Roxanne, the Van of Many Lovers (1989 Ford Club Wagon XLT E250) Build Thread

[JakeC]

Last night my girlfriend and I towed my Beetle to its winter home. While there, we also removed the mattress from the back of the van so we can rework the sleeping platform to make it modular. On our way home we ended up hitting a sleet/ice/snow storm and half the journey was at less than 40 mph. This was my first time driving in the snow in a full sized van and this will be my first winter without a 4WD. I'm looking at getting tires because the ones that we have on the van are pretty hard and don't perform very well on snowy/icy surfaces.

 

[WVI]

Nice Bug!

 

[JakeC]

Nice Bug!

Thanks! It's slowly getting there.

 

[JakeC]

Recently I ordered some tune up parts for the 351w. The speedometer is still broken, but that'll be next. Not pictured is the MSD dizzy cap.

 

[JakeC]

Last night I finally got to wrenching on the van. It's been rainy and cold, but last night it was only rainy.

While moving the van, I noticed that the rear dome light started working miraculously! I love it when problems semi-solve themselves.

My girlfriend also helped me string along plug wires. We swapped out all 7 of them and the 8th plug on the passenger side, the very front one, is impossible to get.... without removing the alternator. I still have the radiator to do, I think i'll change the serpentine belt while I'm at it, and the idler pulley. With all of that out, removing the alternator should be easy. I also need to take a look at the speedometer cable. Things this winter are slow going.

 

[JakeC]

The week before Christmas was pretty slow going on the work to the van. I can't believe it's taking me this long to get it back to being roadworthy. Also, there are terrible "Expo" related logs.

I managed to get to the hidden spark plug by removing the alternator. Swapped it out and my firing order was off by one, so it was simple to remedy. I also finally got the radiator installed only to decimate the trans cooler lines leading into the radiator. I solved this with bits of transmission cooler hose. I attempted to get air out of the system and realized that the trans cooler was leaking. My old radiator may have been fine, the cooling fins may have just been pulling transmission fluid through the radiator making it look as though the radiator was bad. Now i'm in the process of replacing the trans cooler.

 

[JakeC]

After a bunch of work this weekend, I believe I've finally buttoned up the transmission cooler install and the radiator install with no more leaks. I drove it to my mothers house (to help her move) about 60-70 miles away and it drove great. It's been idling a bit high at times and attempted to die once or twice, but i'll begin looking into that shortly. I also picked up a Husky Power Ratchet from Home Depot for $50 around Christmas and for this job, it was amazing!

Also, man, could we fit a TON of stuff in the van.

 

[WVI]

Hey, that couch matches the interior!

 

[Mwilliamshs]

...It's been idling a bit high at times and attempted to die once or twice, but i'll begin looking into that shortly...

Probably your idle air control valve. It's a solenoid valve that allows air to bypass the closed throttle blades. A solenoid opens it and a spring closes it. They get sticky and hang shut (stall) or open (high idle). They're about $30 to replace or can be cleaned with carb spray, pipe cleaners, etc. The way to test it is unplug the IACV while the engine is idling and it should die. If it doesn't, IACV is stuck open.

 

[JakeC]

Hey, that couch matches the interior!

My mom loves it for some reason. It's from the forties. It's stuffed with horse hair and weighs an absolute ton. But it did fit nicely. Lol.

Probably your idle air control valve. It's a solenoid valve that allows air to bypass the closed throttle blades. A solenoid opens it and a spring closes it. They get sticky and hang shut (stall) or open (high idle). They're about $30 to replace or can be cleaned with carb spray, pipe cleaners, etc. The way to test it is unplug the IACV while the engine is idling and it should die. If it doesn't, IACV is stuck open.

I'll check this out, I dealt with one of my 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It wasn't doing this before I replaced the spark plugs, cap, rotor, wires, radiator, and trans cooler, but I could be upsetting the van gods.

 

[JakeC]

It's been a while, but my girlfriend an I ended up buying back the Jeep we sold to buy the van. WHAT A MISTAKE. If you love a vehicle, never sell it to a teenager then buy it back. It's required a ton of work to get back to where it was, full interior swap due to a broken drivers seat, the kid removed all of the interior light bulbs because he jacked up the door and the door switch wasn't hitting properly, so when going over bumps, the lights would flash... i just unhooked the sensor... then I had to re-weld the lower hinge because it had sheared from the door. Currently i'm looking for some exhaust because he chopped off the flowmaster muffler and put on a $30 glass pack dumping before the rear axle. He and his friends said that it "sounded better". The one good thing the kid did do was install KO2's on it.



The weekend following the photos above, we used the van to continue moving my mother... during a snowstorm. I've been spending some time at work, drawing up some plans for the layout of the van. I think I want everything installed in the van to be modular so that I am able to convert it back to friend hauler or stuff-hauler pretty easily. It will sacrifice some room, but i think it'll be worth it as the inside of the van evolves depending on our needs. I also think I want to go with the seats on both sides, with the table in the middle, so that the table can be removed and if need be, we can haul some lengthy material. I can't wait until it warms up a little bit to get started. I'm still debating a bit on the shelves in the rear, if that'll be possible.



