Beta Don

Several disadvantages too. Here in the US, diesel is much more expensive than gas. Refueling is a smelly affair and you'll need to wash your hands at a minimum when you're through. You really need to stay on top of filters and the water separator - Diesels don't like even a tiny bit of water. When they're running fine, they're great, but when they aren't, repairs are expensive. Diesel fuel doesn't behave well in very cold temperatures, so they are better in warmer climates. You pick your poison and you live with the advantages/disadvantages I read online last week that Ford has dropped the diesel option for 2020 TC's in North America, largely due to the economy/emissions issues Don

You will need a Torx T-15 screwdriver to remove the four screws holding the IPC to the dash. The top two screws will be obvious when the top cover is removed. The bottom two are hidden behind a removable cover that clips to the dash and the steering column with a bit of vinyl in between - That one can be a bit tricky to get disconnected from the steering column. Use extreme care not to drop either of the bottom screws into the bowels of the dash, where they might never be found again! Don

Congrats!! It's not a time consuming swap - Most of us do it twice. Once to make sure the used IPC works correctly before you send it off to have the odometer mileage corrected to your TC's actual mileage and then again when you get it back. The install only takes half an hour or so Don

Fortunately every little FWD Japanese import comes from the factory engineered exactly that way - With both the front *and* rear 'under control.' To think that an 18 year old kid with $100 burning a hole in his pocket is actually improving anything by bolting on a wing or a set of huge rear tires is just . . . . ludicrous! By the time he's 24 or 25 with his own engineering degree, he'll look back at the pictures of his old car and realize just how much he still had to learn Don

IMO, most 'affordable' aftermarket wheels are probably not as strong as the steel wheels you want to replace, so when it came rime to 'upgrade' the wheels on mine, I looked at alloy wheels which came stock on other Ford vehicles. When I found a set I liked which were of the correct size, width and offset, I started looking for a good used set on eBay. I ended up with a like new set for about $200 USD, which included shipping. They already had the TPMS sensor mounts, so swapping over the sensors from my stock wheels was very easy - Just 1 screw on each sensor. The alloys really improved the look of my TC and since they're OEM Ford wheels, I'm confident they're at least as strong as the steel wheels I replaced Don

Anyone with a 2014 or '15 who wants to do the Instrument Cluster Upgrade, I've found what may be a real bargain Check out eBay auction #183875395861. This is a Titanium TC which should have the upgraded IPC (Don R ran the VIN & says it *should be* correct) . . . . but they don't have a picture of the cluster, nor the part number for it in the auction. They say it only has 15,000 miles on it and the price is $79 OBO with free shipping, so maybe they'd take $65 or so for it. I would contact the seller first and see if they will send you a picture of it and/or the part number from the back of the IPC. If the part number ends in -Uxx, it's the correct one and if the picture shows the larger screen and the chrome trim around the speedo and tach, it's also the correct one. Good luck . . . . this is a super price for a very hard to find part. Hope someone on the forum gets it!! Don

If you can find the space for them, the biggest bang for your buck in 'house' batteries is a pair of 6 volt golf cart batteries wired in series for 12 volts. They will provide about 200 amp hours and conservatively discharging them to 50% gives you 100 amp hours of 'usable' power - That would power your ice maker for several hours and would probably run your ventilation fan for a week or more. They do make AGM golf cart batteries which contain no liquid acid and are not vented, but they are expensive. You can mount them anywhere you can find a suitable nook though because you never have to check the water level in them. I've used golf cart batteries and other 6 volt batteries (primarily L-16's, which are 'double' golf cart sized) in sailboats for many years and they are an excellent power source for inverters when the engine isn't running. I have a 750 watt inverter in my TC which is powered off the engine battery, but I did replace the small starting battery with a larger AGM battery Don

120 watts is 10 amps from a 12 volt cigarette lighter plug. If you're running it from an inverter powered by the vehicle battery, the inverter will draw a bit more than 10 amps from the battery because inverters are not 100% efficient. I wouldn't leave your ice maker running for too long without the engine running or you may not be able to restart the engine Don

With modern vehicles, many times there is no 'wire' you can tap into for the signals you want. When I installed a Pioneer Nav receiver in my 2014, the only way to get those signals was to use an 'adapter' made for the receiver I was installing. The signals are on the vans CanBus and the adapter picks them off and sends them to the receiver Don

