Ride the painted pony

Spent Sunday the 23rd researching tires via the web and visits to local tire stores which my father had scouted out for me. By the end of the day I had decided on a specific 1st choice tire with an acceptable alternative. The Explorer tire recall was making supply of my desired tire scarce as it is a popular replacement. Sears was going to try to order from "the warehouse" on Monday (but they really wanted to sell me the Michelin, so I suspected that they would tell me it was "unavailable"). As a backup, I went to NTB (owned by Sears, so I could get the national balance/rotation coverage from Sears) and asked them to find it. Sure enough, Sears couldn't get the tire, and NTB "critical ordered" it or some such thing. While taking care of this on Monday, my new shocks arrived, whereupon I spent the afternoon installing them. Here is a picture of the old shocks:

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that they were manufactured by the "Campfire" corporation, who should probably stick with their core competency as the worlds oldest brand of Marshmallows. The replacement shocks are Bilsteins, which are very firm and greatly improved handling and body roll in turns, even with the old tires.

The new rims had arrived the previous week and are South African factory alloys for the Vanagon that are 15" diameter with a 6.5" width, both dimensions 1" larger than the stock steel wheel, allowing me to put a MUCH wider tire on. The tires I selected are the BF Goodrich LongTrail Radial T/A, an SUV tire primarily for Highway, but good for mild offroading, rain, and light snow. As for the size, heh heh, I got the largest I could put on without modifying the suspension or body to get them to fit, 225/70 R15. Compared to the tires already on the van 185/75 R14, these tires were 1.58" wider, giving me over 3 inches of extra tire width in front and back. The new tires are also 5.6% larger in circumference, which was a concern as it would change the final gear ratio, reducing the power available at the wheel on the road. The hardcore gearheads out there will rebuild their 3rd and 4th gears to compensate, I was hoping not to have to do this.

The larger tires have had negligible effect in getting going in 1st and 2nd, with the bonus of extending the range of those gears, but the loss of power is noticeable in 3rd and 4th, but I think it will be tolerable.

After the tire installation, the next big outstanding item on the list was to have the alarm installation completed. Switches had to be installed on the sliding and rear door to trigger the alarm when opened. This was very important, because I know I can't live without my radio. Since then I have been doing a few last items like repacking the van so I can (hopefully) lift the pop-top myself, getting a roof bag for the luggage rack over the cabin (the plastic garbage bags were getting annoying), and arguing with Sprint over their service. The plan from here is to head out tomorrow (the 2nd) back up to NY, NYC, and Connecticut to visit friends before heading to Chicago for a short visit, and then onto who knows where....