Minivan Madness

Watching this with interest and amazement, in all the attention paid to a 20-yo minivan. The fact you could have this 20 more years is cool. So many '90s vehicles succumbed to Cash for Clunkers, and so few remain in any condition. Good on ya for saving this one!
 
I'll release this evening's update early since I won't be home tonight. It's a short one.


I had the headliner from the Chrysler redone some time last year, so I'll pop it into the Dodge.
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Much easier to do this with the interior out. Also would be best to have two people, as it wants to bend right at the cut-out for the assist handle.
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I have three carpet sets. All were pressure washed when I took them out in fall of 2017. Before I washed them, I had to peel the sound insulation off the back of the carpet. Quite a bit of the insulation was damaged from the water leaks.
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I was able to piece together enough insulation to do one carpet. The Chrysler will have to get new padding when it's carpet goes back in.
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All three carpet sets were fairly dirty with the usual food and drink stains all over the place. I soaked them down with a very hot solution of OxiClean, did a lot of scrubbing, then hit them with the hot water pressure washer. All three actually came up pretty good. Carpet is a bit wrinkled from being rolled up for over a year. After I put the front seats back in, I'll pull it tight as I install the seat runners and that should flatten it out again.
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ACC sells new carpet for these, but I don't think it has any of the molded depressions in the floor. It's basically a flat piece of carpet with some contouring up front for the wheel wells and firewall.
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Jeff
 
The hot pressure washer does wonders for dirty carpet, I have a Chevy truck I did the same thing with.
 
The hot pressure washer does wonders for dirty carpet, I have a Chevy truck I did the same thing with.

Works nice on modern seats too. Don't think I'd use it on older style seats with stuffing and springs, but the foam seats with aluminum seat pans works well.
 
This will be the last update for a while, since I'm hitting the road tomorrow and won't be back for at least two weeks.

Driver's seat is hammered pretty bad.
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There's a long story as to why I'm installing seat parts instead of an entire new seat on the driver side.
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Only the power seat base will be reused.
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Much nicer seats ready to go in.
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Had to install new foam tape on some of the interior trim, as old foam turned to sticky mush.
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All but one seat belt will be replaced. Luckily, the one behind the rear HVAC box is decent enough to stay. That one is a pain in the butt to replace.
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Interior all back together with new panels.
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Ended up with two seat belts with the buckles installed backwards.
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Jeff
 
I'm to the point now where I'm working out the all the bugs. Wiper motor sounded like it was full of sand, so that needed to be replaced.

Complete Rube Goldberg setup has to come out to replace motor.
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Opportune time to lube all the pivot points.
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Chrysler doesn't sell new wiper motors, just remans for $180. I took a chance on a Chinese copy for around $30. I picked one that had a company logo cast into the housing, figuring they were proud enough of their product to put their name on it. Seems like a decent unit, though time will tell.
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Much roomier in the engine compartment without the wiper tray in place.
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All back together.
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Jeff
 
So many '90s vehicles succumbed to Cash for Clunkers, and so few remain in any condition.
I agree. This also causes another problem...As the pre-OBDII electronics fail there is no dealer or aftermarket parts support. What ws common on the road 10 years ago you see more in the junkyard because no parts for them or repairs exceed the value of the vehicle.

Supply and demand changes with the times. I see it all day long at my work.

I sent my 84 Chrysler E class 2.2l Turbo to the scrapper after the computer died..Nobody carries it anymore making the car undriveable.
 
I agree. This also causes another problem...As the pre-OBDII electronics fail there is no dealer or aftermarket parts support. What ws common on the road 10 years ago you see more in the junkyard because no parts for them or repairs exceed the value of the vehicle.

Supply and demand changes with the times. I see it all day long at my work.

I sent my 84 Chrysler E class 2.2l Turbo to the scrapper after the computer died..Nobody carries it anymore making the car undriveable.