My best is 30 also - Under similar conditions to those you mentioned. My worst was 24, but that was pulling a trailer. We don't use the TC as a daily driver, so there are no around town miles on ours - We have electric cars for that duty Don

For anyone wanting to do this upgrade, there are a couple IPC's on eBay right now you might want to check out To give you some idea of just how rare these upgraded ones are, for 2014/15 there are about 100 IPC's listed, but only one which is the one you want and as usual, the seller has no idea it's any different from any other, as he has 3 or 4 listed for sale, all for $170 and all but one of them are the 'ordinary' ones you can buy for $50 or less. The one we're interested in is Item #192803763664 There's also one 2016 unit, Item # 192933882407 and it's priced at $96. All of the upgraded ones have a chrome strip around the speedo and tach, so they're pretty easy to spot, but double check to make sure the part number suffix is -Uxx Don

I've never driven a Dodge - At least not anything they've made in the past 25 years. Deal breakers? FCA - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, NV Don

I haven't done this (yet) but here's a thought you may be interested in There are rubber plugs covering oval shaped holes in the roof which could be used as the foundation to build on. My thought was to permanently install studs in 4 or 6 of the holes (for either two or three crossbars) which I could use to quickly install or remove pieces of channel across the width of the van - Make them any width you like, even a bit wider than the van if needed Remove the headliner, take out the rubber plug, install a 3 inch stainless bolt with the head inside the van, a large stainless fender washer, a rubber washer and some sealant on the inside and then on the top side of the roof, more sealant, a rubber washer, another stainless washer and then a stainless nut - Sandwich all that down tight. Then you have about 2 1/2 inches of a 3/8ths stainless stud (times 4 or 6) permanently sticking up - Paint them the color of your van if the 'look' bothers you Run an aircraft locking nut down far enough on the stud so when you mount the crossbar, you have enough threads left for another locking nut on the top. I would use standard Unistrut for the crossbars, as there are all kinds of commercial hardware which fit Unistrut you can use for mounting anything you like to your new channels. Installing or removing a Unistrut crossbar would only take a minute or two. Design a floor (3/4 plywood or similar) which bolts to the 2 or 3 crossbars and you have a base for your tent on top of the van . . . . and you haven't spent anywhere near $600 or $800 bucks. Run a power wire up through another one of the unused plugs while you have the headliner down and you have power for lights and fans in your tent Don

The airbags aren't even blown - It's amazing how little damage it takes to total one of these vans! Don

I think the only sure fire swap that works without any issues is to get another engine from a Gen 1 TC. If you can cut & weld and do a bit of programming, I think other swaps may be possible, but you will run into issues that you'll need to resolve Someone on the forum here quite awhile ago bought a Gen 2 TC *and* a manual transmission 2.0 Focus turbo just so he could swap the engine and manual trans into the TC. He shipped both vehicles across the country and hired a professional shop to do all the work. We were able to follow along on his progress here . . . . for several months. They successfully overcame one issue after another over a period of 6 months or so . . . . and then they dropped off the radar. I *assume* they did eventually get the conversion completed and now he has what must be one of very few high performance manual transmission Gen 2 TC's in the USA . . . . but they never came back and told us about it. I *hope* he got it running successfully, because he sure had a small fortune in the conversion, having bought 2 vehicles and paid a professional shop to do several months of work Good luck with your swap! Don

*Usually* all that's needed is the removal of a small amount of material at the very leading and trailing edges of the brake shoe and this *should happen* pretty quickly just by driving it - Don't try using a bit of the handbrake to hasten the process or you risk overheating things and possibly warping your new drums. I would guess inside of a few hundred miles it will be gone and you will probably notice it getting better before that. I really doubt you're going to damage the wheel bearings Don

Virtually anything's possible, with enough time, skill and $$$ - But, what's the point in investing any of those in a chassis with 280K already on it? I'd buy something a little newer and invest my time in that Don

When installing new shoes into new drums, it's a good bet that the shoes do not exactly fit the curvature of the drum. It used to be that shops which worked on drum brakes had the special tools to grind away a bit of the lining on the brake shoes so they they perfectly matched up with the curvature of the drum. Now days, with so few vehicles still using drum brakes, finding a shop which still has the tools to do a proper job might be quite difficult. That is, unless you took it to a shop which specializes in quality brake work. Your 'average mechanic' probably doesn't have the tools to do it right - If he did, he would have fixed it properly when you returned it, assuming he knew much about drum brakes Don

