It's not my trailer, else I would rewire it without a second thought... Also, used it to move my roommate out, got it loaded down with his belongings (which weigh WAY less than mine), and struggled to maintain 55mph. Am I going to be stopped for going 50mph in the far right lane in the states I will be going through (IL, KY, TN, GA, FL)?

And, I took a look at the trailer wiring and found and repaired a spot where the insulation had been rubbed through and there were wires intermittently grounding to the frame, and during an hr long test, fuse did not blow. Think that could have been it?

Thanks for all the help, it is greatly appreciated.

 

I don't think they will bother you if you're going 50 in the slow lane. But if you go below that, you might want to run with your flashers on.

That's kind of what I was suspecting. If your trailer lights are all LED, they would not have added much additional load to the stock wiring. Now you can run those flashers if you need to. Good work!

 

Locally, when the heavens are trying to drown frogs, people will creep along the interstates with their flashers on. That is a "No-No" per the GHP. Flashers are to be used only for vehicles that are stopped.
I would make sure that there are some large, clean, well placed reflector strips on the rear of the trailer, and that the trailer tail lights were large and bright.
You are gonna have some FUN climbing out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, if memory serves. And there is another pretty good climb in KY, I think. Going down hill, you will get going too fast very quickly. Don't let the trailer try to pass on either side when you have to brake going around curves. Not fun.
tom

 

Absolutely! For my trailer's wiring, after sorting it all out, I got one of those things you can surround wiring with so that if there's any rubbing, it'll rub on it first while your wiring is safe inside. I want to call it a shroud - it's like the thing you surround pipes with to insulate, but made with harder, ribbed plastic.

I still had dim lights, they were better but I wanted it to be as bright as possible, so I got 2 LED bulbs from the internet ($20 a pair) and installed them as my stop/turn signal lights.

I noticed that in bright sunlight you'd have trouble determining if it's the parking lights or the brake lights that were on - the difference between them wasn't great, so, then I took the parking light wire and wired it to 2 smaller additional oval enclosures (LEDs) at the back, so there's no way of the driver behind me mixing them up.

 

Well, 1198 miles later, some realizations are had.

Turns out I had the front trans seal blow, smoked a little bit but never lost drive, and now that it sat overnight it seems to be just fine.

Managed to get 9.4 mpg @55mph, at least according to the computer. Dunno what actual mileage was.

Lights worked perfectly fine, fixing that short went to do it.

If I had to do it again, I will definitely get a trans cooler. Thanks for all the help, it is greatly appreciated.

 

I'd love to have several, specialized vehicles, but the reality of our insane auto insurance system is that the added cost to insure the 2nd (3rd, etc.) vehicle exceeds my savings in fuel for a gas-sipper commuter, so my Aeros have, for 13 years, been my compromise vehicle: I can haul, I can tow, I can commute.

 

I keep close track on mine. My '94 struggled to get good gas mileage, and now in hind sight I know why. I had done all the obvious stuff, alignment, proper pressure, proper gas, tune ups with proper replacement parts, etc. And yet it seemed to guzzle, rarely besting 16 mpg on a good day with no load, averaging upper 13s. It had a hitch but rarely towed. It seemed mysterious as to why it was really not great. Then I got my current '97 and it was slightly better, but it was hard to tell as it often had to haul even heavier loads.

Then I pulled my first heads off a 4.0L and found the terrible truth. On most of these, the heads are shot by 150,000 miles. The reason is simple. The seats are flame hardened cast iron, which mean the hardened portion is actually quite thin, once it wears through, the valves recess into the head and fail to seal properly. The heads are also very prone to cracking once the seats are shot.

Engines that have this kind of problem will seem to run fine, its hard to tell how much power they have lost, they will be down on power, its just hard to tell because it comes on so gradually. So don't mistake a lack of misfires as an indication that things are fine. The proper way is to compression test the engine, a quick and effective way to basically me sure of the engines health. Another weakness is the rockers, which are poorly lubricated. The rockers wear down, which prevents the valves from opening as fully as they should, which in turn reduces power, and may encourage you to compensate with additional throttle, which causes throttle enrichment, which reduces fuel economy.

My current '97 Aerostar can get between 11-13 mpg with a 4000 lbs load distributed between van and trailer in hilly mountainous country doing 75 mph (yes it will go up grades doing that kind of speed). Without a trailer, it can do as high as 21 mpg, not bad for an AWD. Its hard to really pin down an average though, since the tie of loads and hauling it does can vary. Just having the trailer really hurts economy, whether it is loaded or not. Going more than 70 mph also hurts economy. This is with new heads with better castings, steel alloy exhaust seat inserts, and new rockers. I'm also going to switch to a better synthetic oil to better protect the rockers, which are this engines second area of weakness next to the cheap heads. The bottom end of the engine is solid.

 

For the record, your trans will be cheaper to rebuild now that later. Yes, you need a better cooler, and you should not EVER tow in OD with a stock transmission. You can replace the seal, but if you plan on keeping the van, it is cheaper to rebuild a trans that has not failed than to wait till something actually breaks. Get a shift kit while you are at it, it really does make the A4LD almost bulletproof, as opposed to racking up frequent failure miles. I tow with overdrive, but I also have an excellent cooler, and a seriously beefed up 5R55e trans, and I disable it if I encounter a hill. I also tow with the cruise control on, the cruise on a '97 will not apply more than about 50% throttle, so it never downshifts or drops out of lockup. The cruise will shut off if it encounters something it cannot handle. The older Aerostars lack this feature, I think this feature probably showed up in the '96 model year. The owners manual should have more information on it.

