The third van was one of the worst to build. It was in rough shape. I would never have used a vehicle like this except we were under such strict deadlines. Basically, this vehicle and van #5 are what caused us to have to work double shifts for 3 weeks and keep things going around the clock in order to meet the deadline. The rest of the guys were each clocking around 80 hours per week, but they had double shifts. I am only one person with no replacement, so I was starting at around 7am and knocking off around 3am only to get up and do it again the next day, 7 days a week. I worked at one point somewhere over 40 hours straight without sleep, sanding, priming, sanding, and performing paint prep the entire time.

This vehicle had been stolen before, so the steering column had to be repaired and the column ignition removed and rerouted with a new ignition.

The van had a huge lift gate on it when we bought it, so the rear taillight sections had been massacred in order to bolt it on securely. We were able to fiberglass one back into shape, and the passenger side had to be grafted from the parts van we had. The donor van also gave up its rear doors.

The worst part was the fact that this vehicle was a G30. The G30 vehicles are 1-ton, heavy duty cargo vans, with 12 lug wheels, heavy duty suspension and special control arms.

We soon realized there was no way to change over the spindles. This was going to be a problem. We had to figure it out however, because the one van that had been supplied by the customers was also a G30, and there was no time allowed in their deadline to find replacements for two vans.

The rear end was completely replaced with the one from the donor van. The driveshaft was custom-shortened to fit with the new trans and rear. The front suspension turned out to be alot more difficult however.