The little window van from Torrance.

Super Stitch , the 89 B150 came into my life as a surprise, I was minding my business doing my van shit with Bertha and the Unicorn when one day an email came into the CSV website.. it was a detailed request for a van rescue. Super Stitch had been the daily/work van for a gentleman doing upholstery in the Torrance area who had passed away. ( his nick name was Super Stitch.. which I felt should stay with the van) His family was not in a position to keep the van, ( it would not smog, had VERY weak brakes, etc ) but they wanted to make sure it went to someone who would care for it and possibly bring it to a next level. I had not been looking for another van at that point in time, but a short EFI dodge with seatbelts for 7 was really tempting and the back story and price was to good to turn down so I went for it!

The family had a very deep connection to their dads van, they were sad to see it go, but happy it would live on. We took a few pics before i took off.

Gassed it up, crossed my fingers and headed for Corona!

I made the drive home with no incident other than a check engine light which gave me a chuckle. Tried to get it smogged with just an oil flush, new plugs etc but ended up replacing the cat ( surprisingly cheap) which got it to pass immediately. I figured out really quick that this van was a serious bargain.. most everything worked! Heater core had been bypassed (big shock) and AC was all there but not working but all the lights, gauges, wipers, etc worked which was kind amaze-balls to me. The van had a weird vibration between 50 and 60 mph though which I assumed was balance or alignment related (it was neither )

It waxed up nice!

I enjoyed the van as-is for quite a while, it was a cool family hauler.. I ignored the shake over 50mph because I knew I was going to swap wheels asap and figured it would be fixed then (wrong). On the second night of 2017’s BYOB I drove the van home to grab some more stuff and for reasons I am still not clear on pulled the van in wayyy to close to bertha and managed to mangle the barn doors on Berthas bumper ( 0 damage to cranky Big Bertha) I was PISSED. This van was like perfectly straight .. and I tweaked it! So although I had been planning to wait a while to paint it, that got expedited. I grabbed some decent doors at the junk yard and when I was ready brought the whole enchilada to Prestige Auto collision in Anaheim Hills ( same outfit that painted Bertha ), I opted to re-paint it in the original Burgundy cause I dig it on this van. I kept the original owners family in the loop and they were pretty stoked on the direction the van was going!

Prestige did a killer job as usual, nice paint, new doors mounted= new van.

I had been collecting the cragars and coopers in the meantime so as soon as I could I booked it to my buddies over at accurate alignment in Orange. The Cragars were perfect for the van.. but I was surprised to find out on the way home I had the same vibration over 50mph. Damn! Filed that away for another day!

The Cragars made the van!

One day I got to investigating the driveshaft, thought I had done that after I bought it. Found the 2 dents that were causing the shake at 50mph> Got the driveshaft re-sleeved.. sooo much better!

The interior.. hahaha. I actually dug the dated 80's vibe in the van. Can't fix perfection right? I ended up just doing curtains, rug, a decent table and called it a day. And of course my pillow game is always on point!

Stitch got the official hand lettering from Scodecity Bill at Hippy Killer!

I drove this van alot.. a few pics from Van Nuys Cruise night...

Brought the van up to Fontana Motorsports to work on the stance, got 1 loop hacked off the coils and a decent drop. It eventually settled onto the bump stops. Opps. Haven’t had a chance to knock those out yet and see if there is any clearance left. File that away for another day. Rory got the AC working again which was pretty rad!

man it looked GOOD.

In the meantime I had bought a spoiler from Truck N Vans… didn’t realize until after the fact that it was designed for the smaller early 80s bumper, not the giant abortion that came on the van later in the 80s. Hit up LKQ and grabbed a decent donor, got that mounted, got the spoiler mounted and it looked rad! Sent the spoiler over to prestige for paint… was there awhile waiting for a burgundy vehicle to roll thru.. but when it came back totally worth the wait! Somewhere in this period I scored a slightly shinier grill too which I was stoked on!

and then it was Spoiler time! ( test fit before paint and coil hack )

and after!

In short order I fractured the spoiler .. it just went over to cambra speed shop for glass work and paint match. Sometimes vannin is tough. But in the meantime we are running around spoiler-less and still looking good!