WillMartin

The funniest (to me) lifetime no-maintenance item was the shaft drive on BMW motorcycles. BMW decided that they had engineered the perfect system and included no drain or filler on the shaft drive. 60K miles later, there were a whole lot of BMW touring bikes with failed shaft drives. BMW never admitted that it was an issue, but they did start putting drain and filler plugs on those again. German engineers are always right, y'know.

Yeah, I'm not used to the kind of awe inspiring acceleration a TC is capable of. It's a truly intimidating performance beast.

If your paint is going to come in contact with petroleum products, the usual stuff will not be any good. You can get catalyzed clear coat that solves the problem. It's expensive and you have to use the whole aerosol can once you start, since it will set up like epoxy. I figured this out when fuel ate the paint on my race bike's tank.

A mid-engine, rear drive TC would be the idea, as you say. It's only a matter of time before non-automatic vehicles and vehicles with gasoline engines are relics like steam tractors. Beats me how long before that happens.

$1200 per tire? They should make me a better person for that price!

You got good priorities.

I get my speed yayas out on the motorcycle. I drive the van like an old man, which is kinda what I am these days. The tires that are on it are awful! It needs side windows and a backup camera before my wife will drive it, but I think it needs tires before I want her driving it, too. She has a bit of a jerky driving style that will break traction too easily with the tires that are on this thing. If I can break traction so easily when I'm trying to drive smoothly, it will be messy with a driver who just stabs the accelerator and brakes and yanks the wheel.

The latest tank was a 24 mpg (US gallons) tank even with the boneheaded driver turning off O/D for about 50 miles. I can imagine it may have got closer to 25. After a Chevy Express, I'm completely happy with the fuel economy it gets.

This is exactly it. I have no urge to deal with mechanical issues these days. If I had a lift, maybe, but I don't and don't have anywhere to put one. I have done service work in the street off and on over the years, and still do it on occasion, but if I never turned another wrench, my ego wouldn't be offended.

Yeah, there's those two spares bolted to the floor. Weight distribution? I can think of better ways to do that and avoid cluttering up the cargo area, but they can always be unbolted and stashed back behind the barn. A sleeper TC would be an absolute hoot. I bracket raced a '73 Chevy van a few times, just because I was in the right place at the right time. It would rumble up to the line for the first pass, and the serious guys would look nervously at it as though it might have been fast or something. Then it ran a 21 second quarter at exactly 64 mph. It didn't matter what I did. That's what it would do. It was the perfect bracket car. It wasn't a sleeper, but I sure got a kick out of the confused and slightly uneasy looks it got before it was completely obvious it was slow as a post. A sleeper TC would get the same kind of confused looks, only it would be fast. That would be even better. It would have to start with a TC with 350k miles on it, since there's no point in cutting apart a new one. That's the hot rodder way of doing things anyway. My TC will get nicer wheels and maybe stripes if I can convince my wife. Other than that, it's purpose is pure utility and if it's slow, it's slow.

Dayum! That would be fun. I have thought stuffing a big V8 in the cargo area to turn one into a Q-ship would be a lot of fun. Expensive and useless as a van, but it would surprise just about everyone who argued with it. One of those from Ford would not be as stupid fast, but it would still be usable as a van. Which means it could be rationalized. That's the key to getting it into the garage. Nope, not a hot-rod, just a van...

And what sizes are available. The stock wheels are going to go when the tires that are on my van go. They spun up again today, and it was mostly dry. They are absolutely awful tires. I'm guessing that the Firestones that are on my van are a step down from the original Contis, if that's what Ford put on TCs in 2009 when mine was built.

Yep. My plate is screwed to the back of the van using self-drilling sheet metal screws for exactly this reason. The front plate is screwed on with the wrong screws forced into the plastic mounting bracket. Neither is going anywhere, and fortunately, neither has to go anywhere until the van is sold sometime in the distant, I hope, future.

I usually beat the EPA city estimate and don't beat the EPA highway estimate. Combined is a crap shoot.

I had a site inspection out of town this morning and managed to hit the button on the bottom of the transmission shift handle that turns off the overdrive gear. I didn't realize the button was there. The light on the dashboard was pretty clear about what was going on, as was the rpm level at freeway speed. Turning the van off and then back on again solved the problem, but I also looked it up in the owner's manual. Big as life it shows you how to turn the overdrive off and then back on. DOH! Live and learn. I thought it was pretty funny once it was sorted. If anybody is amused, then good. If not, then I'm just kinda dumb and have a weird sense of humor.

I routinely see first gen TCs for sale around here with more than 200K on them. One had over 300K. Miles, not KM. I don't know their service histories. I wouldn't buy one with that many miles, but I'm not you.

I see lots of all of them around Seattle. I hardly saw any in Los Angeles. Beats me what that tells you.

Last fill up - 21 mpg. I was expecting a bit more, but then that tank included hauling PA gear and some other heavy stuff. The van was stacked to the ceiling with equipment. It did just fine, which made me happy.

That is quite the herd! I have a similar herd, except it's bass guitars. They take up less space, and my wife is not prone to telling me a need to get rid of one. For what it's worth, she was all for it when I bought my TC. She was funny about selling the Chevy van it replaced, too. She couldn't wait until I got rid of the one I had before, but the one the TC replaced was one she actually liked. Go figure. I like the blue paint on the one you got. That's a beautiful color.

The tires on my van are not Contis. They are Firestone tires of some kind, and they are loud! They hunt around pretty badly on grooved pavement and when the road is rutted, as it often is here. Studded tires kill the roads and then kill windshields when the road gets kicked up, but that's a different issue. Stock size won't be an issue because the van has a new set of wheels waiting to go on when it gets tires. I'm just too cheap to throw away a set of tires, even crappy tires, that have way too much life left in them. Maybe it's time to get over it and look into Pirellis. If they are about the right size and can take the 49 psi pressure Ford says the back tires should have, then they sound like the way to go even if they are expensive.

Thinking about this a little more - 2010 was during the time when all kinds of paint was moving to low VOC sealants. It didn't work as well as the stuff that kills everything for a while, and Transit Connects are not the only thing that had paint problems. Rickenbacker guitars were notorious for paint bubbling in the 2000s for a while. I think the paint chemistry problem has been solved now, but it sure wasn't for a while.

I assume the Firestone tires on my van are OEM. They are five years newer than the van, but it was county owned before I got it, and I suspect they just bought tires every five years from the dealership. There's no way they could have been worn out from mileage. So, here's the question. I get a lot of wheelspin from a standing start on hills when it's wet. This is unusual, since I don't drive hard. Is this normal, or do these tires just suck?

I have not lost one. Yet. I'm amazed at how easily the front wheels spin up on a wet road. But, even with wheel spin, no lost cover. Yet.

And to you all a Happy New Year.

Over the years, I have heard all of the bad jokes about vans and "free candy" signs. Mine has a different sign. It says "free champagne." I go for a different demographic. I think there's the potential for a beautiful friendship with Rick in Casablanca.