Not yet sure if this is the appropriate forum to post, I'm sure the admins will advise/move if not. (Whoops, there is a new user forum - Mods please move if needed)

Just got a 98 Starcraft E-150 conversion for my wife and I. It is in decent if not pristine shape, I can tell it has been well loved, if not necessarily well maintained by that most dangerous of creatures the dreaded former owner. This one was the third owner but it had stayed in family and it came with a 1 inch thick pile of maintenance records dating back to the early 2000's. What it did not come with is any user manual (just downloaded that from the link provided in the sticky) or any sort of documentation from Starcraft (now sadly out of business).

Been cataloging the items to fix, and have been searching evilbay and amazon, and finding....not a lot. A trip to the local salvage yards will be in the near future, as I'm led to believe that a lot of the parts from 98 to 14 are x-compatible and I really don't need a lot of specific parts (so far...) and I prefer getting my eyeballs on certain types of parts in person rather than online photos anyway.

This is not my first Ford van, had two late model Aerostars back in the day, and have had multiple other Blue Oval cars over my life, so looking forward to the process of bringing this one back from the brink of boneyard. Has 174,000 on the 4.6, but runs strong good oil pressure and temp, and the AC blows cold up front. The Proaire rear is....eventual, but I'll have to pull the cover off to see if I can check R134 charge on it. Steering is a bit sloppy and the steering wheel lock may need replacement - going to rekey the ignition and doors anyhow so I'll be able to better assess at that point.

Interior is dirty but mostly intact - two door window panels (license plate window side back door and closest to passenger side door) are cracked and broken and will need replacement. There is a list of small fixes, but its in drivable state and the most major fix I have to figure out is how to *lower* the driver seat for my wife. She's a big lady and needs a bit more clearance and the tilt steering wheel digs into her gut in a not comfortable way. All of the swivel options I've yet found do not work with the power seat, so gotta figure out how attached we are to that option, it gonna be her driving 90%+ of the time so may just delete the power options in favor of a swivel base.

Well, back to forum research, 686 pages as of right now, and I've gotten about 10 read so far. Glad to be here, and at some point I'll upload photos of the beastie - haven't had enough time in her yet t come up with a good name, hopefully we'll fix that soon enough.

Grumpy

 

welcome aboard!

 

That power seat track will be sitting atop a pedestal
You can remove the seat, the track and the pedestal, then cut the pedestal down and re weld it
The rear A/C uses the same freon as the front, and they are connected
**** poor operation of the rear unit is about normal
You can replace the TVX (expansion valve) back there and sometimes get better performance

 

Thanks. I will check into the pedestal options - I was thinking that simple flat stock carriage bolts and some tack welding would allow me to fab up a pedestal adapter to at least shift it back an inch or two and see if that would be enough clearance for her, but may be more in depth than I first thought.

As for the rear AC, I feel that. I've not yet confirmed if its factory or pro-aire (had read that Starcraft used those instead) so once I know for certain I'll have some idea of what I need to work with. Got the full service manuals downloaded so only thing I don't have is any Starcraft specific conversion information, and in search the forum there has been scant information about their Ford platform units. Seen a lot online about the Chevy Astro and such, but these apparently were a more rare option.

Thanks for the 411, and Happy Trails!
Grumpy

 

Some states banned swivel seats in the drivers position, its why they stopped offering them, being disabled, I have a custom 6 way power seat track system to rise to wheelchair height, and rotate to transfer into my wheelchair, disabled stuff gets around such laws, that seat base is extremely expensive, not an option for you, but I believe you can get something lower, I know a guy who used a smaller steering wheel so he would fit in his car.

 

Smaller wheel is a brilliant solution. I did a quick fab (ugly as hell) for the passenger (mine) seat using 1/4" steel 2" x 24" and some grade 8 bolts and nuts. Pushed my seat back about 2.5 inches which makes a *world* of difference in my leg and foot room and doesn't impact the mid seat passengers significantly. Both seats are at max slide back you can see the difference in distance from the center console.

I since found something on amazon which I cannot find good reference to anywhere either on the site, YT or elsewhere, but its called a seat lifter. I went ahead and took one for the team and ordered it, and figured if I can make it work with a power seat as a replacement option for the OEM seat base then its one more option for others in the future. I've seen the power seat bases for wheelchair users, and if I could find one in a yard I'd probably install that, but thats a unicorn I don't expect to find.

Still looking at moving the driver seat backward up to 2 inches and if I can drop it 2 as well I think that will suit the wife perfectly. Don't need to swivel, both mid seats have that to go with the bed/bench rear seats.

Grumpy
Here is the image of the seat lifter off of the amazon page the following ones are from my van

 

This is as low as I can go, got it from the facebook market place very cheap.

 

Ok, with the sunlight out here this is pretty common. These weren't as bad as some I've seen but wanted to at least give them a clean and polish. Pics are pretty self explanatory before and after. Used 400 grit on one and 800 grit on the other just to see if it worked better either way. Nope, same both ways did the same job. Used a UV clearcoat when done and it cleared right up. Gives me a few more years out of these before I swap up to LED or something more modern.

Grumpy

Original clear coat

400 frit then UV resistant clear coat

800 grit then UV resistant clear coat

 

I feared it would weaken the plastic so I never did that, I bought clear replacements.

 

Figured that the top layer of oxidized plastic is pretty thin. I've done this on a number of polycarbonate lens since the 90's and its not a permanent solution usually, it gets me about a year of continued use before replacing, and right now my shekels are being put to other uses in obtaining replacement parts that I can't just simply repair/regrease/etc.

But to your point, they will be replaced with new ones at some point, just a question of if I go with OEM or pickup something with better technology (HID, LED) than was available in 98.

Grumpy

 

I replace headlights but may try the Acetone vapor method someday
Think Ethylene
They heat the vapor from Acetone et al.
That vapor is used to rejuvenate the lenses
Looks good on YouTube
Not sure it works

 

I put LEDs in my 99 E350, they had a fan on the back to cool them, tight fit, worked for over a year, sold the van, they were bight and white, really lit the road ahead even in the old light housings that were cloudy, I received them drastically discounted from a dealer who wanted me to review them, gotta say I was impressed, lit the road ahead much better than stock.