Not today, but over the last few thousand miles: I killed 2 tires on 2 separate occasions and was only able to find 1 exact replacement (my Hankook Dynapro mt's have been replaced with a different tread pattern) 1 was due to a rock ripping a big chunk of tread out, and the other was from tire to fender interference. That got me looking at my notes and seeing that my suspension had sagged A LOT over the years, so I gave my suspension a pretty serious refresh. Took out the sagging Camburg coils and installed Skyjacker coils that have a ~25-30% higher spring rate, besides being stiffer, I gained ~2" of ride height. Rebuilt and revalved the front Fox reservoir shocks and added a ton more low speed compression valving and reduced the high speed compression valving... it is working exactly how I hoped it would.
On the rear, I installed Weldtec's leaf springs (made by Atlas.) I've got to say, I'm kinda disappointed in these for the money as compared to my sagged out mix & matched leaf packs they replaced. I installed them "as delivered" and they must have lifted the back end 7-8" and rode like an empty dump truck. Now, I do have an extended body van, but there's nothing in the back, not even seats. The main leaf is shorter than it should be and the factory shackle will max out it's swing before the rear eye can even be bolted in. After giving things time to settle, I ended up ordering longer "boomerang" style shackles (meant for a Raptor) from DirtKing ( which required a little creativity to ensure there was enough overhead clearance for the rear a/c lines), pulling 1 leaf, and flipping the bottom leaf upside down to lose a little spring rate and some ride height in the process. It's still a tad stiff, but I think adding more rebound valving to the rear shocks should calm it down.
I also put on a Weldtec prerunner style front bumper. This was somewhat of an impulse buy as I intended to get something with a winch mount, but after seeing them in person at Weldtec's shop I didn't like the way it looked like the winch mount gave the van an underbite, so I opted for the more understated one without a winch mount. I may add a winch mount to it in the future, but it'll be tight. Still would have been nice if they had installed some recovery points on the frame horns, and maybe some light tabs (for some Baja Designs Squadrons or the like) behind the holes/mesh in front of the tires. They also missed an opportunity to incorporate a bottle opener cut out in the plate steel end caps. I don't drink, but apparently my front bumper has become a popular bottle opener when we're camping and it's getting chipped from people hooking the square edge of the bumper and popping the top downwards with their palms!
I finally got sick of my 2 bent hoop steps and installed some Nfab nerf bars. They're 1" higher than the old hoop steps, but still do what they need to do, and I think they look nice.
During the same desert tripped that I killed the first tire on, I managed to peel off my rear diff cover... that's a story for another time! I band-aided it to get home, but replaced it with a ribbed nodular iron cover from Spicer.
I had to put in a new radiator after the top tank cracked (going up a grade in 110° weather with the a/c blasting) and was grossed out by how dark the tranny fluid was when I pulled off the cooler lines. That prompted me to do a full tranny flush (using the Mark K method) with Mobil 1 ATF and install a MagHytec deep pan (that thing is DEEP! 2 extra gallons of fluid and hangs at least 3" lower than stock... my radius arms are at roughly the same height, so I'll need to be more conscientious about not driving like a clown when it's rocky!) at the same time. Man, that's a lot of expensive fluid! While the pan was off, I took the opportunity to verify which valve body my 4r100 had as apparently gas engines up to '98 (my van is a '98 w/5.4) could have had either e4OD or 4r100 parts? Mine is definitely a 4r100 and I intend to order a modified valve body from John Wood in the next week to firm up the shifting. I was originally going to order a 5 star SCT tuner just for the tranny's sake, but they will not sell me one without proof of non-emmissions state registration.
I replaced a couple blown (24 year old) rear door speakers and finally got an enclosure to hold 2-12" subwoofers and a 1900w amp behind my 2nd row bucket seats without interferring with the ability to haul motorcycles in the back of the van. Yeah, I'm probably too old for obnoxious stereo equipment, but it's been sitting in my rafters for many many years and it was either time to install it, or get rid of it.
I threw a new serpentine belt on and did an oil change for good measure while I was at it.
After looking into buying a new truck earlier this year, I decided that 1: We really like the van. 2: even though we'd put a more powerful 4x4 truck to use, we couldn't justify the cost considering how few miles we actually drive (5-7000 a year and I almost never drive unless we're offroad, or towing in mountainous areas, my wife drives us around the rest of the time.) So even though I've been putting a fair amount of money in the van, it's still easier to justify than dropping $100k on a new truck, and the van still does a lot of things better!
If you managed to read through all of my rambling, I probably owe you a drink!
Vandemic
Just kidding, it might not have helped at all but it was low hanging fruit! 
Linear Mode
