Surfer Van restoration

My Dad and I are restoring a B100 "Surfer Van" in order to present it as a gift to my nephew, he being a newly licensed and not-so-bucksup teenager. Well, the problem is that we both have fallen in love with it since getting it back on the road and are reticent about handing it over, come this June.
I'm shocked at how difficult it seems, so far, to find replacement/rebuilt parts for these old babies. I've been a Chevy owner almost exclusively all my life so just took parts availability for granted. We're hoping to gain valuable insight into possible avenues of approach regarding making it an even more proud piece of automotive history.
The old days were filled with these vans throughout the US, so it's amazing how few of them we see, at least in these parts, west of the rockies.
Anyway, for what it's worth, we're happy to see this forum in existence and hope you aficianados realize how few and far between you seem to be. It's an honor to read with you.
Author: moparfish