I bought this van for 400.00. Now in retrospect, it would have been better to spend more up front on a better van. A van that was not full of rust on almost every door, that did not have holes in the roof from cancer. A van that had to be lien saled and then to battle with the DMV for months as they kept messing up my paperwork. At that point I hated this van, I went looking for another. But after a time I got down to business and began working on this 1966 Dodge Sportsman. I found a donor van and took all the doors. I had to drive from LA to central California in my Honda with all the seats out and then stuffed all the doors from the van into my little four door sedan and then back to LA. That was an adventure. Added some Ansen Sprint Mags from a junkyard. Replaced the doors, the van was a little better, got the plates and got it running pretty good as the manifold and carb were off when I bought it. After all it was 400 bucks. 

At this point I started tackling the many problems this van had: the body was the main thing, the lack of gauges, turn signals, and lights made driving an issue and that had to be sorted our first.  I replaced the defective turn signal switch with a Moon retro one, 31.00 shipped. I rewired the back of the van using the old wires as a guide and I was led down the wrong path as some of these wires went to nowhere. After spending a few hours one night with a test light and a cup of coffee, the brake lights and turn signals were nice and bright. Got some of the gauges to work, contemplating replacing all the gauges with new ones. I replaced the light switch with a new one from Napa and the only thing that worked on it was the headlights. I had to do some rewiring to get the dash lights and dome lights to come one. The charging system was null and void, that needed to be freshened up as well. Well, I've learned a lot and except for a few gauges, everything works. Badass!

Now the rust:

As you can see, it's pretty bad. The entire rear drip rail needed to be replaced. The driver side was like this all the way down the side of the van on the roof. The A pillars we non-existent, there was nothing there but a blob of bondo, I had to re-construct them from the ground up. Each of these sections was about an inch tall and there were about 6 of them on the roof. The drip rails around the a pillars were gone as well. I had my work cut out for me for sure. 

After cutting holes for patch panels, the whole body was discovered to be full of rust flakes. I used a wet/dry vac to get them out.

Cleaned out patch panel hole.

Most of the patch panels went in with little fuss. Best to make a template out of cardboard first as you can shape it easier than metal.

The rear drip rail and roof after I cut what was left of it out of the van. As you can see, most of it was gone.

Not a good pic, but you can see the new metal in place and the new drip rail which I made from a piece of angle that I got at the hardware store for eight bucks.

Next: Body Filler Bonanza!!!

The trick is with body filler is to use as little as possible. Glob on too much and it will crack as the car goes under stresses of normal driving. I did my best to keep the body filler to a thin coating. I plan to re-paint the whole van at some point so for now I'm just covering my body work with rattle can so I can see how it will look. As with any old vehicle, dings, dents, and previous body work are expected. This thing has more different colors of bondo on it than a Christmas tree has lights. Its been in some bang ups and bad parking jobs for sure. As I went around I found many little dings and blobs of un-sanded filler in addition to some brass filling on the roof. At this point I'm starting from the top and working my way down. I plan on building a luggage rack on the roof using the original bolt holes from the old rack, so I've been dealing with rusted away drip rails and holes on the passenger side of the roof. 

This a pillar was gone entirely, you could fit about 2 packs of cigarettes in the hole. I made some new pieces with metal and put a little filler on them. I'm no master body guy so it took me a few tries to get it looking decent. Not the best photo, but you get the idea.

I cut a piece out of a donor van and plugged it into the spot where the drip rail had rusted away completely.

There's a few blemishes and rough spots the will need to be gone over again but it's a big improvement from what I had started with.

The last little bit of the drip rail welded into place. All the welding and major bodywork is done, there are still a lot of little dings that need to be dealt with however. I'm going to take it to a place for the final body and paint. But there are other things that need attention first.