Before any of this work, I may need to get some engine stuff figured out. Last time I drove the van home from my mothers, the check engine light was flashing intermittently and my girlfriend following me could smell coolant while cruising at 70. The radiator cap was cool to the touch even after running for an hour or two, but the radiator was full when I checked on it the next day. Hopefully it isn't a blown head gasket. I will be pulling codes soon though after I built the little contraption to do so.

 

[JakeC]

I've been playing a bit with Google Sketchup and happened upon a model of an Econoline after viewing someone's Instagram that had utilized a model for the 3rd Gen.

The quality of the screen grabs isn't the best.

 

[JakeC]

It's been an incredibly busy weekend. I've been trying to get my 1991 Volvo 240 finished, I did get it registered, insured, and it's almost complete, just waiting on a package from IPD for the flame trap. I also finalized the electric radiator fan install complete with a cheeky label. This car had previously rear-ended a school bus! The blue car is gone, but it was the donor of a manual transmission, fenders, and a hood for my girlfriends black 1993 Volvo 240 Wagon.



Saturday, my buddy came over and we spent most of the day tearing down my 1974 Super Beetle motor to freshen it up a bit. We were going to install larger pistons, but we learned that the pistons he had gifted me were actually stock pistons, but in MUCH better shape.




It's been a long weekend.

NOW ON TO THE VAN!

Well, I posted the van for sale last week while looking at a 1989 Dodge B2500 with a 318 that was already a Conversion Van. I posted it to quite a few van pages on Facebook and had a guy hit me up telling me that he was the one who saved my van from the scrap yard. Apparently, the van belonged to a diehard Ford guy who used it to tow. He pulled it apart to replace the water pump, broke a few bolts off in the process, left the van to sit, then died. His son didn't know what to do with the van, so he finally sold it to this guy that I've been talking with. I managed to get some pictures of it when it was saved!






Now I know of it's past 4 owners, 3 of them are Facebook friends, which is kind of cool when diagnosing an issue with the van, though they may not think so. In the pictures, the van is in Pennsylvania, then it was traded to a member of a Van Club for a Conversion van, and that's how it ended up in Ohio. Then in Ohio, it was traded to a kid in Indiana for a 1978 Ford F100.

I took it off the marketplace as the van I was looking at, sold. I spent all day yesterday driving it, helped a buddy pick up a 1.8l engine for his Volkswagen Cabriolet, then i spent the evening working on it, and generally realized how good of a van she is. I bought a code reader for the OBD1 system and pulled the codes, which are:

122 - Throttle Position Sensor below minimum voltage
621 - Shift Solenoid #1 Circuit Fault
622 - Shift Solenoid #2 Circuit Fault
624 - Electronic Pressure Control Solenoid Circuit Fault
626 - Coast Clutch Solenoid Circuit Fault
629 - Converter Clutch Solenoid Circuit Fault or Lock Up Solenoid Circuit Fault
637 - Transmission Oil Temperature Circuit Above Maximum Voltage
654 - Not in Park During KOEO Test

I was originally trying to count light flashes, but as you can see, there are a TON of codes.

I removed the 80's wooden cup holders because they don't work worth a ********, and installed a cup holder that is usually wedged between a seat and a center console, with screws to the dog house. It looks and works so much better, personally.

 

[JakeC]

It's been a pretty busy week for the van, I replaced the ECU/PCM with the correct unit. The reason I was receiving all of the transmission codes is because the ECU had been replaced with a unit from a van with the 4 speed auto. I found a unit on eBay for $40 and installed it. The van ran better for a bit, but still wasn't quite right. Turned out that the TPS was also at fault for the issues, so I purchased a replacement unit locally and installed it. To do this, you have to remove the entire throttle body because the TPS is located on the bottom of the throttle body. Since I was going to be removing this, I thought I may as well ALSO dive into the cruise control being inoperable.




Now the van drove buttery smooth, it idled well, it accelerated better, it was a night and day difference.

Now onto the cruise control. I reattached the cruise control cable to the accelerator cable, for some reason it had been placed off to the side. I thought that it was broken, but it turned out it was just disconnected. I took the van for a spin and attempted to use the cruise and it wouldn't work. Wondering if it had something to do with my speedometer cable, I removed and replaced the speedometer cable with a new one, at this moment, I noticed that the signal generator that is supposed to be connected to the Gear Vendor Overdrive computer, was never hooked up, and then I start spiraling backwards as I realize that may have been the issue all along, so I'll dive back into that later...

I test drove the van after replacing the speedometer cable and still nothing. I removed the cable from the housing and connected it to a cordless drill, the speedometer needle then moved! So I'm working my way currently down the system to the parts of the Gear Vendor unit. I've contacted Gear Vendor, and am looking into solutions to replace the cable that bridges the gap between the signal generator and the gear vendor unit.


Waiting on figuring out the cruise control, I decided to meet my brother for lunch, and to pick up my miter saw to start on the interior of the van. I drove the van 70ish miles round trip and was able to manage 11.62 mpg, which I was hoping for something a little higher, goal is 15 or as close to it as I can get. Here's the van next to his Mini.

 

[JakeC]

Yesterday I sent Gear Vendor an email and the representative I was speaking with had me remove the cable that was the bridge between the Speedometer Cable and the Gear Vendor unit. After a few blasts with Liquid Wrench, the cable disconnected on both ends pretty easily. It appears that one of the endings crimped on, came loose. Now I'm waiting to hear back from them for the price of the cable, or I may end up learning to make my own.