I recently found two all aluminum Grumman Olsen stepvans for sale, both fitted with rebuilt Cummins 4BT engines. They had been part of the Wonder Bread fleet and had been sold at auction only to end up on the market again almost right away. I purchased both for $4900.00 and before I had picked them up had people interested in them. I simply could not let such a good VO candidate go to waste. I lode the larger vehicle with a 14' cargo area to a friend who is a General Contractor, and kept the smaller one with a 10' cargo area for the shop. We pick up 4' x 8' sheets of aluminum several times a week, 8 bags at a time of packing peanuts, etc.

While thinking about how to make the van as useful as possible I was approached by two employees who both asked if they could use it at times over the summer as they were both doing remodel work on their homes, I realized that my list of home "To Do" items includes rebuilding the deck which is about to rot off my house, re-roof and a myriad of other projects the wife has no problem writing on a list on the refrigerator....

I decided to make the Van as useful as possible for hauling and as a workshop, in this way all the tools at the shop can be loaded into the van and taken to a jobsite for the weekend and returned to the shop on Monday for another weeks work. I decided that it would need to be capable of carrying building supplies, a table saw, miter saw, air compressor, hand tools, nail guns, saw horses, cords, air lines etc, etc. It would need to have a tool box and lighted workbenches as well as outlets for tools and would have to be built on a budget.

The aluminum bread racks were removed in about an hour and sold as scrap for $350, this money was then spent on plywood to skin the interior which was already insulated and skinned in thin aluminum. I built a frame for a wall between the drivers area and the work area from 1 1/2 mild steel square stock and skinned this with plywood as well, a sliding door will be added when I have time. I took two cheap workbenches which had been sitting in my garage at home and screwed them to the walls along with a toolbox from the back of the shop, added tie downs for cargo, and this is what I came up with.