Hey all.
Just thought id throw a little info and some pics up of my panny van
Picked it up late december 2011, 2.0ltr, auto, windowless, stock as rock, mechanically pretty good, just a few suspension things to change and a service and was running like this for 12 months. Then i went to mallanats and seen a few different cars there and thought, i want a car out here next year to have a bit of fun in. So inspired by that, i started the resto the next day.
I'll just start throwing some progress pics up rather than talking on and on but i'll say this first, i like things a little different, not a huge fan of following the crowd and i like having a crack my self. Let me know what yas think. 
The day i got it.



 
Picked up these

 
Gave it a clean and removed the stickers

 
Modified cluster for a little more light

 
Then started on the body, with the help of my trusty companion.

 
End of first day and a bucket load of spot welds drilled.

 
Plenty more photos to come but i'll leave you with a teaser of whats to come.

 
Hope yous enjoy.
Cheers
Benny Mac

looks like you have your work cut out, but very excited to see the progress! good stuff mate

cool good too see another pvan in sa getting some love, 
 
are you jakes mate by any chance
 

Cheers guys,
And yeah, i work with Jake. Pretty much the inspiration to get back into an esky after seeing his.
Now i have a bit more time, i'll chuck up some more pics and info.
 
Ok, so i got it to this point before moving it in the shed. This is where i found more damage from a previoius accident and dodgy repair which required a bit more than just a new apron, a little annoyed, i knew there was damage there but didn't realise how bad it was.

You can see the bottom LH side of pic that the part thats meant to spot weld to the apron is folded over and has also pushed the rad support in.

So on i went pulling it to pieces.



This did make it easy to pull the engine and trans out tho.


Then battery tray removal


And here are some new bits to go back on, I also picked up a new front apron on the weekend aswell, all panels are from SMCKA and look like they all gonna fit well, i'm pretty impressed.

 
Sorry about the loads of pics.
I'll put a bit up on the heart transplant that is going on at the moment soon. I'm pretty stoked with how things are progressing with the body and with the engine.
Cheers
Benny Mac 

I forgot to mention how much of a false hope being able to buy new rad supports and lower cross member are, you would think that the fact you can buy new ones means they can be changed easily enough (and i say that loosely).......... Well WRONG, they are a thorough pain in the arse to get out, words can't describe it, it took me hours.....
Also for any one taking apart the front of an escort like i did, be prepared to drill, i think i counted 42 spot welds holding on the front right hand guard alone..... I'm fairly over it now, but feeling pretty good in that i only have to take the heater bubble off now and that should be the last i have to drill off.
 
 

cool, yeah i was speaking too you and jake in the smcka tent... another escort van in SA great news

Ok, so a little bit about the engine I'm using. It's a 4.0 ohv v6 from a 96 ford explorer.


Being a cologne engine, it would of been fairly easy getting a t9 from a Sierra and using that trans but because I want to keep it an auto that made things a lot harder.
After weeks of research and cross referencing, turns out the auto behind the explorer is just a 20yr updated version of the c3 I have in my Panny van. So I went about getting my hands on a bellhousing of a 5r55e gearbox and what do you know. .........

Pump galleries are similar enough and.......

Bam!! bellhousing bolts straight up. Trans sorted. I know the c3 isn't a very strong gearbox but hopefully with a rebuild it will do for a while.

Go from this,

To this,
.

Stay tuned, I'll post some more pics later. I just finished making the engine mounts.
Cheers
Benny Mac

Your dog looks impressed Benny. Nice work

Nice conversion there, plenty grunt with a 4ltr v6 .
What you doing with the old pinto motor...selling?? I got a friend looking..

Cheers mate, yeah, if it goes as good as my old Sierra did with a 2.8ltr I'll be cheering. Which it should seeing as it has larger capacity and efi.
And I think I'll keep the pinto incase it ever gets defected I can just swap it back to get it passed.