Hopefully everyone is still around, including the OP!

I have a 1996 AT SC that I want to lift. I'm not a mech head, but still handy with wrenches, so please, be gentle. I'm not too concerned about total lift. I'll be off-road, but never anything too aggressive. I mainly want it to not look like a minivan anymore. Here are my questions:

1- For the rear, if I want to keep it simple, is it as easy as just swapping the springs? Zenseeker lead me to this post (after a few clicks) and makes it seem the rear is that easy. 2" is all I want anyway.

2- For the front, can I skip the spacer and just put the new strut in the old ones place? I may have missed the importance of that part of the process. If I understand things right, the machining is to just allow the wider Previa knuckle to fit. Everything else is used as is? If so, I'm set.

In the end, I plan to camperize it. Seats will come out and kitchen will go in behind the driver and passenger. Table for 4-6 will go behind the side door to the back. The table bench seats will be storage and the table will drop to turn the seats into a bed with the help of an extension. I also plan to make the table seats convert to a 3 seat, forward facing bench using the existing rear seat belts (and mounting the rest to the floor ) so I can haul the kids/friends on some adventures. The roof is getting a basket at the front and I'm building a fold out queen-sized tent at the back. With the tent there should be room for 5 people to sleep quite comfortably. Last, I'm building a hitch mount swing rack for propane bottles, spare tire, etc.

1996 Previa Van Conversion.jpg

All in all, I'm looking forward to this little project. A taller stance, roof rack and bigger tires should make this a pretty sweet little rig. Not bad considering I bought the van so I could steal the winter tires - all for a whopping $200. It was when I was pulling one of the front tires that I noticed it was AT and SC. I couldn't bring myself to send the leftovers to the scrap yard.

Thanks to the countless people that have contributed over the years. I might be able to do in a weekend what some of you have spent years researching thanks to your hard work.

PS - I'm also considering cutting tin and building 2" fender flares out of wire mesh/foam. With some elbow grease, I should be able to make them durable enough to stand up to the elements. I'm going to plasti-dip the whole thing when done, so that should seal it up. Pros? Cons? Better ways to skin this cat?