Great news. I too am surprised with the condition given the years that the VT was on it. Is it straight? Are the seams at thee edge? Cool!

The roof sheet metal looks pretty good in the picture you posted.
I have all way felt a vinyl top on a chop was a way of cutting a few corners and hiding a few unrepairable sins.....

.......Wookee

They chopped it 12"!? NEAT!

It does have a nice roof, I will have to ask why it was covered. I like to see chopped vans with a clean strait roof, it takes a lot of time but looks so good. I do plan to paint the roof, no vinyl top is going back on it. The metal work was done good, just have to get the body blasted, weld up a few holes and redo some old filler work. The main work is on the back of the van. It will have to be driven in primer for a while to find the weak spots in the body.

You're comment about weak spots is interesting to me. What exactly would you expect to see? If the welds are decent and your filler work done correctly, there should not be any weak spots. I am not real familiar with the primers offered in the market place today but years ago one of the worse things that a person could do was to drive a vehicle in primer because primer was porous and absorbed moister that then caused surface rust. I'd give some thought to paint but the van is yours and I look forward to seeing the progress.

Randy

yea... and any body filler that got wet would crumble with the moisture...
Even worse with primer not being a sealant was that the oils on the road would get on there and this ends up under the paint...

Whenever it rains for the first time in a long time, all those oils come to the surface of the road and make the road slicker than whale snot.

Im sure it will stay out of the rain, what i think he means is if the body work is going to crack, better to crack primer than thousands of dollars worth of paint. better on something like this that was chopped many years ago and subjected to the abuse of drag racing to give it a few miles to shake it all down before painting it.

Actually the newer 2k primers have a sealer built into them.
I ran this type of primer for close to 5 years on my Early.





With no ill effects.The van NEVER saw the inside of a garage.

I am hearing the feds are getting ready to make ALL professional shops go to water born paints with in the year.

........Wookee

Ive used that primer before, and a few other similar brands. Good stuff.

Technology has certainly changed the rules of the game. For me it has been way too many years of being away from the trade so I have lost touch with the products that are available. I read somewhere on here where a vanner planned to remove the filler that he had applied so he could prime the metal first, then do the filler work. Back in the day people would have excused this idea but maybe with the materials available today this is an acceptable practice. Live and learn.