The Candy Van - 1982 Econoline E100

In reply to RossD :

Here it's "at the lake" for years I didn't realize that at the lake just meant there was a lake within 50 miles.  If someone can find a model of the old bushing I wonder if it'd be a candidate for a 3d printer, I know a couple of Porsche guys who use a 3d printer to replace some of their more esoteric worn parts.

The bushing I have is in decent enough shape.  Its ends up being a little too thick when installed on the shift collar.  

I took it all back apart tonight amd removed the tape to see how sloppy it would be with nothing installed.  Its pretty loose but would be livable as a last resort.  The complexity of the bushing makes it difficult to build a thinner one from scratch.  One bushing fits 3 parts together and 2 of them move.  

I played a bit with some sandpaper and I think I am going to see if I can take enough off the plastic to make it work.  If I fail I ruin the bushing and I assume it is Unobtainium,  but I haven't checked.

In reply to dclafleur :

Have you thought about doing the Texas Lemons rally since its sorta in your neck of the woods?  We are planning on doing it.  

I realized I didn't post pictures of the bushing in question.  Here it is in all its glory

logdog said:

In reply to dclafleur :

Have you thought about doing the Texas Lemons rally since its sorta in your neck of the woods?  We are planning on doing it.  

I hadn't but now that I looked it up I'm finding myself intrigued.  I recently found myself in possession of a truly terrible Toyota Pickup that might be horrible for it.

In reply to dclafleur :

All the cool kids are doing it.  Don't you want to be one of us cool kids? 

I decided to try and sand down the bushing to get it to compensate for the thicker shift collar.  As you can see I developed a highly complicated lathe setup with a socket,  cordless impact, and masking tape. 

 I left it a little on the tight side but it all fits together now.  I still have to put the column back together (for hopefully the last time) but that will have to wait until the weekend.

It's going to be really cool when that column shifter works just right after all this work.  Awesome!

It works!  Or rather, it at least shifts through all the gears as intended.  I still have to test drive it.

The stickers have been removed.  The Candy Van can now go back to its incognito life as a normal windowless van.

The Crown Vic subframe swap on trucks is a fun rabbit hole to go down.  As far as I can tell nobody seems to have done it on a 3rd gen Econoline.  I have no room to even THINK about something like that until the CJ5 gets put back together, but it is a fun thing to look into.

I saw a $500 no-title crown vic on my local CL just this evening.  That would be COOL if it swapped well on the Econoline.  So, I take it the Fords of this era still used a traditional frame unlike the GMs that used a uni-body style construction?  (ninja-edit...yeah, I clearly see the traditional frame in the early posts of the thread)

In reply to ClemSparks :

Based off pictures, I think it will work.  There are lots of front suspensions on ebay for a reasonable price.  Might be worth it to just get one from a rust free area shipped in if I decide to go that route.  

I pulled a 3g alternator to use as a future upgrade. I didn't have a 15mm wrench.  It aint stupid if it works!

Pretty exciting action in the Logdog garage this weekend.  

The hi-beam switch was getting a little wonky.  During the rally I would often have to hit it a couple times to get it to react.  So I installed a new one.  Shiny!

Looks like the old one might have been the original 1982 Motorcraft part.

I also installed a new starter switch as the old one wasn't springing back as smoothly as it should.  It also appeared to be original

One of the biggest pains in driving the Candy Van were the super base model tiny mirrors.  These were smaller than the basic mirrors that were used on E series and F series all through the 80s that apparently came if you check at least one option on the vehicle.  Tiny mirrors with no windows made for some excitement at times.

I pulled a set of West Coast jr style mirror frames off another 3rd gen Econoline utility van.  These seemed to be OEM because the brackets fit the door much nicer than universal ones Ive seen.  The mirrors themselves were junk but the frames were good.  

At the junkyard-

They had some pitting but the van isnt perfect anyway.  I cleaned them up, painted them light Ford Tractor grey and used some mirrors off an Isuzu box truck that was in the junkyard.  The nice thing about this style bracket is there are tons of mirror options since they clamp on.

All pretty and installed.

Somewhere along the way I lost one of the gaskets for the mirror.  Luckily the original gasket was wide enough I cut a new one from the same material.

The size difference between the mirrors is huge.  The new ones dont stick out much further, but the cover a lot more ground!

I ordered a whole weatherstrip set recently.  I havent installed any of the doors (with the glue on style I know it will be a pain) but we did install the new runchannels and window felts.  The old glass just flopped and banged while driving that these took priority.  The old ones were so brittle they came out in pieces.

