on the materials.
This means I use sketches as a sort of problem-solving tool rather than a full-on architectural spec.
So this one (above) is one of the earliest, showing a three-quarter view and all the gross components we’re planning to build and attach – xylophones, gongs, lights, sun-shelters, speakers, etc.
I’m posting these largely because tonight’s the deadline for Maker Faire entries and we’re hoping to have the van in some kind of playable shape by then.
So on the one hand, you have crudely-detailed sketches like these:
And on the other hand …
One of the drawbacks with the door from the junkyard is that it had a two-paned window instead of the nice big panoramic single light the original door came with.
Really fussy-looking. Kills the lines of the van (such as they are). And easily remedied.
First, remove the windows and the weatherstripping. Like this:
It’s promisingly non-rainy gray when we set out. The minute we arrive at the junkyard, the sky tears. A good, heavy rain soaks us and everything around us, but it’s a good day to be slogging around with wrenches in our fists and a plan.
This is the day to replace the door I smashed.
We wander around the van section of PickYourPart looking for XyloVan’s ghost twin. Identical paint job, identical van, it would have been a perfect match.
But it is gone. I guess the yard declared it well and truly stripped and sent it off to the crusher. In its place are a few more options, but it takes a good 45 minutes sloshing around through oilslicked pondlets 30 feet across to canvass the whole inventory of mid-80s Ford vans.
Pride goeth before the fall, they say.
For a while there, I was having a proud day.
I had a DMV appointment at 10:40. By the time I waded through two jammed parking lots and landed out on Glenoaks, it was 10:52. But no problem, I sailed right through check-in, waited 10 minutes and was called to the window.
Bada-boom, bada-bing, I was out of there in 10 minutes with my license task done, the van registered – and instructions to get it smogged before I could get the full reg paperwork.
Straight to the smog shop near my house. The taciturn, ruddy smog-shopkeeper plugged the van into his gizmos, ran it through the paces and – bazoop – shot my PASS readings straight to Sacramento by wire. Happy day.
I jumped in. I had to wait a couple of minutes for the guy who had parked his truck abreast my tail to back out, but when he did, I managed to back out safely without nailing the gas pumps.
Quick head check, no traffic. I eased forward to the right around the island into a THOROUGHLY HORRENDOUS CRUNCHING NOISE and hit the brakes.
Yep. Peached it. Boy, I wish I had a recording of that sound.
I sideswiped a bollard at the end of the pump island. Hadn’t seen it below the level of this monster’s windows, and before I knew what I had done, it was too damn late.
The door still works properly but, well, I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend:
Pulling more stuff off of Xylovan’s dead twin at the junkyard. That’s what.
To paraphrase Ratty (or was it Mole?) there is nothing half so fine as an afternoon spent messing about in junkyards.
Rob was kind enough to join me in a trip to PickYourPart in Sun Valley, where the gutted wrecks hunker beneath the sun in neat rows. Parts lie in exploded clouds around them, and you can find pretty much anything you want.
We went looking for a Ford van – mid-80s – and stumbled almost immediately upon the carcass of XyloVan’s dead twin …
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XyloVan needs new seats.
Lord, how we need new seats.
Legions of nameless alcoholics, slouching through this former taxi-bus’ years of service for a sober-living facility, site have shredded the fabric.
Looks like someone force-fed meth to a sackful of starving cats, gave it a good shake, slung it inside and slammed the door in 100-degree heat. The ensuing tooth-and-nail brawl for survival left a fine webwork of tattered polyester (and a few questionable stains) draped over age-browned fabric, itself shot through with rusty springs.
It’s bad.
So off we go (after an already-exhausting morning sledding at Mt. Pinos to the junkyard. I had called around, and the one place that told me they had seats that should fit (everything from ’78 to ’92 in Ford/GM interiors is interchangeable, apparently) that has an ’86 Ford van is down in Carson …
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This is a hardy old bucket. The motor’s in good shape (76, this 000 local miles), the transmission whines and leaks but still has plenty of life in it. It has new brakes and tires, and feels rock-solid.
But the motor leaks like a sieve, so I thought I would tackle the only leak-plugging task I’m capable of without an engine hoist and a ton of spare time – replacing the leaky valve cover gaskets.
I learned how to do this on an old four-banger Volvo B-18 engine 25 years ago, from a mechanic who had trained with shade-tree tough-guys in South Africa.
Here’s how it goes:
(more…)It’s a big, old van and it needs new seats. Or at least new upholstery.
Spent a good hour calling around to junk yards yesterday, including TruckWrecking.com and had no luck digging up a set of seats for a 1985 Ford Club Wagon XLT. The seats any Ford van built in the surrounding 10 years would probably do it, but no one seemed of a mind to help. I have a couple more numbers to call in the morning.
