Back in March while I was working in Texas, Vigo and my wife convinced me to buy this ugly van. It was a LWB C/V that was converted to a conversion van by a company called RoadRunner. Vigo and I drove 5 hours from San Antonio to Dallas and drove this thing back. I ended up having to go back to MD and then bought a house in PA. Life got in the way of me coming back down when I wanted to. So when I got settled into my house I made plans with Vigo to come back down and do a 5 speed swap to the van and drive it home.
Pic of the van when we picked it up.
When I was still in Texas last time we did some small mods to it. We advanced the timing, added a larger TB, and knocked the plenum divider out of the lid. While I was gone Vigo had some students of his change my rear shocks and do some small maintenance work on it for me.
We started on the Friday I landed and after some issues finished on Monday. I started my drive on Tuesday and made it home Wednesday night. 1650 miles mostly problem free. It got 24MPG at 80 MPH. When rain forced me to go 60MPH it got 27MPG which I think is insane for a van.
Before we got started, this was a perfectly running 3.0 41TE van that got 18 MPG.
And we started taking it apart.
Pre heating the bobble strut bracket
Boogered on
Had to modify this to work in the van
We only had the pedal parts for a car. We both assumed the shafts and pedals were the same. The shaft was juuuust the right length if we put a bolt and washer on the end.
And we ended up modifying the stock brake pedal to work in the van.
Turns out the cable we used had tii much slack. So Vigo positioned it and then mashed a nut on the cable to keep the tension correct.
Getting the 5 speed ready for re entry
I eye balled the shifter position and we mounted it. I don't have any pictures of the spacers we found and used to get the height correct for the console. I also don't have a picture of the console cleaned up.
It's a little funny looking with both shifters in it. My wife thinks the auto shifter is funny and wants to keep it.