Congrats!
I'm 5'10" and sleep side to side or a bit diagonal in my Dodge. The issue with conversion vans is that they waste so much space on the sides with the built out interior. Originally, before I ripped out all that wasted space conversion van frou frou interior, I put spacers under the sofa bed legs, raising it up enough so that I was sleeping window to window, which gave me another 8 to 10 inches of room, for sleeping side to side, in between the windows but often I'd kick the panel in the corner where there was 5 inches of wasted space, and I am still afraid of kicking out a window in my sleep, but in 13 years, No broken windows.
If you care to find the transmission dipstick, I'd recommend checking fluid level color and smell on a white napkin or paper towel. Full Size Van transmissions average about 130K miles before needing a rebuild, and often they are sold as soon as the owner notices transmission issues, and realizes a rebuild costs as much or more than the van is worth. The Fluid should be bright pink and smell sweet, without glitters on the white napkin when held in sunlight. As for fluid Level, I do not know if Ford's need to be checked warm with the engine running, transmission in neutral, like on Dodges.
If the fluid is Pink and smells sweet, but the transmission pan shows recent signs of having been removed, the previous owner might have had a service done recently in hopes it would cure the transmission irregularities they noticed. If the service did not improve the issues, often they go up for sale.
If the fluid is red and does not smell burnt you should drop the pan, change the filter and replace ~ 4 quarts with Ford approved fluid spec'd for that transmission. I'd recommend not using overdrive when climbing hills, and adding an additional transmission fluid cooler, as it is heat which destroys the fluid and the destroyed fluid then destroys the transmission. Another pan drop after a month or 2 and adding 4 more quarts to refresh the fluid is wise too, as a pan drop gets less than half the total volume of fluid out.
If the fluid is brown and smells burnt you should do the same as far as a pan drop and filter and 4 quarts of fluid, but start putting some money away for the transmission rebuild in your future.
Often neglected by owners is the differential fluid as well. It is very difficult to determine differential fluid health without removal, and it is a stinky messy, no fun job, but an Axle rebuild can be as much as a transmission rebuild.
Sorry to bring up a possible negative aspect to the new purchase.
Do you have a mechanic you trust to look things over?
If you find that the headlights are too dim, and perhaps people coming at you flash you as if your high beams are on, it is because your headlight lenses are cloudy/and or you have put more weight in the back. You can polish these lenses back to clear with many available products designed for this duty, but they will haze up again faster and will require repolishing every few months, but if you cannot see well at night, this is the place to start.
After that you can try better bulbs, but stay away from Sylvania Silverstar, or any bulb that has blue tinted glass. Proper aiming is key, and usually van dweller builds add more weight in back and raise the bulb's beams up too high, So don't be afraid to lower them so that the hot spots hit the road in a usable distance.
Proper aiming instructions, and the best automotive lighting information on the web, can be found here:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html
I've gone a little simpler with my headlamp aiming by placing markers in the middle of the hotspot and then moving that hotspot to where I think it would help me to see better. lather rinse and repeat, ect. But if you read a bunch more on that Daniel Stern site, how well we humans can see, and how well we believe we can see, are quite different.
Battery wise, electrical wise, I would recommend keeping that jumper pack fully charged all the time, and use/cycle the starter battery until it fails. Use the jumper pack a few times as a jumper pack on the failing starting battery, Then replace the starter battery with a Marine battery, the biggest one which you can fit under the hood which will likely be in the 85 to 115 amp hour capacity range.
The problem with using the jumper pack as a power source, is the batteries within them are very small, 12 to 18 amp hours, and get depleted to a level where they will not help jumpstart your van, and this defeats the whole purpose of carrying the jumper pack. So keeping the jumper pack full at all times insures it will be able to perform the task for which you bought it, when you need it to.
Later, when you have a new marine battery under the hood, you'll have a better idea of how much you can power in between drives.
This is but one strategy.
The batteries within these jumper packs are replaceable, but some long thin torx screwdrivers might be required to get them apart, and the batteries one finds on the web as direct replacements, might be very old and capacity compromised before purchase.
Also, while these can be recharged from the lighter socket as you drive, they can blow the lighter socket fuse, and/or recharge very very slowly through it.( fuses are expensive!) So while you might think it has been fully recharged, it could be very far from, and if left in a partially charged state, will degrade quickly. It is most likely to blow the fuse when heavily discharged and then plugged into the ciggy plug receptacle, and you might be completely unaware this has occurred. This is why I believe it is best to fully charge it, and keep it fully charged rather than cycle it by powering USB items and such.
Also be sure to not overheat the compressor in it by running it too long. It might say to use it for no more than 5 minutes allowing it 30 minutes to cool off before restarting. If it overheats, then it becomes a noise making battery depleter, and tire deflator all in one
Dedicated Quality Ciggy plug receptacles wired directly to the engine battery over fatter wiring is relatively easy to accomplish and will likely be very valuable in the future, and if used to charge the jumper pack, will easily double the charge rate it sees compared to the original Ciggy plug receptacles. But ciggy plugs and receptacles themselves, while convenient and ubiquitous, make for a poor electrical connection. But that is another topic entirely so I will end this diatribe here.
Best o Luck!
[/URL][/img]
