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My name is Gordon Abrams, some of you may know me by my internet handle of “4x4vanpartsguy”. I have been in the 4x4 conversion business since 1987. I have a 1979 E250 Quadravan, 1960 CJ5 Willy’s, and a converted 4x4 1955 1/2 ton Chevy pickup, which is my daily driver
First of all, lets clear up the top 10 questions that I am asked nearly every day.
1) Yes, I am a Mormon
2) No, I don’t have more than one wife (I can’t handle or keep up with the one I have)
3) No, I don’t have thirty kids, I have one teenage boy named Clayton
4) No, Mormons don’t have horns. This statement may have more to do with something else. Lots of kids maybe?
5) No, you don’t have to pay 10% tithing on your parts order. There is no price increase for being something other than a Mormon.
6) It’s true, I don’t drink or smoke. It is against the LDS health code referred to as the “Word of Wisdom”. It works for me and I stick to it. But it’s not against my religion give someone a good butt kicking’ or a black eye for continuing to shove a beer in my face.
7) No, I don’t know any Texas FLDS Mormons, and I am not related to any.
8) Yes, I do like a good Mormon joke, I won’t get mad. Although, they are never as funny as the brutal jokes I am told by Virginians and West Virginians about each other.
9) And for my British patrons, there is NOT a tunnel under the Atlantic ocean between Liverpool and Salt Lake City to smuggle teenage virgins to Utah. What century do we live in anyway?
10) What is a “Jack Mormon”? A JM is a person who is born into the Mormon faith but doesn’t live it and doesn’t pretend to. Not to be confused with the “Sunday Mormon” who acts the part on Sunday, but the rest of the week he is waiting for you to drop your financial defenses to his smooth talk and lies, all the while waiting to screw you. Sadly, there are far to many of those in business.
OK, with that out of the way, lets move on....
I have been an avid mechanic since I was a little boy. My Grandfather was a master diesel mechanic and taught me much of what I know today. My father, when he wasn’t yelling at my for misplacing his tools, also taught me quite allot. My first mini bikes, motorcycle and car were given to me in “basket case” condition so I would have to fix them up if I wanted to use them.
I grew up in the mountains of Northern Idaho’s panhandle in a small town named Kellogg. I spent many of my summer days in the early 1970’s hanging out at the Kellogg City shops were all the city trucks were maintained. Many of my fathers friends worked there and I loved to watch them work on the 4x4’s and heavy trucks. The only days I didn’t go to the shop was when they gassed the stray dogs in a big tank with the exhaust pipe of a military 6x6 truck!
I was greatly impressed by some of the men in my town who built the massively powerful Ford, GM, Dodge, IHC 4x4 trucks that were used to pull struggling 18 wheelers up the steep inclines of Lookout Pass on I-90 during the winter months. Fully chained Semi trucks could barely make it up the mountain pass. I enjoyed watching these beefed up 4x4 trucks paired up to a diesel rig with engines roaring as they dragged the diesel up the pass. Big axles, big block engines, blowers, headers sticking up through the hood. Everything you could imagine to make a truck more powerful. True 4x4 monsters rarely seen in magazines today. I wish as a kid that I had been able to take pictures of them.
In the early 80’s the mines and lumber camps of northern Idaho closed down and my family and I had to move on. I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in the spring of 1984. A few years later I found my dream job working for a 4x4 shop in the Salt Lake valley. I spent the next 14 years dumping my heart and soul into this job. That is where I developed my love for 4x4 vans. I became intimately familiar with all makes of 4x4 van conversions running the parts department for this company. After several years of elusive raises, broken promises and bounced paychecks I reluctantly was forced to move on to something else. I began converting vintage pickups to 4x4 and later made contact with the owners of Pathfinder Equipment Company and began to build service parts for the many Pathfinder made conversion vans.
I now work for DFCM which is the maintenance division for the State of Utah. I maintain the areas many standby generators and HVAC systems for a multitude of buildings.
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