 

I know it off topic but my old 94 explorer had same drivetrain in Aerostar.

For A4LD they are extremely easy to overheat that was factory tran cooler. Upgrade with advanced auto's biggest stack fin cooler they had. Huge improve no more hot fluid and no more sluggish feeling like it rev higher move slow. No more burnt fluid.

For mileage I rack up alot alot miles on that 1994 explorer in short time. 15K miles in only 3 months.
Mileage before I did anything. 7 after new MAF sensor and tune up 13-15. Couldn't find out why so low mileage. Turn out Cat convertor were CLOG big time and EGR valve were stuck open cause no power. After that it bought me 18-20 mpg in city.
Later FPR start leaking and mileage went down badly.


For tow I wish I never did. Tow 2K pound welder generator. After that it never got 20 mpg anymore. 13-15 with coolant pop out tank. Keep pop say oxygen sensor bad and #1 spark plug were white.

 

we should recalculate fuel costs: presently it is $3.94 in my area. Please don't blame Obama, let's blame OPEC and Wall Street, they are responsible for this ripoff.

 

If I drive carefully, I can get about 20 mpg on the highway with my extended length AWD. The trip computer always shows slightly higher mpg than when I calculate using the trip odometer and the actual fill-up amount. I think the trip computer is optimistic.

It's what happens when you have a captive customer base; you can jerk them around for fun and profit. It's been over $4/gal around here, though I saw it drop to below that for the first time in a couple of months last night. I only put about 5000 miles a year on my van, so I don't get hurt by the high gas prices as much as those who have to drive a lot more. I fill it up about once a month, and at the last fill-up, I got a sticker shock as the prices really shot up from the previous fill-up. So it does still hurt!

 

captive we are! we spent billions "liberating" Iraq and what do we get for our investment? nada, zero, zilch, not a drop of oil to reward Americans and we also had to send our people and pay them to turn off the fires in their oil fields. And now we are being punished for being "patriotic".

getting back to mileage: my '84 Jaguar has a trip computer which is also "optimistic-by-design" about letting you know how great your mileage is!

I think the bottom-line problem is that current fuels quickly evaporate the moment you fill your tank, must be the 10% alcohol, or the lack of lead, I don't know, but gasoline sure doesn't last like it did years ago.

 

Back when we used lead, we sure didn't last like we used to.

I agree, the ethanol is stupid (Environmentalist idea), because not only does it dilute your fuel, it costs more to make than gasoline does, both monetarily and environmentally.

If you think ha the fuel evaporates, thats false. You either have a working gas cap or you don't. But ethanol contains less energy than gasoline does, so your economy drops when you use it, especially if you have a car that lacks a flex fuel sensor, since it has no idea what the ethanol content is.

Gasoline didn't last years ago, I remember those days, it was terrible on the engines, and most vehicles back then got horrible gas mileage. Our best fuel was right before ethanol became a mandatory additive.

You are right, Obama didn't create this mess, but his cabinet, (not him directly) sure don't help the problem. The green movement has little do do with decreasing dependence on foreign oil, it has a lot more to do with control of the oil, and control of the alternate energy sources. If you watch what here people say versus what they do, you find they stand to gain a lot by the green movement. Take Mr. Gore for example. If he is a model environmentalist, why is his stock portfolio filled with energy stocks, as well and investments in solar and wind energy. Its all about manipulation for personal gain, while posing as a advocate for "the environment". The green movement is all about a different kind of green if you know what I mean. I'd better stop here though, I'm wandering into the realm of "politics" which is a dangerous place to go.

To the original topic, do some checks and testing, my guess is your economy is suffering because the engine is weak. I have it on good authority that few 4.0L heads are good beyond 150,000 miles, and a compression test and a leak down should confirm whether you need to pull them and fix it. By doing so, you should be able to restore the engines original performance, and along with it, the original fuel economy. 11 mpg is not normal, I usually get better than that with a trailer and a load while going much faster than your proported speed.

 

Back to the original problem; based on your description, I'm betting your transmission is slipping. I don't know of an easy way to test this, except the locking function of the torque converter. When the TC is locked, the engine speed should not change very fast when you slowly open up the throttle; it should slowly go up with the vehicle speed. What does the ATF look or smell like? How is the level, especially after the front seal blew?

 

yes I believe politics are prohibited here, so to put an end to the political comments on my end, I want to say that the previous administration was not exempt from the "Green" Movement, if you know what I mean. Take Chenney's Halliburton for example...

ok, so the issue is the ethanol in the fuel, now I get it. But it wasn't the present administration who came up with that idea, right? No one is innocent here except the public who has to swallow these gasoline prices while our wages have remained the same for the last 20 years, and domestic car mileage has not improved either.

Otherwise I promise I will not make any more political comments. I'll just dream about those days when I got my first car in 1969, Premium gasoline was $ .69 a gallon and everybody was complaining about the price of fuel.