New guy w/Travelwagon

The van only has fuel and temperature gauges from the factory and I thought it might be interesting to add some more to monitor the engine. Two of these are mechanical and it takes two tubing kits to get back to where they connect to the engine, ‘cause you have to take the long way to get there. The turbo gauge volunteered to fill the space of the aftermarket water temp gauge in the pod, because the temp tube wasn’t long enough to get there.



The gauge on the right will read just on the vacuum side for now and it might come in handy as a tuning aid. Maybe someday it’ll read on the plus side!

I finally made a little forward progress with the transmission. I brazed on some brass blobs onto the bearing retainer and finally found someone who would turn it down so it would fit the adapter. Little machine shops that will do small jobs like this are getting hard to find.



Then I can put the transmission in place to see how it will really fit. I may test the gearbox with it held up on a jackstand to make sure it functions properly because the install may make this swap irreversible.

A while ago I tested the gearbox by running it behind the engine just setting on a jackstand. I ran a switched wire to the solenoid with 12V, and started the engine to see what I really had. There was no driveshaft connected, but the speedo cable was hooked up so I could monitor output shaft speed. The T85 went through the gears smoothly and silently so the 3 speed part works well, but it would not shift into OD. I could hear the solenoid click and it does work, but for whatever reason it would not upshift.  So that was disappointing.

On the plus side, the seals I replaced weren’t leaking.

A mid-winter update:
I haven’t given up on my overdrive transmission and started on another experiment to try to get it to shift into OD. I was talking to someone familiar with this transmission and he said that sometimes the transmission needs a source of inertia on the back of it so when you let off the gas it feels a load from the drive train. They typically won’t shift under power and the driver would need to “let off” for it to shift.

I’m not going to install this transmission until it will fully function properly because if this gearbox won’t work, there’s not a lot of these transmissions out there to replace it with another.
Here’s what I’m going to try:

Bolting some weight to the back of the transmission’s yoke. I cut a round piece of thick plywood and bolted a jeep pressure plate to it. Hoping that this will be enough weight to simulate driving conditions enough to get it to shift. If this doesn’t work, I may just shift it into overdrive manually and attach a piece of wood to it and turn a bowl.

Spent the weekend tying up some loose ends on the van. I installed the “crotch cooler” vent box I bought at the van show last year on the passenger side. Always thought it odd it wasn’t spec’d originally like this being a camper and all. The van has traveled to Mexico and it may have been a sweaty ride for passengers with no vent on that side.


Just had to relocate the wiper washer reservoir to the side of the vent box, there were little dimples where the screws are supposed to go- that was a cool little find.

I took the screens off the windows in the top. I don’t think they’ve ever been removed before and the windows were super dirty- it took a razor blade, steel wool and windex to clean them up.

Also got the tip-out windows installed in the rear doors with some dark tint.

I took the van to the Portland Transmission Warehouse Spring Opener- I’m not a car show person but my dad and brother go to this every year and it’s a pretty cool event. It’s not really advertised and somewhat of an underground secret, so cars that never show up at other events will appear. If the weather is good, hundreds of cars will show up and park on blocked-off streets in SE Portland.




I showed up early and got in line with other cars arriving. There were people in bright vests directing cars where to go and they waved me into the center of the main parking area! The event only goes until noon, so I got home before it got really hot. I don’t know why every time I take this to some car- type event it’s always extremely warm- today was a 90F day.

After I got back from ECNW, I tore into the van and removed the original transmission. I’ve done this a few times now and it didn’t take very long- plus it’s easy. I plugged the T85N back in like before and added the plywood disc and the jeep pressure plate to the yoke. Everything but the driveshaft was reassembled and then we tested her out!

It seems to work properly now and it will shift in and out of overdrive! I reconnected the switch to the solenoid and then started the van out in third gear holding the rpms at 1500. I made a little video of this and if you watch the speedo and the tach, direct drive is about 42 mph and in OD, it’s about a solid 50 mph. If you listen closely, you might be able to detect the switch make an audible click. It’s not an instant shift because you have to let off the gas and unload the drivetrain, but it’s clearly working now. This is great news!

https://youtu.be/6A0LHN40G1A

Disregard the current rpm:speedo readings as the speedometer is way off, it’s about a good 20 mph optimistic. I’ll need to correct this with the correct speedo gear.

