Well last year we acquired a 2003 GMC Savana for a new dedicated work vehicle. Van was in pretty decent shape, given the fact that work vans get destroyed in most situations. Here’s a list of the main work that we’ve done thus far to the van. All the work has been done by us. - Full paint correction and interior detail (duh) - Vinyl graphics installed (we did this ourselves to save money) - Installed alarm and power door locks - Installed camera and rear view mirror monitor Here are some initial shots of the van when we got it. Let’s first start with the interior. The rubber flooring with filthy, as to be expected considering it’s a work van. Gutted the interior. Front cabin flooring before. Soaked with APC Brushed down and rinsed with ONR, didn’t want to rinse with pressure washer and risk getting the carpet jute wet. After – sprayed down with 303 for a mild sheen and protection. Trim panels received the same process as the flooring. Flooring and trim panels in the back end received all the same care as the front. No pictures of that. Wheels were a little cloudy Polished with 105 and the 3” Griot’s DA Initial paint condition. No surprise as to the amount of defects. Started off with D300 and MF cutting pad. Restored clarity and removed a lot of defects, but the results were just not satisfactory. Kicked it up a notch to a surbuf pad and M105 – this did the trick Some 50/50s 50/50 of the driver’s side window, had a lot of water spotting Before and after of initial cutting stage, no finish polishing steps yet. Before After Before After Here’s a shot after finish polishing was complete. More finished pics later. Now onto some of projects that we did to make it more personal to us. Before picture of the passenger back wall – useless After - installed white pegboard – much more useful Next up is the alarm, power door locks, camera and monitor Alarm pre-wired with relays to run the door locks Door lock actuators ready to go in (need these if your vehicle doesn’t come equipped with power door locks) Rear door done Running the wire through the boot was fun (do it right) Had to make my own boots for the side doors as they had no power running to them from factory Made my own brackets Front doors complete, looks factory (as its suppose to) Camera looking good Backup cam/monitor works like a charm (engages when put in reverse, again, done right) Next up were the graphics White perforated vinyl laid over the back windows Back complete Ready for the passenger side Driver’s side Finished pics That’s about all I have snapped of the van right now. It’s wicked glossy in person. Still have some minor mechanical things to work on, but the van looks good and hopefully it can attract some good attention our way. Stay tuned for the next 2 writeups My car – wheels off detail with opti-coat SL65 AMG Black Series Thanks for viewing. Have a safe week. -Kody-
Impressive amount of paint to correct. Very nice looking van. I appreciate you blurring out the phone numbers, can you do the same for your website though? Thanks.
nice looking van....trust me, you will get a lot of calls saying they found out about you bc they saw you driving or at a house/office. So many people find me this way.
cool thread and cool van. i like these types of threads to see the transformation and progress of a work van. keep it up man!
good job dont know if im brave enough to lay my own vinyl i have 2 suv's a tahoe and a avalanche i cant decide if i want to get a trailer or a van...what made you go the van way if you guys dont mind me asking?
Thank you all for the kind words, it's been a pain to get all the work done considering we both work full-time. Laying the vinyl myself saved me $250, was up until 2am finishing it, but that's life. We decided to go with a van for a few reasons. We have been using my business partners truck for the last couple years and we wanted to have a dedicated vehicle. Just makes more sense and makes things easier during tax season. Trailers are nice, but I'm more comfortable driving a van knowing that I can back down driveways/roads without any safety concerns. Having a dedicated vehicle is so much more convenient, when compared to the last couple years (IMO).
The same reasons I went with a van Kody. Most neighborhoods here are so tightly packed in that a truck/trailer would block two driveways if parked on the street. Keep the updates coming. I have a brand new hose reel still in the box if you are interested in a setup similar to the one in my van.
Very interested Ken! PM me and we can talk about a price, plus I'll order some other stuff from you (if you have capacity) and kill 2 birds.
