Still workin it!
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Still workin it!
Hi Don,
This is going to be a fun project. My grandfather had a '69 3/4 ton van that he kept until he passed away. I'd had dreams of working it over for years but it had rusted away too badly to be worth restoring so we ended up junking it.
Because those old vans were a "cab forward" design the front of the engine will be at the driver's feet and the rear of the engine will be in the van storage / passenger area. Your wiring harness from the Suburban is designed to go through the firewall behind the passenger side valve cover and the ecm is only a short distance away. I'm not sure there is enough wire in the harness to allow the pcm to be positioned in an ideal location. If you find that you want a longer harness, the '90s van chassis harness was much longer. In the newer van the harness was routed forward of the engine then back under the driver's floor then passed through the floor under the driver's seat to the pcm. One ton cutaways such as box trucks and short buses from 93 to 96 should have compatible harnesses and many of these models were equipped with 4L80E transmissions. Keep in mind that the van changed body styles for the '96 production year but the cutaway lagged behind by one year.
Good luck!
Yep!...… Engine is actually going in 18 inches rearward of the stock location...… Once it's in, I'll lay the harness over it and connect everything and try to figure out what it will take to do something clean and orderly...… I'll either use the harness from this burb because I already have it and it belongs to this drivetrain.... Or I will just use it to determine what the dimensions of a new harness should be...…The most logical plan would be to have an aluminum drop-in box set into the floor right inside the side doors outboard of the chassis on the right side or maybe having a side bin on the right side of the engine box...… I'm also going to have A/C stuff to conceal, as well, so it's going to require some creativity
I got a bit ahead of myself by starting to ponder what the wiring harness might look like......I'm still fabricating the basic infrastructure changes to the van itself that become too difficult to fabricate with the engine in.... So far, I've done a front axle flip with a stabilizer bar, which required re-configuring the master cylinder, Custom mounted a new aluminum radiator three inches below stock and built a custom underpan air scoop system. Made custom parts to adapt the 3sp manual shifter to operate the 4L80, Custom foot throttle, custom hub adapter to use a 19" Peterbilt steering wheel, custom crossmember for engine, and I've been working to build a custom engine box and adjustable height trans crossmember...….. The engine and trans still run in the donor Suburban...… Gotta long way to go!
Here is a link to my project: https://vintage-vans.forumotion.com/t59138-azdon-s-108