With a little research, I was able to find alternate speedo drive (driven?) gears. The van has a 19T plastic cog at the end of the cable and there are 20T and 21T versions, so I’ll try some of those- a lot of old Fords use the same gear. I thought the spiral gear on the output shafts were the variable causing the error, but when I wasted half a day taking the rear housings on both transmissions apart it turned out they were the same.

I’m mocking up a transmission cross member and for a change, the fabrication gods have smiled upon me. The mount lines up very well with a cross member of the unibody structure so I’ll get some 2.5” rectangular tubing and make a simple connection from the gearbox to the “frame” after it gets reinforced a bit. The T85 weighs a good bit more than the little 3 speed does, and I don’t want this to fall out on the highway. There was a van at the get together with this transmission installed by using the original hanging mount, but I don’t feel that would be strong enough.



The unibody structure will be reinforced with some ⅛” metal from an electrical box in the scrap pile. I went out to get the box and it was full of bees! Of course there were bees! Another day.

After dispatching the resident bees, I cut out some metal from the control box to support the cross member and stitch welded it in, with some sleeves for the bolts. Then fabricated the cradle for the transmission.



The cross members and frame rails are galvanized, so that had to be ground off so it would weld nicely. There is also an undercoating of sorts sprayed under the van, and it’s a waxy, greasy substance with a low melting point! This needs to be removed anywhere welding will take place because it will run. I’m grateful for this stuff because it has preserved the van, but it’s a mess to work around.

I added a street el to the fill port on the overdrive to try and increase the oil capacity. The OD and the transmission have separate fill and drain plugs, but I only see one vent. I’ve read differing opinions on whether the OD and the gearbox share oil. There is an interesting  statement in a Borg Warner publication about the oil that is to be used in this transmission; and that is GL-1 mineral oil- it specifies it in BOLDED ALL-CAP LETTERS, but does say that a good quality 40W or 50W motor oil could be used. Definitely not a hypoid type gear oil.

The transmission is in for good now (hopefully). Needed to re-engineer the parking brake to work around the gearbox.



Next will be the wiring; I have the original wire harness with the relay and kick down switch. The wires are too short to reach so they’ll need to be extended to go way back there.

I found a pathway for the wires to go back to the transmission and a handy spot for the kick-down switch. After a little modification, it’s attached to the core support with a little foot clamped to the throttle linkage that will push the plunger when the gas pedal is on the mat. Wires to the solenoid and governor were simple: just extend them to reach.



The kick-down switch may not be fully functional for a while, as when this system is triggered by the throttle linkage, it grounds the points side of the ignition coil momentarily to clip power while the transmission shifts from OD to direct drive under power. It seems a great feature to have, so I’ll try to retain it. The van has electronic ignition and I’m told electronic modules don’t take kindly to being grounded repeatedly.

When I was researching distributors for my jeep, I discovered that Mercury Marine uses an electronic ignition that interrupts power when shifting a boat from forward to reverse momentarily so maybe that’s an option..

The driveshaft needed to be shortened about 9” and required a different U-joint to match the transmission’s yoke. The van’s U-joints are among the smallest I’ve seen on a domestic vehicle- they remind me of the joints my vintage Datsuns had (and may still be smaller). It’s a good thing we’re not adding any more power here as this would likely be the “fuse” in the drivetrain.



The T85N is fully installed and operational; I tried it out on jackstands last night. Good news is that it works like it should. The original wiring operates the features correctly, even the stock, vintage relay. It’s fun to speed the rear wheels up in third gear, let off, and it will shift into overdrive. Let off the gas until the wheels slow down and it will shift back into direct drive- no clutch required. I’ve heard people rave about how easy these transmissions are to drive and I can’t wait to try it out on the road, but I hear a noise that concerns me- it may be the rear axle. The bad news is the rear transmission yoke is very warm after a short run with no load operating on the stands. This bothers me quite a bit- not sure what to do yet.

