Hi folks, it's noobie time, yay!

Had a snap of Redemption Rye, and I'm feeling talky so....you can skip down to ISSUE if you prefer.

The story thus far, in which my better half, had been salivating over camper vans for a couple years. She couldn't decide what she wanted, and given the prices on the fancy rigs, that can cost ya. Big time. So one day we were doing our morning CraigsL prowl for likely victims (us?), it turned out there was a great deal on a 2001 E350 super duty, the big 'un. Two miles away. 190K miles. Went up and drove it, to find the usual kinds of stuff with a 25 year old rig. It had been driven to baja repeatedly. He'd ripped out the seats of course, and put in a very comfy bed, some shelves, etc. She wanted something to go on trips with, then she could decide what she liked, and didn't, etc, without blowing a ***** ton of money on finding out. OK, good idea.

The owner was moving on and preferred a good home(folks get attached to the adventure rides)and he cut the price lower if we'd send him pix of where it went. That we do, and that he did. Great! Fast forward four years. It's unappealing size, plus white, means it's not super attractive in the yard, so we park it behind the shop. Problem solved. Friends kept remarking on it's sheer size and billboard sized expanses of white. It became "the white whale", and then of course, simply "Moby".

I'm a long time dirt road guy, with a LOT of 510 wagon miles over twenty years, plus another twenty years of four runner fun, so I was pretty interested at this point. The wheelbase is not bad for such a huge rig, it has pretty good clearance, and RWD. Excellent approach angle. Departure angle blows, but that can be managed. Well after all those Datsun years I'm pretty good at 2WD RWD, so it was off to the races. This thing will *climb* and it has the power to do so, and to navigate some sporty stretches as well. Safety Third!

It's had a run of issues of course. I'm not sure I'd have bought in at this point, but we're in now so screw it. Slow oil Leaks. Burns some. Whatever. Except for the radiator leak (cracked weld), found at a remote lake my buddies cursed me for inviting them to once they got there. All I'd said was 'Moby can, and you can't?'. Evil, yes. Anyway, radiator, alternator, front tie rods, plug fixes for the triton, this and that and fixing the side door lock. I also went in on the rear door lock mechanism, that design is a piece of work if you ask me. I can't figure out a way to bypass it yet. New parts changed little, now it just gets kinda stuck in a different way. Overall, though it is a truck design I may be pushing it's limits, at least for old worn parts.

ISSUE:
Which brings me to our issue now. We just took it in for the tie rods, and when we went to pick it up, they said 'you seem to have an additional problem.'. WTF? It seems the left side engine mount failed, and the pan is crushing against whatever is under it on that side. BIG leak. They quoted us $4k. Including a new pan. I said thanks, we poured in a couple quarts and got it home. (It's low again.) I was thinking well crap, that work order shows removing the intake to get the bespoke engine lift on the top of the system. That means they're doing it from the bottom. What one man can do, another man can do, right? I'll use the shade tree method of a 4x4 and a jack with the wheels removed, get the shroud off, check my clearances, remove the bolts on the other mount, and bump it up by the crank pulley, then cycle the pan and *both* mounts. They're gonna hold it from the top, I push it up from the bottom, no big deal. Then I crawl under and look. I've never had a van before. What an unfortunate form factor for drivetrain work up front. There is crap weaving in and out of other crap, huge I beams, a pan that looks like it has a huge reservoir on a the lousy side of the crossmember etc. It is tight, and confusing and packed in there. But at least it's an enormous beast, so everything is nice and heavy.

Screw that, honey. Pay them to do it or we won't be ready till July.

So then the ideas started flowing. $4k for a new mount and a pan? And still on 200k motor with unknown wear, and trans? This sounds like a somewhat iffy proposition. So I noted that's halfway to a *new* front powertrain on a lot of rigs. It would innately fix the pan and mounts! Plus no worries for *years*, maybe never given how many miles you really put on 4-8 local trips and 2-3 multistate runs a year. So this isn't sounding impossible to justify. I'm not into the new car game, and her chief concern is reliability. I said you could sell moby, have no van, and due to your worries, next time you'll spend at least 5x this much, heading towards 10x. Or, we can just bite the bullet and fix the biggest stuff all at once, right now, and be done with it. We can blow 10K now, and it's over. Or you can sign up for huge payments every month for years, on a rig you don't even want to scratch. Screw that. Who cares 'what it's worth' if we just fix it and move on with our lives? Look, it comes prescratched so we don't have to worry about bushes on the side of the road. (What after that? Maybe a diff, maybe. That's about it for big ticket.)

Anyway, I've been put on spreadsheet duty and I'm trying to figure out costs. And vendors. First, I need to ID what's in Moby. I know it has the 5.4L Triton.

but, PI or 'non-PI' heads? when I order an engine it has to fit the exhausts manifold, so this matters.
which trans? I see 4R100s talked about, and some other source showed a 4R79W. I suspect it is the 4R100.

We might have them do the injectors while we're in, if she approves the additional $.

Then there's the vendor issue. Assuming a PI head and 4R100, the total at Jasper engines runs near $9k. At Powertrain Products, it's about $5600. I haven't priced anywhere else yet, that's just the couple I hit first. I did google Jasper and they seem to have an excellent reputation. But, if someone else is reasonably good, the difference would pay for a huge chunk of labor.

thanks for reading my stream of consciousness ramble. If you have any thoughts, let's hear it. I figured I'd sign up here and get some expert advice.