Well, since I now have an alternate method of transportation, I decided to get a number of things done on my van that I had been meaning to do for a while.

I was basically forced to do something when a leak developed somewhere under the hood, I could smell and hear fuel leaking. Last thing I wanted was a fire.

I ordered new gaskets, and tore the engine down to the heads. I got all new valve cover gaskets, new intake gaskets upper and lower, 6 remanufactured flow matched injectors with new orings. I had the valve covers, thermostat housing, and intake professionally cleaned. I then painted the valve covers and thermostat housing in high temp old Ford blue.

The plastic coving on the wires was in bad shape it just crumbled when you bend or squeeze it. I couldn't get black cause the local Orielly's was out, so I went with red. I replace most of the plastic on the main engine harness. I also put the plastic covering over the two fuel lines.

The Accel coil pack I installed was of shoddy quality (I take it back, I no longer recommend Accel coilpacks) so I replaced it with a new Motorcraft. I already had Magnacore wires, so I didn't need to replace wires. But I did want to protect them, so I covered them with blue split tubing.

I replaced the Intake Air Temp sensor (element appeared damaged), and the IAC as well, seemed that it was due. I cleaned the throttle body as well. And I replaced most of the vacuum lines with new. Might as well while I was in there right?

I discovered that the tensioner pulley was starting to go, so I replaced it. I also removed the stock fan and fan clutch so that I can install a Flex A lite 3300 cfm electric fan. My setup has the electrical capacity to support an e-fan. The idea is to give me better cooling at low speeds, and get rid of the parasitic load at high speeds. The e-fan probably won't even come on at freeway speeds, freeing up power and economy. This is the highest rated single fan Flexalite makes, more than enough for a 4.0L Aerostar. It is meant to keep a 5.0L Mustang V8 cool. It also frees up a little space under the hood, the pulleys and belts are more accessible. Its not the only e-fan it will have, I have a pusher fan on the front that is activated by either temp or by the AC, which made a lot of difference in the AC performance at low speeds.

My intake tube had a split in it, and needed to be replaced, so I built a new one from the Spectre intake parts from Orielly's. it is basically a close duplicate of the stock tube.

I did run into a problem when all was said and done. For one, the e-fan controller was defective, so it failed to turn on. I am contacting Flexalite and the company I bought the fan from about getting a new one. I should hear back from them tomorrow. I also discovered the other idler pulley is squeaking a little bit, so I'll need to replace that too.

Well thats quite a mouthful, now time for pictures.

 

Wow! That's a lot of work.

I have a feeling the split tubing over the plug wires won't last very long due to the heat. I tried it once on a Jeep and it melted in no time at all.

 

dang i need to do all this to mine... any idea on how much the total bill was for all this maintenance?

 

very nice work kyanty.

 

The price tag? That would take me a while to figure out. I had been getting the parts for a while, a few here and there. It costs a bit. But hey, its no more than a couple car payments, so I figure I'm ahead of the game.

 

sweeeeeeet. i'm toying with the idea of a 4.0l swap into my star. would be more cost friendly since i'm having motor issues any ways. i hear you on the car payments part though.

would you be able to post up more pictures of how your grounds from the alternator to your battery are ran?

 

OK I AM ALL OVER DOING THIS TO OUR AERO! AWSOME!

 

Ok, I have some more pictures, I got a bit more done.

First, To answer DCRB's question on how the grounds are run to the battery. I purchased some gold plated battery clamps, and they have connections for various wires. The grounds are connected directly to the negative terminal. The ground goes from the battery to one of the bolts on the compressor, and from there has a one wire go to the bolt on the alternator, and a second cable goes to the chassis. This is in addition to the stock ground still being left in place.

Anyway, more pics. I fabricated some new brackets while I was waiting for a replacement fan controller. These brackets will hold my trans and PS coolers. I picked up a spare B&M plate cooler, and never used it. I wanted to put my stock grill back on. I had been running an aftermarket grill for a while because it gave me more clearance than the stock grill, which I needed for the pusher E-fans and the trans cooler, the way the cooler was installed. But now, I decided if I could put the cooler behind the bumper, I figured I could return to the stock grill. The problem was mounting. So I fabricated some mounts with some aluminum strips and the left over brackets from the main e-fan.