When the van was running on the jackstands the other day, I noticed the rear wheels had a bit of wobble to them. The wheels aren’t hub-centric and just locate with tapered lugnuts like the stock wheels did. Today I ran the van with the wheels and brake drums removed and watched the axle flanges move around; the passenger side especially. So the van has a couple of bent axles- that was disappointing.

For a while now, I’ve thought about an upgrade using the rear axle from a late 90s Ford Explorer, where I’d get disc brakes, factory sway bar, the same wheel bolt pattern and commonly, a limited slip differential in one package. Then I’d need disc brakes up front and a different master cylinder and it would just snowball from there…

Today I spent a bit of time troubleshooting the van’s drivetrain sounds and arrived at a couple of conclusions: the rear axle is toast! And the transmission will be coming out.

The axle sounds like a rock tumbler and has at least one bent axle, so the plan is to replace it with an upgrade to the Explorer axle I mentioned earlier. The quick and easy replacement would be an early Explorer axle that has the same 10” drums the van has, but for that much work it just doesn’t feel like much of an upgrade. So I’m feeling like the late 90s version w/disc brakes seems justified. The van has the light duty axle now with the 7.25” ring gear so no big loss in tossing it.

I ran the van on stands today and the yoke still gets warmer than I think it should. I got under the van while it was in 3rd OD and watched the yoke move fore/aft a bit when working the throttle. It didn’t seem to do this as much in direct drive so maybe it’s an OD issue. My floor jack got a rebuild in anticipation of taking the van off the stands but it’s going to be staying on them- I’ll still need it to remove the transmission. And then I’ll start some learnin’ about rebuilding 3 speed overdrive transmissions.

While I was playing around yesterday, I tried some things that I’ve read about. When the speed drops to the point that the governor disengages the OD (about 25 mph), the transmission “free wheels” and you can shift from 3rd to 2nd without the clutch and it goes right into gear without grinding at all. You can also shift from 2nd to unsynchronized 1st while moving with just a minimal ratcheting of the gears- kind of like shifting from neutral to reverse. Wild.

Well, I couldn’t stand it any longer and took the van for a short drive to the grocery early this morning, and it was awesome! I pulled out onto the road, shifted into second, got up to 35-40 mph and when letting off the gas, it shifted into OD promptly, smoothly and silently. Got the van up to where it previously topped out in 3rd and then shifted into 3rd OD.
The van was crying out for additional gearing and now it has some. It cruises down the road so much smoother now. The speedometer is still a bit off, but the van is traveling at a faster rate with lower RPM.

Slow down for a corner and it downshifts out of OD for you when lifting off the accelerator, speed up and let off and it will shift up for you. Coasting towards a red light, I could move the shifter into second gear without pressing the clutch pedal, and also into first gear too. Just need to push in the clutch before you come to a stop- easy.

I don’t know who designed all these features into a car’s transmission, but it’s absolutely genius! The automatic up/down shifting, the kick-down feature, the no-clutch shifting all date back to the 1930s and 40s- it’s amazing.

That’s awesome! So happy to hear that you’re out on the road and enjoying your van’s performance!!!

Thanks Vanny, but I was only on the road for a short while!

I went junkyarding over the weekend, mostly on a recon mission armed with a tape measure. I learned a few things and one of them is that my memory is not as vivid as I thought. Turns out Ford Explorers have the axle on top of the leaf springs while my van’s axle is under the springs. This would interfere with the calipers on a disc brake axle. That was disappointing.

I then focused on the drum brake axles the older vehicles have. The Explorer axle is almost two inches narrower overall than the van’s axle- I thought this could be easily solved with spacers. I then measured for where the spring pads would need to be relocated to and it turns out the springs would be almost right up against the backing plates. This appears like it could be done, but would make bleeding brakes a pain. The Explorer’s rear sway bar attaches to the frame behind the axle- this is where the van’s gas tank resides, so that won't work either.  

Axles from full size trucks and vans are too wide altogether and would require a lot of narrowing and dollars spent. I’ll just have to keep researching.