Yes, the same airbag fits both wheels. Since you already have audio controls, you already have all the switches possible - The new leather wrapped wheel will be the same, electrically - Everything you have now should be the same with the new wheel, nothing added Don

just what everyone needs - A truck where you have to carry around a stepladder to get into and out of it. Very practical There ought to be a law where bumpers must match up, at least somewhat, rather than a bumper that takes out the windshield on a normal car when they collide Don

Keep in mind that there are other (IMO better, certainly cheaper) ATF fluids than Ford Mercon you can use which don't immediately turn black - The Mercon I removed at 25,000 miles was a pretty normal color, definitely not black. I would be more than a bit worried if my trans dump was the color shown in the pictures . . . . and I would change it more often that however many miles it took for it to get THAT color I used Castrol Transmax Full Synthetic and I paid $5 a quart for it with free shipping from Advance Auto Parts. I bought 16 quarts the first time and then 12 more to have for future changes while it was on sale for $5. There are half a dozen different Transmax fluids, but if you buy the one that says "Ford Approved for Marcon LV applications" on the label, you've got the correct one. Mercon LV is waaaaay overpriced for what it is, IMO, but I'm sure Ford appreciates you donating your $$$ Adding a trans cooler to a Gen 2 TC would not be an easy project and would be of little benefit (IMO) unless you're regularly towing heavy loads in hot climates. Regular fluid changes would be a bigger bang for your buck to keep your trans in good condition, again, IMO Don

You didn't mention how many miles are on your van, but if your ATF was 'jet black' some damage may have already been done. If the change was only 3 or 4 quarts, it may still be pretty close to black next time too - It holds about 8 quarts, but more than half of it is trapped in the torque converter, so the only way to get all the old stuff out is with multiple changes, running the engine in between changes. I used 16 quarts to do mine the first time I changed it . . . . at 25,000 miles Ford says the OEM fluid is supposed to last 150,000 miles, but many transmissions are shot long before then, so regular changes at least every 50K or so would be a very good idea. Your trans may perform fine with all new fluid once you get the level set correctly, which is no easy procedure either, thanks to Ford opting not to give us a dipstick. Most of what you need to know for a DIY fluid change is covered here in other threads. Good luck and hope it all works out! Don

My TC is a 2014. The correct part number for both 2014 and 2015 is DT-1T-10849-Uxx - The characters after the 'U' can be any letter. Mine was UCC. For a 2016, the 'D' at the beginning will be an 'F'. There are dozens of Gen 2 IPC's for sale all over the place, but the one you want is fairly scarce. That said, if you keep searching, you'll find one and good chance the seller won't know it's anything special. I paid $75 with free shipping while many on eBay are asking $50 more for the one with the tiny green screen Actually, Don found this one for me on eBay after I searched unsuccessfully - The seller had misspelled Transit Connect, so it didn't show in my search. I ordered another one earlier based solely on the part number from LKQ, but when it arrived, the tag on it had a correct part number, but the IPC itself was the same one already in my van. Look at the photos when you're shopping! You can see the chrome trim on the unit and also the larger screen clearly in any photo. The LKQ one I ordered showed only a generic IPC photo, which wasn't from a TC at all Good luck! - Well worth the time and trouble, IMO Don

Well, I haven't quite done 20 mods yet, but this one is easily the very best thing I've done so far! The new color digital screen is about twice as large as the old one if you measure it - It's lots wider and taller too, and MUCH more readable. As Don mentioned, it shows data that I didn't know was available before, but the BIG difference (for me) is how much easier it is to read your speed . . . . and like he said, I'll pat myself on the back every time I drive it from now on Kudos to Don for all the work he's done on this mod and all the other cool things he's done with his van and posted here too - I did the inverter installation using his tips too. I really didn't think I'd be capable of doing this one by myself, what with reprogramming with Forescan and all, but this is truly a 'plug and play' mod - Remove the old IPC, plug in the new one and everything works! - No programming needed at all Big thank you to Don! Don

Probably the most important thing to check before taking a trip is your tire pressure - All tires lose pressure over time and if you haven't checked them lately, it's very likely they are too low. The sticker on your drivers door jamb will tell you what the pressure should be. For a long trip on the freeway, I usually add 2 or 3 psi to the numbers listed there Don