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Grab a seat
This is one of those stories when fate has much better plans for you than you do.
The market crashed, gas was $5 a gallon. I had a second gen (4x4 shorty manual 33"s) lined up. I sold my one of my other cars and I still needed the last thousand from my student loans. Due to incompetency at the school, my payment was a month behind. In that time, someone snatched it out from under me, I was devastated.
Fast forward a year or so, me and my then fiancé, now wife, moved back to Oregon to finish up our schooling. we were living in an apartment complex and had no place to do any major fabrication, so I started looking for a working 4x4 van. I found this one at a good price (now amazing price), 91 E350, 351W, C6, np208, 33"s, D60 rear, D50ttb on leafs (not exactly a desirable setup) . Body was clean and relatively rust free. the engine ran real good, trans and 4x4 worked good. the only real problem was some play in the steering wheel. The first thing I did was I replaced all the tie rods (in my dads driveway). It tighten things up significantly and made it much safer to drive. After some research I discover why this axle has such a bad reputation. With leafs on it, it is impossible to correct the steering linkage angles, not to mention the stiff, binding springs. This is when I started to feel like I didn't get such a good deal, and started to look for an SAS D60, and a ZF5 speed.
Fast foreword a couple years, my wife and I got our own house, and a nice shop for me to work in. I got some 37" Goodyear MTs, and Its about this time that I found the Agile videos (my plans changed). I found a donor F250 with an I6 and a ZF5, and did the trans swap. shortly after that I found one of the tie rods was going bad (It didn't have that many miles on it, and I don't thrash it, just bad angles). So it was time to spend some money.
I got better than factory replacement coil springs and struts, all new upgraded steering components, and got to work. the coil spring conversion went smooth taking me only two days to complete. its was at this point i could see just how much the tow changes when the axle cycles (the ttb is all about that steering linkage angles). A drop pitman arm and a tie rod flip was in order. the problem with that is thy don't make a drop pitman arm for a van (the angle is different). I got the FA600 and it ended up putting the linkage to far back, so I ended up having to change the angle of my steering gear. after getting it all together and a shop floor alignment, it was time for a test drive. It drove great!
The only problem was that the camber was visually negative. so I took it to Lesswabs for an alignment. The tech was impressed at how close it was, camber was off by 1-1.5 degrees, and cross caster was a little off. after asking me how it drove (great), he told me it wont eat tires as is and it will cost a lot of money to fix the camber. He gave me the print out and sent me on my way (no charge). I got adjustable camber caster bushings and some new ball joints, using the print out I made the appropriate adjustments. check the alignment with a bubble gauge and a tape measure, and I am extremely confident that it is not only well within spec, but really close to ideal. In spec has a huge range so it could be in spec and drive like crap.
everything is a tight fit but nothing rubs. I checked by taking the springs out, putting the tires on and cycling everything. I should have taken a picture, a 37" tire wedged up in the wheel well looks crazy.
The van has an effective lift of 4"
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