I'm sitting in the Nashville airport heading to Florida to pick up a 90 E250. Everything around here seems to have a 300k miles, beat to heck and the sellers think they're made of gold. I found this one for $1000 with 117k miles on it. This will be my 6th Ford van. It's replacing my 65 IH Metro that just isn't fun to drive everyday especially long distances. It's cool though and I'm gonna miss it.
Metro

90 E250


Why the user name(freak spelled wrong on purpose) 86 AMC Eagle

 

Well, I made it home with it. It's an interesting story but I've been up for 31 hours and going to try to get some sleep and I'll update this later or possibly tomorrow.

 

I think it's a requirement to have an Eagle if you have a van, or a van if you have an Eagle. I just picked up an 81 wagon a few weeks back.
Are you on the Eagle Nest forum?

 

I sure would like to have an Eagle, I remember a 2dr one on a lot I bought my CJ5 from in the 90's, loved the look of it, a seemingly small 4wd car, perfect for off road, same wheelbase as my CJ5.

 

Yup, same username there. Cool to have another eagle owner here.
They are neat little cars.


How I thought it was going to happen:
Wake up at 3:30 am Tuesday to make the 2 hour drive to the airport.
Arrive in Orlando at 12:57 and get picked up from seller.
Pay seller and drive to tag office and get temporary transit tag.
Get on the road and stop in GA for the night at a cheap hotel.
Leave Wednesday morning and arrive home in the early evening.

How it really went:
Awakened by my cat at 2:15 am Tuesday and could not fall back asleep.
What do you know, it's snowing. Flight was delayed leaving Nashville. Got to Atlanta and sat on the tarmac for an hour before permission to go to gate. Luckily my connecting flight was delayed an hour, but everybody was already on the plane but they let me on. When we finally left the gate we had to wait forever to get deiced.
Arrived in Orlando at 3:15.
Picked up at about 4:15 by the seller. He starts driving and I see the check engine light is on and I noticed a bad vibration and thought it was the engine and thinking what have I got myself into.
He acknowledges the vibration before I said something. He said it just started doing it and thought it was a bad tire. Meanwhile he starts preaching religion to me on the drive to his house. He lives about 50 miles from the airport and we're about 20 miles from his house when the right front tire blows out on the highway. We pull out the spare and then realize the four way won't work on the lug nuts. Calls his wife and tells her what to bring and tells her to meet us at an exit. So he goes to start the van to pull off the highway and it won't start. He starts to have a panic attack and saying "this is the devil trying to get to me". I calm him down and tell him it is probably the inertia switch. I locate it, push the button and it starts right up. Get off the highway and his wife makes it with the tools. Get the spare on and he let me drive it to his house. I asked him about the check engine light and he said it has been on for years and it is just a way for the dealers to make you take it in for service. It did run really well and the steering and suspension felt good. I had 2 options attempt to call a cab and pay $150 for a ride to the airport and buy an expensive last minute ticket or buy it. I bought it. Luckily I brought the tag from my Metro just in case even though that was illegal. I checked all the lights before leaving and noticed the tag light wasn't working. So he started working on it. He's a marine mechanic so I figured he'd knock it out quick. His trouble shooting skills baffled me. I wanted to just grab the tools from his hands. Meanwhile one of dogs wouldn't leave me alone. After cutting wires and jumping wires he finally took my advice checked the sockets which were corroded. cleaned them and got one working. I just wanted to get out of there, drive a little and get a room. I was tired.
While pulling out of his driveway I get a phone call from a buddy of mine and he tells me that the door manufacturer rep that I just started buying doors from was going to be in town Wednesday and wanted to treat me to dinner. I've turned him down twice because of conflicting schedules and thought I better make it this time. So I drove straight through, set the cruise at 65 and 31 hours after my trip began, I was home. Got about 4 hours of sleep, then made the 2 hour drive to Nashville to have dinner with the rep. I slept great last night but had to get the shelves and tools out of the Metro and into the Ford. Then Ebay removed my listing of the Metro because I had a link to a video of the engine running. Rant over. Averaged just over 14 mpg though.

 

I hope you can look back at this and laugh - I thought I was the only one that this happened to.

Glad that you got the van home in one piece.