After working through another bout of insomnia, I had an idea about solving my axle dilemma. There is no shortage of Youtube videos and magazine articles about narrowing the Ford 8.8 for use in muscle cars and hot rods. They all tell the same story of how the axle has two shaft lengths and just use two short shafts and narrow the housing the difference. My thought was to do the opposite and use two long shafts and widen the housing. Doing some quick ciphering, adding the 2 ⅞” shaft difference to the overall width of the Explorer axle got me just a bit too wide, so that still won’t work either.


Ranger trucks have a slightly narrower 8.8 rear axle, and performing the same math gets me to within ⅜” of the van’s axle overall width. I was hoping to score the Explorer axle with an OD friendly gear ratio, Traction lok, 31 spline axles and the wheel bolt pattern all in one package, but that’s not happening. The Ranger axle gets me the width (with a fair amount of work) and the bolt pattern, but likely not a locker or the ratio I’m looking for in one shot.

I went junkyarding recently focusing on Ranger truck rear axles. There were quite a few of them there, but not in the magic combination I’m looking for. It was encouraging that most of them had a 3.73 or 4.10 rear gear, with some also having limited slip diffs- pleasant surprise. Doing some math:

Ratio OD
4.10 x 0.72 = 2.95
3.73 x 0.72 = 2.68

Entering this new data into online ratio/tire size/MPH calculators gets these results:

Ratio MPH Tire RPM
2.95 60 24” 2478
2.68 60 24” 2251
4.0 60 24” 3360  (stock baseline)

I see the van as a secondary road cruiser with occasional highway travel so I’m leaning towards the 4.10 as I don’t want to overgear it. It only has a 200 ci engine and the aerodynamics of a garden shed, plus it weighs 3250 lbs. Maybe some others could offer an opinion on this (and check my math!).

Some Rangers had rear sway bars, some didn’t. It was heartening in that the truck sway bar looks like it could work on the van as the bar connects to the frame ahead of the axle. A Ranger sway bar is not very big, but anything would help- I do like things that go around corners briskly!

I took the van for a lengthy spin today to try and determine what gear ratio would be better for the van. I downloaded a speedometer app on my phone because the van’s speedo is about 8-10 mph on the optimistic side. At 60 mph, it was about 2300 rpm. Right now I’m leaning towards a Ranger axle with a 4.10 ratio as I don’t honestly think the van would pull the taller 3.73 ratio without unlocking some hidden horsepower. The ol’ van was kind of fun to drive after I got accustomed to it, and so much better than before the overdrive- it’s night and day.

Today I drug home a new rear axle for my van; it’s from a 2001 Ford Ranger that was equipped with an 8.8”, 4.10 ratio and a Traction Lok differential- it also had a rear sway bar. In the yard I mocked up the rear axle by sliding in another long shaft from a neighboring truck and it measured right where I needed it to be- just double checking my math before all the wrenching!


I wanted the Traction Lok not because the van is going drag racing or the engine is supplying more power than one tire can manage; the van is front heavy and backing it up slopes, it will just spin a tire. I have to back up an incline out of one of my shop bays into the grass. The jeeps don’t have a problem with this, but the van does. Plus I’d like to use it for camping and traveling, so a little more capability away from paved surfaces would be nice.

I checked the break-away torque of the differential and it was minimal. So I ordered a FoMoCo Traction Lok rebuild kit with new frictions and steel plates. Also got a Spicer u-joint flange yoke, good quality parts.



To widen the housing, I need to make a cut of the tubing on the short side. To do this, I rented a pipe cutter. People who make videos of this operation generally use a grindy or sparky tool to cut the tube. The pipe cutter made a square cut of the tube without generating cutting chips or a dusty mess inside the housing difficult to remove. Plus, I couldn’t make a straight cut with those tools if I had to.



$15 and 10 minutes later:




When narrowing a housing, you make two cuts and one weld. To widen, it’ll be one cut and two welds. I’ll have a short section of tubing cut on a lathe to match the housing so it will be square on both ends, and weld it together.

Found a machinist who made me an insert for the axle housing.  Turned the welder up to 11 and burned it in- now I’ve got a one-piece housing once again.