Solutions to the problem of failing old computers appear to be on the horizon, if not here already. It looks like various companies are introducing retrofit programmable computers that can be adapted to just about any fuel injected engine. Some brands require their own brand sensors be used while others can be programed to work with the car's existing sensors. Likely too much expense for some beat up daily driver, but a good solution to keep a nice, newer collectible that's having computer issues on the road.

Jeff
 
The last couple rounds of work on the van have been spent trying to exterminate the bugs, more bugs than I expected to have to deal with. Shortly after I put some fluids in, it was obvious that I had leaks. I was hoping they would go away after a bit of run time, but such was not the case. Even before I ran the engine for the first time, the left side axle shaft seal on the trans was dripping and so was the shaft seal on the power steering pump. After the first test drive it became obvious that the trans shift solenoid pack was leaking pretty bad too. The test drive also revealed a very bad banging noise coming from the left front suspension and a milder banging from the right. To add to my worries, there was a very noticeable chatter every time the trans shifted into third gear.


Of course the side that's leaking is much harder to do. The real kicker is that I put new seals in the trans before installing it.
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I had determined that the banging noise was coming from the strut mount area, so I pulled the strut out instead of separating the lower ball joint to remove the axle shaft. Turns out that the shaft nut on the strut wasn't tight enough. This time I cranked on it to point that my home made strut tool bent. To tighten the right side, I decided to pull the wiper tray back off to access the strut while it was still in the van, which turned out not to be the best plan.
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I switched from a National Seal to an SKF/CR seal. It's not obvious in the photo, but the CR is is definitely better quality than the National. Close inspection of the old seal showed no noticeable flaws.
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Earlier in this project I had contemplated replacing the solenoid pack on the transmission but decided against doing so because I was already spending way too much money on it. That turned out to be a mistake. The only good part is that the price keeps dropping on these things. They used to be around two bills, but now you can get a genuine, made in the USA, Borg Warner on ebay for $65 delivered.
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The biggest kick in the nuts on this thing was the leaking power steering pump. I can't tell you how many of them that I've re-sealed over the last couple decades and never had a leak. Of course the toughest one to get to has to be the one that leaks. To add insult to injury, the right axle shaft had to come out to get the pump freed from the engine compartment, hence the wasted time removing the wiper tray, as I could have pulled the strut on this side too. Since the strut was now good, I separated the ball joint instead. Also replaced the axle seal on this side just to be safe.
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I usually avoid reman parts like the plague, but I spotted an old stock reman pump on ebay for sale by a surplus dealer that had photos of the actual pump I would receive. I could tell that they had installed a brand new shaft during the rebuild process, and decided to take a chance on it. My original pump was probably leaking because of the groove on the shaft that the seal made over time. The reman was a bare pump without a reservoir or pulley. Thought that would be good since the time I spent restoring my reservoir wouldn't go to waste.
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It didn't take long before more trouble arrived on the scene. Even though it was just off a few months ago, the pulley is now seized onto the pump shaft and the nub snapped off while trying to remove it. A fairly common problem, but not one that I was expecting.
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Called my buddy at the Chrysler dealer, but he didn't have one, though he found one at another dealer near me. One hour of driving and another $25 added to the tab, and we're back in business. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the problems.
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Everything's back together and I fire up the van, and....Dammit! Now I've got a horrible case of the dreaded Chrysler minivan belt chirp! Not just at idle, but the faster the engine goes the worse it gets. I know what would probably fix it: pull the pump back out and move the pulley about 1/16 of an inch. Though there's no guarantee of hitting the right spot on the first try. An absolute nightmare. So I decided to hit the internet to see if they've invented some magic belt dressing in the last decade that will make the problem go away. Came across a YouTube video by ChrisFix all about belt chirp and he says that Dayco belts are the absolute worst for this issue, which is the brand belt that I had on the van. They don't tolerate any pulley misalignment at all, and he recommended switching to the Goodyear Gatorback belt, now made by Continental. Rock Auto's belt listings were dubious, so I hit ebay and again bought from a surplus dealer where they had a picture of the actual belt that I would receive. Installed the belt and it's as quiet as can be again. Kudos to ChrisFix!
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Time for a road test. We should be 100% now! Nope. Head out onto the road, on comes the check engine light and the transmission won't shift at all. Stuck in 2nd gear in limp mode. Check for codes and I've got two trans codes for items inside the solenoid pack. First thought of course is that I got a defective solenoid pack. Before condemning it, I decided to run a Quick Learn procedure on the trans. I wasn't sure if my brick scanner could do it, but luckily it can. The Quick Learn really is quick. The entire process takes less than a minute. Cleared the codes, ran the Quick Learn, and headed out for another test drive. Check engine light off, trans shifting again, 3rd gear chatter and front suspension banging now gone. Yay!!! Now, if I had read the service manual before doing any repairs I would have seen that it says to run the Quick Learn any time you replace certain parts, including the solenoid pack.
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I've gone out on a few more test drives and everything seems to be good. All the leaks appear to be resolved, at least for now. I need a warm day to see how the A/C is working and finish charging it if seems ok. Plus I have a little paint work to do on the left quarter. I had planned to get it registered and inspected this week but all the tag places are closed because of Covid 19, so it looks like it'll be at least another two weeks before we're officially back on the road again as I have a west coast run next week and will be gone for a while.

