WillMartin

It is indeed white. It looks like every other white gen 1 out there. I haven't done much of anything to make it more interesting yet, but that's coming. First step is the ordinary stuff, like replacing the opaque panels in the sliding doors with windows so I can navigate in Seattle without sideswiping anybody. There are too many odd angle intersections and back in parking on streets to have vision over your shoulder blocked. Then, stripes, wheels, and I'm not sure what else. Then pictures.

I'll have to take a look at that. It might work.

I just bought a gen 1. The high roof is a plus, and I'll take my chances with the maintenance issues. I'm hoping it doesn't go through wheel bearings and transmissions, and the fuel mileage isn't much better. The motorcycle won't quite get into a gen 2, but would get into a Promaster City. So, it was a gen 1 or a Promaster City anyway. This is all for what it's worth.

First more or less full fill-up today. I thought the tank was 16 gallons, and it probably is. The gauge that says how many miles before you run out of fuel said I had about 30 miles left, and the tank only took 12.8 gallons, and that was after I overfilled it really badly. So, probably more like 12.5 or less. It went 262 miles on the tank, so it got more than 20 mpg. I'm surprised and happy about that. Even better, it seems to have had stale fuel in it, because it's idling smoother now.

Thank you. I would assume the process is the same for Gen 1 as well.

I'm currently using Bosch Icon wipers. I have had good results with them in the past, and they aren't much more outrageously overpriced than any other aftermarket wiper.

Well, I bought the light housing and the wiring. I hope some of the wiring is still there. Then I'll have to figure out how to remove the bumper cover. It looks like a lot of disassembly and reassembly, but pretty straight forward otherwise. Then on to the next thing - a jack. Why would a jack go missing? Who knows, but it did.

More endless drizzle city. It rains harder sometimes, but not all that often.

I'm happily a climate wimp. Having lived in the midwest and on the east coast, and having spent plenty of time in the deep south, I don't miss the cold, and I don't miss the heat and humidity. We don't even get downpours all that often. What we get is endless mist, which means wiper blades get a lot of use, and the rain doesn't wash things off as thoroughly as it would if it came down hard. So, we get through wiper blades. It's a small price to pay to live in a habitable climate.

I need to lubricate the door slides, but that's not the rattling and squeaking I'm getting. There's a bit of klunking coming from the sliding doors, and a weird squeak from the rear axle under braking first thing in the morning. Maybe the brakes are an issue for that second one. There's also an assortment of light plastic buzzes and rattles from the dashboard, but I really can't complain too much about that kind of thing from an eight year old commercial vehicle.

Especially with those sexy white letters.

It all looks and sounds pretty straight forward. I looked at the date codes on the sidewalls just for grins. Turns out my tires were new in 2015. Gotta love government maintenance. I guess the tires were five years old, and Monterrey County decided that the van needed new tires, whether they had tread left or not. It may be a year or two before I mount the new wheels and get new tires, mostly because I'm too much of a cheapskate to throw away what look like practically brand new tires. Turns out P215/60R16 is a slightly unusual tire size, especially with close to correct load and pressure ratings.

Absolutely. That's the kind of brilliant thinking that seems completely obvious once somebody thinks of it. But, it took a really creative person to do that.

I hear you about the information. I have been here about a week, and know far more about the "new" van than I ever did about the one it is replacing.

I'm just now about halfway through the first full tank of fuel. It had about a half tank when I got it, and I filled it the rest of the way with fresh fuel to at least dilute the fuel that was in it. I don't know how long it had been sitting, but it will probably be happier once this tank is gone and it has completely fresh gasoline. So, half a tank of half stale fuel, and it's getting about 20 mpg in mixed highway and lousy Seattle traffic jams. That's 20 wimpy little US gallons for those of you who are used to calculating in Imperial gallons with 20 ounce pints. Not as bad as Fifty's mileage, but not so great, either. It's a whole lot better than the mileage the Chevy was getting, so I can't complain too much. My wife likes it so far, and that's a big plus. She says it's not drafty, like the big van. She doesn't feel majestic, surveying the world from up high, but it feels a little more regal than her Prius C. It sure is smaller than the Chevy. All the random stuff that just disappeared into the Chevy takes up a lot of room in the Ford. I have to get rid of some of it, like the emergency kit for the big earthquake we probably won't survive anyway.

