It made it! 300000 miles

Toyman01 wrote: If you need a van, buy a Ford.

"Ford makes trucks, everyone else makes imitations"

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to stanger_missle: 4.2 V6.

Ahhhh... The 3.8L's bigger brother. I was surprised that it shot out a plug. The 2V 5.4L was notorious for that.

I had a buddy who tortured his 3.8L in his 99 Mustang. He went almost 30k miles without an oil change and beat on it everyday. It still ran great at 140k when we pulled it to put a 5.0L.

Pretty bulletproof engines...

How's the trans holding up in those vans? I'd hazard a guess that they are 4R70Ws?

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: It's Pi.

Oh geeze. I'm dumb.

In reply to stanger_missle:

Not too bad. I had the one in the 95 rebuilt a couple of months ago. It broke the reverse gear set. The 99 went into the shop several years ago for a short in the transmission wiring harness. Other than that we don't do anything to them.

I had a 97 conversion van with the 5.4. I kept waiting for it to blow a plug. I put 160K on it and sold it. Other than eating at least one coil a year, it was a pretty good van. It spent most of it's life hauling a 20' enclosed trailer or a 21' boat and I never had any transmission problems with it either.

OK, this is back from the dead. It's the new and improved thread, now with more...

And again, I missed it.

In the last 100K, it's had a axle shaft and rear bearing replaced, rear brake shoes (oil), front pads twice, rotors once, front wheel bearings and seals once, and I had the engine pulled because it was leaking from everywhere. While they had it out, they did plugs, replaced a cracked valve cover, oil pan gaskets, front and rear mains, timing cover, and valve cover gaskets. The mechanic said it still had crosshatching in the cylinders and looked good. She's still going strong. The transmission has had no service in the last 200K. As far as I know the transmission is original and the mechanic is convinced the engine is original.

It's been a damn good van. For this milestone, I might paint the sandblasted bumpers and grill.

I'll say it again, if you need a van, get a Ford with the 4.2. Keep it oily, keep it cool, and drive the crap out of it.

That's about $3000 in repairs. Still cheaper than buying a new one.

Oh, I forgot, I had the drivers seat recovered. The holes were getting hard on my ass.