We’re getting rain already, which is not what our Septembers are usually like. But if one has to work on one’s engine in the rain, this is hands-down the vehicle to have.
For that matter, if you actually want to work on it while it’s being driven, or just like being friendly with your 302 V8, watching the throttle open and close as you accelerate, you just gotta have one of these.
The earlier style vans with the engine between the seats was a bit too crowded, and the later ones had the engine tucked up under the dash, but these Econolines had it just right. Well, that is, except for the poor passenger, who had almost no leg room, since the engine was located well right of the centerline.
Yet, another Curbside classic from Oregon! The stick shift on the steering column is weird to me even to this day. I used to know someone who had one of these as a kid.
I guess any stick shift is weird for me as I never learned to drive one.
I knew a guy when I was in the Air Force who had one of these, of course it wasn’t 45 years old then and in much better condition. I have no idea why he bought it but it quickly became the road trip vehicle of choice when going to a ball game or a concert. If I remember our record was 12 people for a trip to Oakland for a concert, this was about an hour each way from the base. It only had the two seats in front, plus a previous owner had installed a padded bench down the driver’s side and in the very back. If we needed more “seating” we would just use lawn chairs and bean bags. Life was a lot simpler then. Steve’s van also had the 302 and three on the tree, it wasn’t fast but always got us where we were going.
Simple right up to the point the folly is obvious…I knew of a guy riding on a bean bag in the back of a Mazda van about 20 years ago. Accident. Unrestrained passenger. Head first into the back of the engine cowling. Hello quadraplegia.
Oh yeah, I wasn’t implying it was a good idea or anything. It was just that being much younger, we never gave any thought to something bad happening. People in their early twenties/late teens think they are immortal. The most direct route home from my office goes right through the campus of a local university. Many students have to cross the street I would be on to get from their residence hall to the dining facility. After the third or fourth time I nearly ran down students who were talking/listening to their Ipod/daydreaming, I decided it would be less hassle to take another route.
I learned to drive on 4 speed column shifts. A couple of years later I was the only one available to take a work truck for a delivery who could drive a stick. It toke me 4-5 tries to get out of the garage because that old Ford van had 3 on the tree and the shift pattern long worn off. Turns out what I thought was 1st was R. At least I managed to not make that mistake at a light.
This one has an automatic, actually.
Ah! I saw the van and automatically thought it was a column manual shifter like the person’s van I mentioned. And man, like Just Plain Joe and Jim mentioned. The van was early 1970’s customized with some sweet shag carpeting, wood cabinets and benches along the side. More seating? sit on the floor unrestrained!
Yeah, now thinking about that I think WOW!
My Lord, a second generation Econoline that is not rusty! But tell me, do the body stresses still pull at the spotwelds over the rear wheel arch, giving it a half-moon of dimples?
The B series Dodge van that belonged to my friend’s dad was similar, though the engine may have been a bit further forward. The first time I saw it run without the cover on, I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen.
Oh wait – I can’t believe I caught you on this, but this has the 1971-74 front end. The 69-70 was as below. Although, I suppose the front could have been replaced, and it does carry the older style of hubcaps. I only know this because a friend’s dad had a 69 (the same color green as in the subject van) with a 6 and a 3 speed. We did not treat it all that nicely when we were in high school.
Well obviously, it’s had the front grille replaced, which is why it doesn’t match. 🙂 Seriously, I just took a stab at the year….now we’ll never know!
This one is at least a ’70 model, as that was the first year for this style of side marker lamp. The ’69’s had reflectors that were mounted on the lower part of the panels. A couple of other notes: ABB speaks of a stick shift on the column, this one is actually an automatic. This appears to be an E300 model (one ton) which had the eight lug wheels and the larger hubcaps that I believe were used throughout this style. They were the same as the F250 pickups. The E100 (1/2 ton) and E200 (3/4 ton) used the regular 5 lug wheels and smaller caps. I also see it has a forward mounted gas tank. They originally had a rear mounted one. The picture is not clear enough to tell if it is a replacement tank or an auxiliary.
My parents bought a ’73 model in about ’76 to use in their home building project on San Juan Island in Washington. Then I obtained it in ’79 and used it to move from Washington to Texas. It was a E200 Supervan with a six cylinder and automatic. It was underpowered and I overloaded it with a full 16 foot U-haul trailer. A few of the mountain passes it barely crawled over at 5 mph. By the time we got to Texas it had developed a severe engine miss. It turned out to have a burnt valve, so I did a valve job on it and as you said Paul, I remember working on it in when it was raining and I was closed up inside the van. We ended up moving back to Washington the next year in it. I got a job that had a 30 mile each way commute. I needed something that used less gas, so I traded it for a ’73 Vega GT Kammback. Overall it served us well, but the tinworm was taking hold pretty well by the time I traded it.
Yes they still get those dimples
Oh, boy! Another opportunity for a brief story!
