I never put a rear sway bar on my 96. Handles beautifully with out one. I did put coil over shocks in the rear though. I don't recall the brand of swaybar I put on the front, but there's only two choices outh there and they both offer the same size bars.

 

I have an Explorer conversion van and nothing you mention applies to it. Seats are all Ford parts. As are the A/C units. My 96 is now 25 years old and the interior looks like new. Oh, and the reason we own it now ? We previously had an 07 Chrysler T&C Limited mini van. Fuel mileage pulling a camper ? 7.25 mpg. The 96 Ford (with a roller 351) ? 9 mpg.

 

The only thing larger diameter wheels will help is your choice of tires. 15's are getting REAL hard to find GOOD QUALITY tires now a days. I have 235/70-15's on the front of mine and 275/60-15's rear (front wheels are 15x8.5, rears are 15x10) I went with the wider wheels in the rear to fill out the fender flares. These are performance radials, not truck tires and they handle better than the original tires I bought it with (light truck tires) Cooper tires ? I wouldn't touch them with a 10 ft pole. Last set I bought ? one rear tire blew out in the driveway (parked after a 7 mile trip from the tire store), the other rear ? Lasted a month before coming apart (Cooper Cobras) the front two ? One was out of round so bad I had to get it replaced after a couple months, the replacements were Mastercraft (also made by Cooper) these too were garbage. Replaced with BF Goodrich T/A's. These lasted two years (this is not a daily driver)and maybe 6,000 miles. I now have Yokohama's on it and so far, so good. If I hadn't put new wheels all around on it two years ago, I'd go to 16" wheels to get a better tire selection (quality wise)

 

Interesting point about good quality 15's getting hard to find. The previous owner bought the Cooper tires that are on it. I have read many nightmare-ish reviews like yours about Cooper tires, although some reviewers were happy with them. I'm wary of them and I check them over every day.

 

They used to make great tires. Used to................Have a set on my 77 Comet that I bought 15 years ago. No problems with them in all that time. Had many sets of them previous to those too over a 35+ year time frame. All their performance radials are "Hecho en Mexico" now.

 

To my 95 E150 conversion I added rear Hellwig sway bar, Monroe load leveler rear coilover shocks, 1 1/2" rear wheel spacers each side (now track width equal to front), stock size 235/75/15 Michelin Defender tires and had it aligned with between 5 and 6 degrees positive caster. Drives straight as an arrow and is a pleasure.

Also added Hellwig rear sway bar and Monroe coilovers to rear of 02 GMC Safari a few years back. Huge improvement. FWIW both times Hellwig was back ordered for 3-4 months. Probably due to age of vehicles, maybe produce as needed.

 

"Wide oval performance radials" from the 1970's are historic garbage and are made in other markets because there is so little demand. No performance tires are limited to a load range T, and using 60 series tires on the rear of a van or car is a silly fashion statement from the 1970's. Got a mullet too? I put BFG T/A's on my Ford pickup in 1978, and ran General XP 2000's and Kelly Chargers on my vans in the prior century. These were old-tech radials and have been cancelled or their manufacture has been moved out of the US.

You can buy Michelin Defender LTX M/S tires, which were the OEM design, in a 235/75x15 P-rated XL load design and they are excellent tires. Coopers are "mostly" American made but they are crude and heavy 2nd string tires compared to quality tire brands like Michelin. Cooper also makes 3rd string tires under different brands for loss leaders for auto parts and tire stores. I'd still trust Coopers over Chinese rubbish tires.

OP: have you ever driven other high-top vans? There is a reason (instability) why they are no longer made or sold--there are now rollover tests for new vehicles and high-top conversion vans would never come close to passing. A 10 foot tall van is going to blow around in the wind. Anti-sway bars may help a bit. If you are running 40+ lbs of air in your tires, unlikely that load range E would make any difference aside from rattling out your fillings and making the van sound like an old school bus going over bumps.