The need a little final massaging but they do the job.

And keeping with the theme that all my cars end up with Honda parts on them, the widow regulators are now held in with 6mm Civic bolts scavenged from the Chumpcar build.  Ford and their stupid rivets....

I gotta figure something out for the old mirror holes.  They are chewed up and had various sizes screws crammed in them.  I assume as the sheet metal fatigued the mirrors would get loose and a bigger screw was installed to fix it.  Long term it would be great to weld the shut and fix it right, but in the short term I will likely find some stainless button head screws and stick them in.  Mrs Logdog suggested a big piece of Diamond plate since we have the chunks we pulled off the Jeep and nothing makes a vehicle look better than lots of diamond plate*

*based on survey of my Dad's peer group 

Did a little Pennsylvanning today.  First time its been out since we got back from Alabama. 

In reply to logdog :

How's the shifter feel out on the road now that you have a few miles on it?

Indy-Guy said:

In reply to logdog :

How's the shifter feel out on the road now that you have a few miles on it?

Amazing!  It actually has positive engagement with no wigging.  Its by far the easiest shifting 3 on the tree Ive ever driven.  Of course all the others had worn shifters as well so take that for what its worth. :)

logdog said:

I gotta figure something out for the old mirror holes.  They are chewed up and had various sizes screws crammed in them.  I assume as the sheet metal fatigued the mirrors would get loose and a bigger screw was installed to fix it.  Long term it would be great to weld the shut and fix it right, but in the short term I will likely find some stainless button head screws and stick them in.  Mrs Logdog suggested a big piece of Diamond plate since we have the chunks we pulled off the Jeep and nothing makes a vehicle look better than lots of diamond plate*

Maybe some sort of decal could cover up the square spot and the four holes...Like a faux inspection sticker or something, I don't know (nothing illegal, just something that looks like it should be there.)

The Crown Vic suspension dreams died as I took a couple measurements and it looks like the 82 E100 frame is between 3-4 inches wider that the Vic (I saw a couple different numbers out there on the interwebs).  Not saying its impossible  but it wouldn't be the bolt in like a F100.

But anyway, some Pennsylvanning pictures from this weekend...

16 tires make a lot of squeaks!

What do you call a horse with too much oversteer?  An Appaloosa!

The Candy Van got called into duty to provide air compressor power and light for some trailer prechecks since horse show season starts this weekend.

They are not the permanent solution, but I stuck some stainless screws in the old mirror holes.  Obviously my first choice was some sweet anodized red or blue JDM-yo! hardware but I went with some of the finest stainless steel screws from Home Depot.  Not just any Depot though, these were imported from beautiful and exotic Hartford Connecticut where I spent the last week for work.  Regular ol Pennsylvania screws would not be good enough.  I needed ones with the spirit of nutmeg in them!

Still need to try and hit the paint with some sort of cleaner/polish/magic dust to see if I can get the marks from the old mirror reduced.

Since 75-91 vans are getting pretty rare here is Rustslyvannia, one of the things I do is periodically check the online inventory at a few junkyards.  If one shows up (which isn't that often) and I am in the area (I travel a lot for work) I try and swing by to see if there is anything cool on it.  2 buck entry for a stroll through the graveyard is always money well spent. Many times there is nothing remotely usable due to van condition or someone beating me to the good stuff.  

A few days ago I saw this-

I took a look and it was a conversion van that had something I have been keeping my eyes open for....Rotating captain's chair mounts!  Ten years ago you could walk into any yard and find them but conversions vans are getting thin in general and finding ones with the rotating mounts is even harder.  This is actually the first set I have found since I bought the Candy Van and to have what should be the right mount to avoid drilling is all the better!  

Here they are in front of the donor.  They have some surface rust.  They look worse in the pictures than they do in real life.

Since my van is a super base model, there is no sway bar.  I want to add an OEM one but most of the vans I have seen either had damaged, or missing ones.  This van had a bar in good shape.  Getting the brackets for the control arms is another problem.  They are usually heavily rusted and getting the arm apart looks to be a lot of trouble without a red wrench.  I grabbed the bar itself off this van in hopes I can find the arm brackets later.  I will be in California again soon and if my schedule allows I am going to try and grab some there.  The last trip west was pretty productive.

Not too exciting, but here it all is.  Those mounts got danged heavy as I was carrying them out.  Shoulda brought a wagon....

Wow that's some unicorn  quality scores right there!  A little clean-up and those brackets will be great.