The rehabilitation of "Shed"

[Piledriver]

"Shed" in an 86 tintop Wolfsburg edition in maroon, and she came to my house about 20 years ago after my son and I pushed it 2 blocks to get it home as the motor with corroded heads was on the floor inside, and it was a get it outta my yard which I can rarely resist.

I popped some fresh heads on her, and she ran great for another 70k miles before the typical rod big end low oil pressure issue caused her to lockup coming home. I played with a rebuild but never was happy with the results, as the early amc heads had bubblegum valves and seats.

Will post up some actual pics of the van, but shes rust free local Texas van, but other than buying a new to me motor and having the heads gone through due to 90% leakby of 4 of six cylinders, I started at the bottom... brakes.

Still not 100% sure on rear brakes, would consider sticking with drums with bigger wheel cylinders.
Have some lateish model mustang rear calipers like new may use.

These brakes stared life on cars about the same weight as a vanagon, so i figured were suitable...
Calipers are ls430. Rotors are mercedes e350, turned down to 315mm. (32mm wide)

The combined piston area of these calipers is ~exactly same as the late Vanagon calipers, but you basically end up with almost 2x the swept area, plus massive ventilated calipers vs the tiny 13mm solid factory rotor setup, and no funny business with the hydraulics.

The std 16" wheels GoWesty et al sell are aftermarket ls430 wheels, so i figured they fit inside my 16" Fuchs manholes, and they do...

ls430-caliper-e350-rotor-small.jpg

old rotor positioned for comparison. (center became a hub)

compare-oldrotor-small.jpg

The adapters are 20mm, should probably have gone 25mm,

caliper mounts are fabricated, may have the dimensions transferred to billet bits, but made from 5/16" structural steel scrap thet are plenty strong.
(forgot to take pics...)