Now that I'm driving the van daily some issues have popped up. Primarily, the starter. Fords of this era use a direct drive starter that's a big electric motor with a gear on the end and a bendix that slides the gear out to meet the flexplate when you turn the key. This motor has windings in it that must be engergized to create a magnetic field, in which the armature rotates to turn the gear. Mine was original, I'm quite certain of that anyway as it had a Motorcraft label dated 1988 and my build date of the whole van is 10/88. Anyway, it cranked slower than I'd like at the best of times and if the van idled too long then needed to be restarted (like when I was hunting a vacuum leak) or if you were running errands and let it sit 20 minutes then tried to restart, it would protest quite stubbornly. This got worse as time went by and temperatures rose from the 20s of a couple weeks ago. Fast forward to 2 days ago when I was racing home to change shirts (lunch date marked my collar) before a meeting: knowing the van wouldn't want to restart after being driven across town in traffic then parked 20 minutes, I chose to leave it running while I ran upstairs. Came back down, hopped in and snagged my jacket cuff on the shifter while I put my briefcase in the passenger seat...pulled my cuff free and somehow tripped the ignition and killed the engine. UGH. Hit the key and barely got a groan. NO WAY it was gonna start. It was pouring rain and about 40* out so I grabbed the towel from my gym bag, held it in the river running along the curb, and used it to soak and cool the starter for about 5 minutes. It worked, but barely and I knew I was on borrowed time.
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I could get a stock replacement starter for about $80 at RockAuto, my local parts store, etc. I could also get an improved version of the same thing for about $150 from Powermaster, PA Performance, etc. OR I could upgrade the starter to a much better design for about $30. Yes, please!
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In 1993 or so Ford began installing a starter that no longer used heavy copper windings to create a magnetic field inside but instead, permanent magnets, and instead of a big heavy armature to create sufficient torque, they used a planetary gearset. This is known as a Permanent-Magnet, Gear-Reduction starter, or PMGR. The same starter fits my 4.9 and the 5.0 and 5.8 Ford engines for all years. Pretty cool. I'd returned the core for my leaky injector to the junkyard, and the 3 extras I'd bought in case the 1st replacement was a dud, and had about an $18 credit at my local Pick-N-Pull. I'd previously picked up the 6 GA charge wire from a Ford Taurus with the 3.8 v6 and a 130 amp 3G alternator. Was actually pulling the whole set-up (alternator, wire, fuse, etc) and found a crack in the alternator housing so abandoned it but held onto the cable. Drove to the junkyard, pulled a PMGR out of a Grand Marquis, and had it tested at O'Reilly's. WOW these things are fast. Pulled the old starter, moved the former power wire from the solenoid hot post to the switch post of the new starter, added the Taurus charge wire to the new power post, routed it to the battery side of the fender-mounted starter solenoid, and just that simple, I've got a FAST, light, efficient starter for a cash outlay today of about $12 for the price difference at the P-N-P and 1 terminal for attaching the charge cable to the fender-mounted solenoid's 1/4" post.
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Crank time is WAY down and thanks to the new starter's heat shield, smaller size (further from the exhaust) and improved design, my heat soak concerns are long gone. I'll run this unit till it gets tired and get a good new unit from the parts store with this one as a core of the right type. VERY good day in van-land.
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Here's my first ever YouTube upload. Be kind!
https://youtu.be/U4RrVT56Pig
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Comparison shot: (yes, the new [used] starter was GREASY but worked great and cleaned up well. The car I pulled it from had a leaky power steering rack)