Jeff
 
Back home again and back on the van project. I'm really in the home stretch now. One of the local tag places opened up for business again and I was finally able to get the title transferred and get a tag for it. Put about 100 miles on it so far and mostly everything seems good. Still have some minor bugs to work out, but at least I can use it now. It drives great and is very tight considering there's over 180K miles on it. Wish it had the 3.8 though. The 3.3 is fine till you turn on the A/C, then you could really use that extra half liter to run the compressor.

The big spot of missing paint behind the left slider has been bugging me, so I crossed that project off the list when we had a nice day last weekend. I was originally planning to just clean things up and shoot it with my shaker can of Duplicolor, but my eleven dollar can of paint stopped spraying wile still half full. I had some PPG Shop Line left over from when I painted the bumper cover many years ago, so I ended up doing a better job than planned. I should have used my full size gun, as the touch up gun doesn't atomize the metallics quite right and the color comes out darker. No big deal, since it's likely that I'm going to have to repaint the whole van in the next few years. The paint is starting to fail on the Town & Country, so the Dodge probably won't be far behind.

Paint damaged from rubber bumper on door contacting quarter when opened.
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Might as well fix rust spot and dent below tail lamp, plus scuff on bumper cover.
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Self etching primer.
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High build primer/surfacer.
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Silver base coat.
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Clear coat.
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Jeff
 
More debugging:

Had a fast flashing right turn signal and one inoperable bulb. Burned out bulb, right? Of course not.
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Still made in USA.
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Still working on getting the HVAC up to snuff. Both the Chrysler and Dodge were stuck in Recirculate mode. Pulled the recirc door actuator out of the Dodge and found out why.
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The HVAC module can track the position of the mode actuator and temp actuator, but not the recirc actuator, so this won't set an error code.

Pulled the actuator out of the Chrysler expecting to see the same issue, but was surprised to find a completely different problem. On this one, the motor still works, despite some corrosion caused by moisture, but the hex on the metal arm is actually rounded off. Hard to believe that the plastic gear could wear down the metal. A crack in the gear was the original failure point.
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These little buggers were never produced by the aftermarket. They are now discontinued from Chrysler, but before that happened the list price was a ridiculous $216. There are some on ebay for around $100, which is too princely a sum for a plastic box with $10 worth of parts in it. I mixed and matched parts to make one working actuator and I'll have to grab a couple next time I'm at the junk yard. It looks like I can get new motors on ebay for $5, so I should be able to refurbish these things to almost new condition with a good arm and gear.

