Van life? How about 4x4 offroad van life?! 4x4 converted van in for service. From Lucore Automotive

The Van Life world is alive and strong in the United States and for good reason! Whether it's someone who is a rambler at heart wanting to enjoy the incredible roads and vistas of the American Outdoors, or someone who's in a pinch due to the ever increasing cost of housing the appeal of van travel is certainly strong! There are tons of options people find for doing the van life or even a long great american road trip, for our customer Chris however NONE of those options would work. Before we jumped on board with putting our builds and projects on YouTube we took this 70s Dodge Tradesman van from a little comfortable cruising van with a not very healthy 318 v8 to something CONSIDERABLY different. First off, the standard rear wheel drive setup just wouldn't work if this thing was to see off road duty. Secondly, it needed to go up in order to clear obstacles it may encounter. Thirdly, it just needed a bit more grunt and go because well... Hotrod Van. So out came the small block mopar for a general light rebuild, also out came the transmission, suspension, steering, and pretty much everything else. Underneath the boxy van body went the 4 wheel drive setup from a Dodge Ram Charger donor vehicle, by NO means a small feat! Also converted to a 3 link setup from Artec Industries at the same time. Unfortunately for us the Mopar folks never offered these vehicles in a 4 wheel drive variant so there were a WHOLE lot of modifications to be made! Today this monster van is in the shop after an epic 19,000 mile road trip around north america, we're seeing some oil leaks and other issues that need to be resolved. Typically speaking most hot rods won't see that kind of use in a lifetime but this rig was built to roam and play! So with this video we introduce you to the rig, and get tearing into it freeing the motor for rebuild. Fortunately, when building this machine we had planned around servicing so we get a chance to check out how well engineered our solution was! We want to thank all our friends, family, fans, subscribers, and supports who have stood behind us and allowed us to help make their automotive dreams come true... or keep their dreams on the road. Lucore Automotive is a small business in Central Ohio, just outside of the Columbus / Dublin area, family owned and customer focused. We work all all sorts of vehicles from the mild to the wild and literally everything in between. We hope you enjoy this video and our others, and will continue to support us into the future! Music provided by and licensed through Hooksounds.com "Road Trip" - Nicolai Heidlas