My friend’s brother up the street bought an early-60’s – a 1962, I think – Econoline, 6 stick, for his first car that was pretty badly rusted-out. When I came home on convalescent leave from kidney stone surgery in July, 1972, they were getting ready to paint the van. We all had a hand in fixing that bomb up with lots of White Diamond bondo and plenty of sandpaper and gray primer. The passenger windshield wiper housing was rusted-out, so my buddy simply took a piece of sheet metal, cut a patch and brazed the hole shut! After all, only the driver really needs a windshield wiper, doesn’t he? That heap was a veritable rust bucket! They painted the van a metallic brown in his back yard! A fun day.
The van was a piece of junk, but it ran and got him around OK.
Now when his brother and me went to a liquor store buy some booze one day – I was 21, he was 18 – we were pulled over on general principles. The St. Louis County Mountie saw the bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill and asked for ID. I handed him my military ID. He said “that’s not a Missouri ID”. I somewhat haughtily replied: “that’s all the ID I need…” He gave it back, didn’t say a word and let us on our way!
That evening we piled in my buddy’s car and went to the drive-in, and I got well-lubed and my resultant pain from my recent surgery was eased considerably…
I’ll save my account of when my friend’s brother bought a 1964 Chevy van. Now THAT was an adventure!
I guess you have to be careful of the ash on your joint with that open carb, the induction noise would be huge.
I can tell you first hand that it is NO fun replacing the timing chain on the 6-cylinder version of this. Especially when you have to do it on the road.
Previously employed by Ma Bell? One wonders…
My thinking was the same, that drab lower green is pure Bell.
There was a seedy liquor store in a small crappy strip mall that used to use on of these vans as a sign in the parking lot, it was a rust bomb, they would just throw a coat of white house paint over it every couple of years.
I had the opportunity to work on a 1971 with a 302 a few days ago. The thing really likes to go, but the brakes are ridiculously bad and the manual steering feels like power steering that lost its belt.
IIRC ma bell liked hers with sixes and the drivers side with panels versus windows. Years change. Who knows.
This is exactly the model in which I learned how to drive. First day was learning how to drive in reverse with the 3-on-tree. Mom figured if I could manage that, it was easy from that point forward. And she was right!
Ours was purchased because my younger brother needed a wheelchair. Dad bought the E100 pretty well stripped, so bare bones it was steel ribs inside with NO insulation. He bought a used rear bench out of a VW bus and jury-rigged it in place, without seatbelts of course. The damn bench literally rocked every time you stopped.
He cut extruded aluminum rails backed up with 2×4’s for ramps, “secured” in place with long screws fitted to holes in the doorway for the chair, which were pulled out after loading.
Mom put in yellow and white curtains hung with fishing line for “privacy”, held back with velcro strips.
Slow as cr@p but with the Lear 8 track and some home-built speaker boxes it was the ride for the gang.
I drove a band around in one of these for a while in the 80’s. 3 on the tree. This was back when 7-11 was giving away free Redskins bumper stickers. By the end of that summer, the entire interior was covered in them. No seats other than the two up front, carrying 6 or 7 long haired guys. Lost the hood (and the windshield) on the highway once, but other than that, was a good van.
On another note, I had the misfortune of having to pull a 400 out of a ’75 Chevy van (actually a class C camper), rebuilding it, and reinstalling, after spinning a bearing on my way back from Mt. Rushmore, and being towed home from Indianapolis to Hagerstown, MD. I will NEVER. EVER. pull one of those out of a van again.
My carpool driver and her husband had one of these back in the day. It was a V8, and she said that her husband had replaced the valve lifters a couple of times – semi-inside work. My best memory about that van was the frosty morning I was waiting by my car at the carpool pickup point. I watched her come down the steep hill toward the stop sign and do a perfect 360-degree spin. She was a trooper though, and drove us on in to work as though it was a normal day.
I had one of these, a ’74. It was my second van, after the ’66 A-100. It was customized with an airbrushed mural on the side, paneling, shag carpet and aluminum wheels with 60 series “Torque Twister” tires.
This engine sure looks bare. ’74 California emissions meant the engine was covered with vacuum hoses.
Every time I see one of these I think of “Bruce Berry was a workin’ man; he used to load that Econoline…van…”
I have one these I’ve been working on. Everybody loves it. 240 6,3 on the tree with 77,000 original miles. It is a “Shorty”. 1971 model. E-100.
Here is picture I took of the engine as I’ve been putting it back to stock with all of the correct hoses and parts. Yes,I ditched the chrome air cleaner,breather and have just about re-done everything besides rebuilding the motor..which it doesn’t need.
I recently rescued a sky blue E100, 1970 shorty, with a 302, auto on the column and was told the motor needs to be overhauled. It had been sitting for many years before I bought it. I then took it on a couple of road trips and she was riding along quite strong, but then started to backfire at about 150 miles in – turns out the compression went from a hefty 130s to somehow fall to the 70s range. Perhaps rings failure? Looking to have the motor rebuilt this week and get her back on the road.. :0) All the Best, Art