The other frickin' van
Yeah, it was only a matter of time before I found something to bitch about with our new van -- the one I bought last fall from my sister-in-law.
Recap: It's a mid-90's GMC conversion van; a G10 conversion that's been hopped-up with a fiberglas hi-top roof, luxury interior, VCR and TV, etc. A real nice ride. The thing has been and remains a great ride for us, but that doesn't mean I haven't got any problems with it. Over the weekend I tore up a piece of body moulding and can't get it replaced, because the company that did the conversions is long out of business.
We got some late winter snow that had piled up on either side of the driveway and had gotten hard and crunchy with a few days of warming and cooling. I pulled out of the driveway at a bit too shallow of an angle as we were driving the kids to James' birthday party at the children's museum on Saturday when I nailed the pile of snow at the end of the driveway.
The whole interior of the van echoed with this loud, solid CRUNCH that let us know that the icy snow on the side of the driveway had impacted with the van's body like the iceberg that hit the Titanic. The ice had scraped along the leading edge of the driver's side rear wheel well, which is covered from end to end with a piece of plastic moulding.
The van's got 180K+ miles on it, so that moulding has worn and chipped over the years. As it was, that piece of moulding was only hanging on by a thread. The ice impact was all it needed to tear free.
As I drove down the road, I moved the mirror down so I could see the damage. The moulding was waving at me back and forth.
My driveway is apparently cursed by a demonic spirit that eats car body parts, because shortly after we moved in my mother slammed into a tree on the side of the driveway and lost about two feet of moulding off of one side of her car. And ever since we moved here, the original Frickin' Van's body rot has increased by an exponential factor.
When we got to where we needed to go, I managed to tuck the moulding and and under where it should have been to pin it in place for now. I'm going to go out this weekend and see about getting some repair material to see if I can patch it.
And if anyone knows where I can find replacement moulding for a 96 Chevy Gladiator conversion van by Glaval, let me know...
Comments
Not knowing anything about what the molding looks like, maybe:
http://www.glaval.com/
This link leads to a place that seems to offer some Glaval parts and has a parts locating service.
Just a thought.
Good luck.
Posted by: MikeC | March 25, 2004 08:24 PM
Any luck finding the replacement molding? I have the same problem with my conversion van and have not found any molding. I have seen small lengths of molding in the JCWhitney catalog - but - this is not long enough.
Thanks
--Al
Posted by: Al | May 19, 2004 07:39 AM