Photos from BABE8 have been uploaded.

There is also a link under the banner picture.

After getting yesterday’s coolant issues resolved we hooked up with Gregg and Kevin’s teams for a caravan to Virginia.  We pulled in after 11:00 to a wonderful collection of crap cars.  It was a cold night, I was glad the heater was working and  I didn’t have to bypass it yesterday.  Here is a view of some of the cars we will be rallying with. 

I had been feeling pretty good about the shape of the van.  I was up planning to finish off the theme, and do some packing today. Oh and find some cup holders. 🙂

I warmed up the van and found a puddle of antifreeze under the front bumper.  Not good.  Upon further investigation  it looks like the heater valve is leaking.  It should be a stocked item at the parts store so before I bypass it or dump some stop leak in, I’ll try and replace it.

Good thing we are leaving later.

The old interior LED strip lights were not acceptable.  

Some new red LED light has the inside looking funky.

That is better.  The interior glows at night now.

The spec theme of this years rally is identifiable famous rally cars.

Since an old conversion van in it’s current state will never be mistaken for a rally car it is time to get creative and add some color.

I found out that white Rustoleum applied with a roller over dark green porous fiberglass doesn’t cover very well.

Big week at the fool-injected garage.  The van has a new PA inspection and emissions sticker!  Now I can finally start putting some shakedown miles on the van legally, and start working on this years vehicle theme “Rally Cars”  

I needed to replace the front rotors before I could get the sticker.  The pads looked good, and the outside of the rotors looked okay, but my mechanic pointed out that the inside face of the rotors had issues.  After pulling the rotors I agree with him that they needed to be replaced.  New pads and repacked wheel bearing finished out the front.

Brakes are not something I wanted to cheap out on.  To quote one of the other Rally participants.  “If your car doesn’t start it is an inconvenience.  If your car doesn’t stop it can be deadly.”

There were some rust problems that needed to get fixed before I could get the van inspected.  I believe the part of the inspection code that deals with rust holes is defined as “Protruding objects. There may be no torn metal, glass or other loose or dislocated parts protruding from the body of the vehicle”  

Patch panels are available but expensive. Since this will always be a $500 van I decided to do the cheap and easy fix using old some old steel shelves and pop rivets to make my own panels.  The first step was to cut out all the rust. (I could have just slapped the panels over the top of the body but if the van makes it back from New Orleans it should have some life left in it for the next owner)   

I made some patterns and took the grinder to some old shelving I had.

Some gentle bending with a piece of PVC pipe and I had some new rocker panels.  

I hate rust so I primed and painted everything while it was apart.

And started installing the pieces.

The fiberglass fender flares took care of the wheel well edge.  I used some seam sealer between the patch panels to try and keep out the moisture.  Did I mention that I hate rust?  These patches will be there long after the vehicle is gone from the fool-injected driveway.  All it cost me was a box of pop rivets, a tube of seam sealer, some old paint I already had and some shelves that were getting thrown out at work.

The cup holders in the back of the van had been lost.  Sitting in a seat, it looks like there is a cup holder, but your beverage would get lost behind the wall!  I had already dug out an empty can of soda. It was full when it was lost years years ago, but was now empty after it had frozen and exploded.  (You have got to love a $500 car)

I didn’t want anyone on the Rally to loose their drink, so I was looking for a solution.

I checked eBay and replacement holders are available, but buying them and paying for shipping would cut into the beer money.  A quick stop at the recycle bin the and I had the perfect (free) solution.  A Bush’s bean can was the ideal size.

Problem solved!