Thanks! I'll look into doing that.

Absolutely. I mounted and balanced tires on the race bike on a regular basis, and never had any issues. At the kinds of speeds you go while racing, imbalance would show up right away. As I recall, there were times when no weights were necessary, and most of the time, very few. Put the weights as close to the centerline of the wheel and life is usually good. The difference is that motorcycle tires are small and light relative to car or truck tires. I never want to deal with a car or truck tire myself. I'm proudly a lazy old man.

I'll probably put 215/60R16 tires on the wheels, since that's about as close to the stock diameter as possible without going smaller. The speedo is already a little optimistic. As far as the pressure sensors, I have never had a vehicle with those before. How do they mount? I don't see any secondary holes in the Focus wheels. Are they part of the valve assembly? Also, can the existing sensors be reused at all, or are they part of the existing wheel in a way that makes that impossible?

That's not the one that's missing. It's the right front corner marker light that's mounted in the bumper. I assume I'm going to have to remove the bumper to get at it, which is a bit of a bummer to me, since the repair work has been done. Taking off the bumper is probably pretty straight forward, but I haven't taken apart a rubber bumper cover before, so I'm a little cautious about just tearing into it without knowing what I'm doing. As a 16 year old, all was fair game. More than 40 years later, not so much!

Question for people who swapped out wheels and tire: what tires did you use? I just looked at the recommended tire pressures for my van and it says 36 psi front 49 (!) psi rear. What pressures are you using on the new tires?

My new to me TC had body damage when I got it, including a missing right side marker light on the front corner. I figured it wouldn't be that tough to replace. Only problem is that the wiring was apparently torn off when whatever happened to it happened. I have to get the lens and housing that fits, but the wiring doesn't have to be anything special so long as it works. Any suggestions for the socket or what else to use? Ford wants almost $50 for five inches of wire and a socket.

My experience with gearing changes is with motorcycles on the race track, but it applies to tire diameter changes. Assuming you aren't getting into wheel slip, frictional losses, and all kinds of other stuff that gum up the calculations. I put lower gearing on a Triumph TT600 that I had back in the early zeros. Stock, it would run out of steam on a long straight as well as have somewhat anemic acceleration from the low end. It was a 600 cc motorcycle, so running out of steam is all relative, and once you got into the power band, it ran like a scalded cat. With lowered gearing (bigger rear sprocket), it ran higher rpm, which gave it better performance at the low end, and ironically, gave it a better top end as well. It was in the power band a little better at the top with the gearing change. No apparent change in fuel mileage on the street, either. Once I got into full on racing, and not just track days, gearing was set up to run out of revs at the end of the fastest part of the fastest track I was likely to run on, and it was a dedicated race bike, so I wouldn't know what kinds of effects the gearing had on it anywhere on a public road. All things are never equal, and what I learned on the bike may be completely wrong for anything else. I bring it up because it shows that what seems like the logical conclusion isn't always correct.

They are five lug Focus wheels, and they look identical to those as far as I can tell from ratty eBay photos. I don't know what I was looking at - probably just Fusion wheels and got fouled up with a brain cramp. They are 16x7 like yours, which means they ought to work just fine. They are a little scuffed, but that's not a huge issue for me. At root, it's a hauler, not a show car. I have been thinking about how to lay out stripes and then how to accomplish them. I'll probably take it to a real car painters, since I want it to look better than I'm likely to achieve in the driveway with rattle cans or tape. That means it won't happen until sometime next year, after it gets side door windows and a backup camera. The bike and my musical instruments are supposed to be the mistress, not the van. What am I thinking!

When I went to put plates on mine, I found that the insert in the body just spun. So, I used four tek screws and four electrical device spacers to install the plate. The tek screws are self-drilling, and the spacers keep the plate from rattling on the bodywork. I drilled four new holes in the back door to mount the plate, but so it goes. The plate will never, ever fall off.

I don't know where he got glass, but Speedy Auto Glass out here will do one for about $325. That includes the glass and labor. This lazy man thinks it's just fine to pay somebody else to do the work. Besides, I usually screw it up a couple times, so it's money well spent.