I repainted my stock grill with a textured black, (which is actually more of a dark grey) since it needed a little restoration. And I figured that a dark grill would look nice, but also kinda rugged.





The fan controller finally showed up, installed it, it was defective too. So I sent it back, and went with a Hayden fan controller instead. It is cheaper built, but sometimes cheaper and simpler is better. The Flex-A-Lite controller has features I wouldn't use anyway, and uses relays inside, in addition to the thermostatic switch. The Hayden is just a high amperage thermostatic switch, so fewer parts, fewer parts that could potentially fail.

The van is finally back on the road, and working well I might add. It seems to runner better than it has in a long while. The 3300 CFM e-fan works well, seems to move plenty of air, and unlike the stock fan, it runs at full speed when stopped at a light. When the vehicle is not moving is when the cooling is needed most. The fan only comes on when the coolant going into the radiator gets hot enough. It is wired such that it will run even if the ignition is off, which seems kinda weird, except that does allow the van to cool faster when it is shut off, which should reduce wear and tear on hoses and belts. It only runs for maybe 30 seconds or so till it gets rid of enough heat. By the same token, it does not come on right away when the van is started, and I still need to fine tune the adjusted temperature, but it won't need to come on when the van is on the highway.

Uhm, I need to do something about that battery.

I still need to replace the multifunction switch, and I want to add some sound deadening to the inside, since I got my Taurus, is makes me realize how noisy the interiors of these vans are. I mostly get a lot of tire roar, and I just want to see what I can do about it. I was thinking of starting with some underbody coating. Then I was going to look at using some kind of sound deadening inside the door panels. But thats another story for another day.

 

I chopped out some of the depth of the stock grille, not because I needed the depth, but they seemed to block too much of the opening. I increased the opening area by doing that, but also removed about 3/4" of depth from those slats, so I now have the space to install pusher fans if I wanted to.

 

Thats not a bad idea. The pusher fans are noisy though. I think just a good single fan on the rad should be more than enough. You could add an AC clutch operated trigger as well. I went with the pushers a while ago, at the time I had no intention of replacing the stock fan. Since I am running both systems, it does add a certain amount of redundancy, which is good to prevent a problem due to a fan failing. But not really needed.

For the record, the fan I used to replace the stock fan was a Flex-A-Lite model 180. It is large enough to cover most of the radiator, and is rated to 3,300 CFM.

 

khan, why not go with an optima or another dry cell equivalent?

 

Excellent work! That is one ugly battery though

Why not relocate your new one to the rear and get some more weight over the drive wheels? These guys at MAD Enterprises sell a kit and provide a nice diagram on how it's done.

 

All the wheels are drive wheels on a AWD. Where in the back would you stick the battery? Most anywhere would impinge on the cargo space.

Thanks for the ideas. Just for reference, I'm pretty sure most late-model Crown Vics use just one e-fan. I read somewhere one PD's procedure for a chase-keeping going till the perp's car overheats. My Windstar has two big e-fans on it, and it doesn't seem to ever overheat, even with front and rear air on.

 

This fan I went with is plenty adequate, I guess I just get paranoid because my sisters head gasket blew after it overheated because a fan relay failed while she was stuck in slow moving traffic on a hot day. That has always been my fear of relying on a efan. I guess I just need to get over paranoia.

I will let you know if there are any economy benefits. I'll bet there will be, because I do a lot of highway driving. But thats a hard compare, because I also did a lot of other work, much of which can result in increased economy.

I'll tell you what, these improvements and mods, most of which are just extensions of maintenance, did result a noticeable increase in power. The biggest improvement was probably the injectors, the old ones were sad looking.

 

Just took the fan on its first major trip. It was 618 miles round trip. The van performed flawlessly, other than some voltage fluctuations that must be due to the battery. It always cranks just fine, but something must be wrong, because intermittently, the voltage will drop the jump back up. The connections seem to be good, so I bet it is shorting out internally.

The electric fan works great around town, and I got the temperature set properly, so it rarely even turns on when I'm on the freeway.