Anyone have experiences with Aerostar Vans?

[200KGPGTP]

That thing is officially awesome.

[tkannegaard]

we had one when i was young my dad was in the air force we drove it cross country like 9 times lol it had over 500,000 thousand we decided to sell it lol no problems but with that many miles it was like a time bomb waiting to blow

[bravekozak]

I used to work at the factory that made the Aerostar headliners.
When Ford pulled the plug, they took a bath on all the robotics.
The Aerostar used to be manufactured in Oakville, Ontario. They make the Edge there now. You can just make out the shadow of where the lettering "Home of the Aerostar" was.

[blkfordsedan]

I don't have any experiences WITH an Aerostar, but I've had some memorable experiences IN an Aerostar. I think its best to just leave it at that...

[crazyrog17]

Yeah that was the first gen. I kinda wish I had that one, this looks like a nightmare to work on. The 4cyl is probably much easier to work on. From what I've seen they share a lot of parts with the Explorer and Ranger of similar years. I need a new dash cluster for this one, the coolant and oil pressure twitch and go nuts over bumps and such. The coolant will go hot, then cold, then middle, 3/4, hot. It was at pegged when I got to my work but it wasn't pouring coolant from the front or running terrible or anything. But then again so was the oil pressure gauge, lol.

Check the power and ground leads to the dash, it's weird that both needles would react alike.

[Movin]

Well, it looks pretty nice! I had no idea they were "not that good." I drove the shorter version in the early nineties for the campus escort service and the only problem I remember was when the passenger power window would not work on its own. You had to help it the last few inches.

Other than that they seemed to do well, but I didn't have access to the service records.

Good luck!

Karl

No matter where you go, you have us!!!

Karl, us poor miserable West coast college grads just didn't get
all the percs the east coast colleges enjoy..

[JoDan]

I'd drive that thing to a junkyard and still have your mom pay for a new car. With junk price alone your halfway to another festy:p

[Safety Guy]

Movin wrote:

"Karl, us poor miserable West coast college grads just didn't get
all the percs the east coast colleges enjoy."

Here's a link to some of my old OSU Lantern articles:

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Default/Skins/Ohio/Client.asp?Skin=Ohio&AppName=2&AW=1328798648359

Click on "Dark, dangerous nights on campus safer with escorts" to see a pic of me checking a window and an article on what we did back then. My partner that night, Autumn, is now a Columbus cop. The link may take a long time to appear, and you may have to extend the boundaries with your cursor to see everything. The other links are either articles by me, articles that mention me, or opinion pieces.

Karl

[Movin]

That is pretty cool, there was another article that came up as well.

[DriverOne]

The Ford Mustang and the Ford Aerostar had the same transmission. My dad had two Aerostars. He had two, because the transmission went out in his at 167,000 miles.

[PhoenixSHO]

They also made MTX ones , very few.

Over here they are long gone , they rot in the lower rear side panels before the rear wheels.

I remember sitting in the pass side of my friends mom's , and when we hit the highway , the engine stopped.

Turned out to be a melted piston. How that happened? No idea but it was driven hard 2 minutes before it blew though.....

It was the 3.0.

[88FestivaLX]

Nice! My parents bought one new in 1986...one of the first ones. It was way underpowered and always had problems, haha. But it worked great for mountain biking! Take the back seats out and load everything up. Didn't need a tent, just sleep in the back!

[DriverOne]

I wonder if you can put the same year Ranger engine & trans into that and make it better? Possibly add cooling vents in the fenders and in the hood?

[chrisofna]

Well, the transmission stopped with the morning sickness crap. Maybe since it had fluid moving about in it again it unstuck whatever was sticking? Still need to fix the miss though; the van doesn't have a CEL, does anyone know if a dead coil will throw a CEL?

[Movin]

If you have DI then no disty, yes then they throw P0300 through P0306 codes
with light on. I missed the year of yours but it looks like it may have the older
system, less codes and a sleepy CEL . Ignition wires and plugs are fairly inexpensive
replace them one at a time. Look for vacuum leaks while back there and listen
real careful while its running for vacuum leaks. Why do you suspect a coil ??