The second HVAC issue was that the air flow through the vents didn't seem up to snuff. I ran a self-calibration procedure on the system, but that didn't help. Luckily, there's a fairly large rubber grommet on the front of the HVAC case that you can pull out that allows access to the upstream side of the evaporator. Air flow problem found!
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A cabin air filter would have prevented having to deal with that nastiness. Chrysler was pinching pennies on that omission. Once things were cleaned up, the air was again flowing like it should.
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Getting close to the finished product.
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I ditched the black roof rack for a snazzy silver one that I liberated from the ES in the junk yard.
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Jeff
 
What did you clean the face of the evap with?

Shop vac, a plastic bristle brush, and compressed air.

I should probably spray some Lysol into the air intake to freshen things up a bit when I get a chance.

The system was also loaded with leaves. I cleaned out as much as I could, but I still get little pieces of leaf shooting out of the A/C vents every time I turn the system on or switch from recirc to fresh air.

Jeff
 
Your minivan is looking great!

Keep in mind, I've never uttered those words before about any other minivan, ever! LOL!

Thanks! I think that in twenty years time the minivan will probably be a distant memory just like station wagons are now. It's basically going to be a world of sport utilities and pickups. The only choices will be brand and size. I'd like to find a mint 1999-2000 Town & Country Limited to add to the car collection. It's not in the budget right now, but I can't wait too long as this generation of vans is disappearing very fast these days.

Jeff
 
Got my inspection stickers and we're 100% legal now. Whoo Hoo!
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There's still some minor tasks on the punch list, but it'll be a while before I get around to them. I'm headed to Washington State on Tuesday, so it'll be at least two weeks till I'm home again.


One down, one to go????
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Probably not..........The original plan was to fix the Chrysler and keep the Dodge around as a parts donor. Back in January 2019 when my father's Olds wagon was condemned at inspection time for a rusted frame, I thought I could whip the Dodge together quickly as a replacement for the Olds, but as we've seen, it didn't quite work out that way. Our family situation has changed over the last year and it's likely that I'll be giving up the over the road trucking career to be home most of the time, so now we really don't need as many vehicles. Even though it's already tagged and I've bought at least $400 in parts for it, the Chrysler is going to be put on hold for now.

Next in line is the official replacement for the Olds wagon. A 1996 Roadmaster wagon that I picked up in April 2019. This purchase has already been a total disaster pretty much from the start. I made a hasty decision to buy it based on only two pictures in a Craigslist add and things went downhill from there. The car turned out to be way rougher than I expected and needs at least as much work as I put into the Dodge to get it back on the road. Not sure when I'm going to get started on this one. It may not even be this year.
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Jeff
 
Got my inspection stickers and we're 100% legal now. Whoo Hoo!
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There's still some minor tasks on the punch list, but it'll be a while before I get around to them. I'm headed to Washington State on Tuesday, so it'll be at least two weeks till I'm home again.


One down, one to go????
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Probably not..........The original plan was to fix the Chrysler and keep the Dodge around as a parts donor. Back in January 2019 when my father's Olds wagon was condemned at inspection time for a rusted frame, I thought I could whip the Dodge together quickly as a replacement for the Olds, but as we've seen, it didn't quite work out that way. Our family situation has changed over the last year and it's likely that I'll be giving up the over the road trucking career to be home most of the time, so now we really don't need as many vehicles. Even though it's already tagged and I've bought at least $400 in parts for it, the Chrysler is going to be put on hold for now.

Next in line is the official replacement for the Olds wagon. A 1996 Roadmaster wagon that I picked up in April 2019. This purchase has already been a total disaster pretty much from the start. I made a hasty decision to buy it based on only two pictures in a Craigslist add and things went downhill from there. The car turned out to be way rougher than I expected and needs at least as much work as I put into the Dodge to get it back on the road. Not sure when I'm going to get started on this one. It may not even be this year.
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Jeff
The Buick looks pretty good in the pic, it's a 5.7 LT1 isn't it?
 
Nice thorough work Jeff.
I have had 2 different years of those and really liked them. For as many as were made they sure completely disappeared from the roads.
 
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