Gilgamesh, a.k.a. Dramatic Dan

This year Battle Beans stopped driving to events and started riding on a trailer. Doing the tow is a 1999 Ford E-350 Super Duty with the 6.8L V10, bought from a friend who was ready to let it go. It had about 120k on the motor, which should leave plenty of life in it, but I expected a 27-year-old van to come with quirks.

I named him Gilgamesh, after the strong warrior from an ancient time. Then one day my wife walked by while I was under him and called him Dramatic Dan, and that kind of stuck. I'm honestly not sure what his name is right now.

9,158 miles

That's how far he went between my first service entry in January (120,698) and the last one in October (129,856). The full service record is at the bottom of this page.

Getting started: January to March

The first job was the basics: an oil and filter change and a brake fluid flush.

In March I went through everything I didn't trust. He came to me with a P0401 (EGR flow insufficient) already set, and a new EGR valve fixed it. He also got new tires, a new starter, air and fuel filters, and new shocks. The old starter was rusty with corroded terminals, and I'd rather not find out how long it had left in a paddock. I also rewired the trailer and added a new breakaway kit.

The first misfire: April and May

The van was largely problem-free until its third tow to Eagles Canyon this spring, when it started misfiring and threw a P0300 (random misfire). It still got me there, and one new spark plug and one new coil got me home too. After that I replaced all of them preventatively: cylinders 6 through 10 first, then 1 through 5 a few weeks later along with another oil change.

Cooling: May and June

A big V10 pulling a trailer through a Texas summer needs a healthy cooling system, so in May I redid all of it: water pump, fan clutch, thermostat and housing, accessory belt and tensioner, upper and lower radiator hoses, and a coolant flush. The old water pump impeller was badly corroded, so it was good timing. The diff got fresh oil the next day.

In June I followed up with four more coolant flushes using cleaner to get the rest of the old gunk out.

Front end and brakes: July to September

Stopping a van, a trailer and a race car is the job I care about most. Over the Fourth of July I did the front end: upper and lower ball joints, steering linkage and tie rod ends, front calipers and brake line, and the inner and outer wheel bearings on both sides.

In August the rest of the brakes caught up: rear calipers, front and rear rotors, rear brake lines, pads all around, and another flush. I also replaced the front sway bar bushings, which made a noticeable improvement in handling. In September the front I-beam pivot bushings got done too.

The front hubs had one more lesson for me: I lost three hub dust caps before I finally got one to stay in for good.

On the road

For most of the year he was a beast. He hauls the car, carries all the gear, and doubles as paddock base camp with the awning out. He also had a flat along the way, because no year with an old van would be complete without one.

The spark plug incident: October

On October 15, just before the Ultimate Track Car Challenge, I was driving home from a test and tune in Beeville, Texas, when cylinder 7 spit its spark plug right out of the head. A new plug and coil got me home, and Precision Performance put new threads in cylinder 7.

I cleaned the throttle body and re-torqued every spark plug. Cylinders 5 and 1 were loose too. The next day he got another oil change and coolant flush.

The current mystery

The rough idle actually started shortly before the spark plug incident. At first it wasn't very pronounced, just a light wobble in the idle every so often. On the drive back from UTCC he was down on power, and P0171 and P0174 finally popped: both banks running too lean. The idle is a bit worse now, lumpy enough that it almost sounds like a motor with a big cam. So far I've replaced the fuel pressure regulator and the MAF sensor, then the fuel pump and fuel filter at the end of October. I'm still chasing it and will update this chapter once I find the cause.