well based on cheap/easy i would fix my welder and coerce or impress(not that kind of impress) into changing perches

Joking, im not the british navy or threatening

 

Hmmm, that's exactly what the British Navy would say while threatening 🤣

Also, fix your welder, lazy! Even I got one and my truck is still on your side of the Atlantic (along with my other welder lol).

 

Do you know where the RABS is located in the vans? Is it in the same spot or at least the same conector as a 1989 F150? Thanks much.

 

Absolutely no idea on either of those, sorry! But if you can crawl under the van it should be easy enoufh to locate it, and a 97 truck RABS looks the same as an 89 truck RABS so likely applies to vans as well

 

Thanks a ton! Do you know what year the vans started getting disk brakes? Thanks again.

 

This will be a total guess, but I'd be looking at late 90s. Happened in 98 with the trucks (F250 and larger at least), and I can't really imagine Ford breaking the ground with the vans.

 

I believe vans got 4wheel abs before trucks and the weight bias of a van is probably what got them disks. maybe as well as not having to have a drum to make clear the body when the backing/disc would take less width

 

4-wheel ABS was actually available on late Broncos, possibly OBS F150s as well (Rangers good it too, but that's a different platform). Not sure how well it worked tho.

Not sure about the spacing thing - on vans the calipers are way low halfway behind abd halfway below the axle tubes, to clear the leaf springs above them. This necessitated in giving them these heavy plate rock shields so they don't get taken out by stuff you may run over.

Random trivia:
- said van shield plates to not work with SD axles even tho the bolt pattern for the caliper brackets is identical, the plates hit the leaves. You can trim the plates and make them fit that way tho.
- 98 and early 99 SD have two identical calipers, just one is installed on the front side of the axle tube. To protect it from debris Ford gave it this massive shield that wraps around the caliper. If you find two of these shields, and the special caliper bracket bolts they use, you can install them on a 00-04 SD axle to protect your calipers against bashing them into stuff while backing up. Van calipers and SD calipers do interchange on the axles, however the van calipers are larger enough in housing size that the SD shields do not fit around them unless you trim their mounting ears (on the shields, not the calipers), which weakens them quite a bit I think.

 

I meant like, the space used for a disc brake is less than what a drum brake would require. you saying they are mounted low is my reasoning being vindicated lol. That means the discs were probably a fitment thing above function but the vans nature probably helps with discs vs trucks cheaper and simpler to use drum etc