The last push is always hardest

with all the other shit I have going on in my life, just getting the last 1/3 of the chassis cleaned and prepped was a challenge.
 The leaf springs had to be modified to fit. The front mounts for them in the chassis needed to be modified to fit the leaf springs. See the replacement leafs I got have an elliptical front bushing where the originals was a round bushing. this elliptical bushing interfered with the chassis point and there needed to be a little relief added. No big deal, but a pain nonetheless.

That all added up to me finding out that these leafs apparently didn't have the axle locating pin in the same location and the rear end was now forward about 3/4" MORE than originally placed. what this means, dear reader, is that now my driveshaft no longer fit.
Yippee.
I remeber reading a how-to article in a hotrod magazine a long time ago and that shit was like permanently burned into my memory bank.
So I did what I do best.
I cut the fucker in half.

Along the way of prepping the undercarriage, there was this amazing clod of clay/ dirt that was packed among the evap lines... again confirming to me that this van lived a long hard life on dirt roads up in northern WI/ MN. It was a fossil, a van fossil!

 And I managed to get the gas tank out without too much b.s.
The J bolts broke and the filler bushing was a swolled up, but reeplacement poarts were found at Mancini Racing, just had to look around for them. And they are not listed for fitting a van, FYI.  But the tank was scrubbed and prepped and brushed with a nice coat of the KBS chassis black. Straps were reused and painted up. Same with the filler neck.

All new hoses back there. Except the stinking filler neck to tank adapter hose. This was reused.

With the gas tank repositioned, it was time to hang the axle and get this sucker shod in some Cragars!

With the undercarriage wrapping up, I couldn't wait to get the wheels and tires back on!