I have owned 5 conversion vans and driven dozens and the point of the conversion is usually to provide a more lavish looking interior than the mfr at a lower price. Hence the cheap seats. If you have factory seats in a conversion van, I would ask what was converted? Also, the rear AC unit may use the mfr dash controls but the unit itself is aftermarket unless the van was originally a Club Wagon. And the anchoring of seats to the floor, addition of seat belts, and lack of any kind of side airbags makes conversion vans pretty unsafe. Actually, some budget camper conversions might use the factory front seats and put the camper stuff in the back.

Many people are oblivious about what the factory built and what the converter built. A factory van with a factory interior and factory rear A/C was called a Club Wagon and did not need to be converted. Conversion vans were empty boxes sold by Ford to converters to install a gaudy and cheap interior, running boards, cheap and huge windows, and various poptops and other stuff. Plus striped paint and stuff. In general they had a very short life expectancy, as would a camper if you lived in it full time. Staples and drywall screws, not auto-quality assembly.

 

Aren't high-top conversion vans being manufactured and sold more now than ever before? Maybe its just because I'm in California but I feel like every other van I see is a high top Sprinter conversion which are about 10 feet tall.

 

High top conversion vans built on Sprinters, Transits, and Ram/Fiat vans use Euro chassis that are built to be tall and narrow and driven on mountain roads. And any camper worth its salt will be built on a 1-ton or higher weight capacity chassis. We have friends with converted Sprinters and chassis/cab Econoline conversions also.

Your profile pic shows a Sportmobile or Turtle Top van...cool. My first 2 conversions were Turtle Tops--a '73 Ford E200 and then an '86 GMC 2500. The tops on those were pretty low when folded, not like the fixed "raised roof" that was the standard in "luxury" conversions.

The Econoline in question here was based on the 1975 first-gen body/frame E-van and in half ton form was pretty wimpy and wobbly even without a high top. The frame on the 150 was pretty flexy in itself--the Euro vans are unibodies are are much stiffer. One thing is not like the other. I have a retired Ford engineer friend who worked on many Ford suspensions, the E-van among them, and had some really good stories about how things were done inside Ford.

You can buy tall motorhomes built on E450 and E550 chassis-cabs. But doing "luxury" conversions on E150's was the game in the 70's thru the 2000's. Take a stripper box van and put a bunch of cheap stuff on it, so long as you could keep the weight within the GVW... Loss leaders for people who wanted a mobile living room. High tops on E150's were not a recipe for a stable vehicle, and when they are 20 years old, may be pretty loose and sloppy.

Ford also did REALLY dumb stuff like making a E150 cargo vans with an EXTENDED body. I can still picture those things, overloaded by a factor of 4 or 5, dragging their tails down the road. Maybe it's not a good idea to build a vehicle with 1000 cubic feet inside and a payload of 1000 lbs

 

Yeah I don't envy people driving 30 year old high top conversion vans down the highway!

Yep I've got an old sports mobile with the pop top, I love it! Although recently I've been trying to tackle a sporadic idle issue thats mystifying me!

 

You both should come drive my high top 96 Explorer conversion van then. Perfectly stable at 90 mph with new front springs, shocks and performance radials (235/70 front on 8.4 aluminum slots, 275/60-15 rear on 15x10 slots) And it's not 10 feet tall. Just a tad over 8 ft. And no I don't have a mullet. The guy who said that needs a brain exam and learn some manners. Sure as **** don't know what he's talking about.

 

I had a scheduled brain exam but it slipped my mind. I don't know why you think it's bad manners for me to ask if you have a mullet though...

In our neighborhood (where a lot of auto execs and engineers live) I'd rather be seen with a mullet than with a 25 year old raised roof van with the wheels and tires from Joe Dirt's Camaro How does your van do in an autocross? You really need the bigger tires on the front where all the weight is.

You might want to work on your sense of humor just a bit.

 

It does great in autocross, thanks for asking. As for humor, been my experience people from Michigan lack that sense. Some of the worst things I've heard people called were by Michiganders. And Detroit ? NICE NEIGHBORHOODS there !!! How many crack houses are left in yours ?