2004 Chevy Astro All Terrain Hellride aka Ferdinand the Family Van

Those interior photos really bring back memories. I can still feel the cold winter air weeping through those shitily sealed interior door panels.
As I well recall on a November drive from Oregon to Illinois with no cash available for hotels, so i slept in the van until it was too cold, so I had to fire it up and kept driving.

USPS recently took an envelope of mine clearly addressed to Australia and tracking showed one week to O'Hare, another week or two to get to Austria. WTF and then a month to get back to the US and few more weeks to finally get to Australia.

UPS just deliver empty boxes after a cylinder head manages to escape in transit.
 
Step 1 in lifting an Astro van:

Pull the front end, air cleaner and fan shroud.

IMG_1688.JPG



Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
 
Correction on the whole truck frame scenario: this is a subframe, not an entire ladder frame like most trucks. That being said, the front half of the lift is complete. I’ll finish the rear leaf springs tomorrow.

IMG_1690.JPG


IMG_1691.JPG



Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
 
He threw some fitment issues at me, but the van has lift. One issue I accounted for and I’ll continue to trim until it’s right. The other issue I didn’t account for, so I had to figure a fix.

One thing Chevy did that I didn’t account for was running a 1/2 ton rear end. I knew it was Silverado stuff, but didn’t consider the brake was made to fit a 16” wheel only. I got it a together, backed up and the inside of the wheel was essentially locking to the caliper. To make it fit, I took off the fins and about a 32nd off 2/3rd off the face of the caliper. I’m sure some people will freak out about this, but I’ve done it before without issue, just not on an Astrovan. It's trimmed down just enough to see light pass between the caliper and rim.

IMG_1698.JPG


I also have some more trimming at the base of the body to wheel opening. I’m still getting slight rub on the inside during full turn at slow speed. This is before I trimmed:

IMG_1697.JPG

IMG_1696.JPG


To accommodate the body lift, I also had to trim the bottom of the fan shroud:

IMG_1693.JPG


In a bit of good luck,I had a pair of coil over shocks for a Grand Cherokee I’d bee sitting on. I bought them from Rock Auto and FedEx mis-delivered, so Rock Auto sent replacements and told me to keep them when they showed up. With the lift, they fit perfectly. It adds some good stiffness to the rear end, which I felt was too soft.

IMG_1692.JPG







Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
 
Last edited:
Excellent. Love it, now how about a full on offroad bumper with integrated winch, lights and skid plate?
 
The dreaded “In-transit: Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility ATLANTA NORTH METRO DISTRIBUTION CENTER” tracking message.

View attachment 223431

When tracking hasn’t updated within 24 hours like this, there’s a good chance the package will be lost for a month and travel to several other states before coming back to Georgia.

This is my lift kit. No telling when it gets here. Hopefully, I get lucky and it’s at my house tomorrow.


Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON
Goobers lost a complete Sportster exhaust system there. I even sent them pictures in case it was just sitting around the building!
 
Back
Top Bottom