soon to be van owner

[horsehead]

i will be buying an 88' 4 cyl. model with 88000 miles for 1000 dollars on saturday

[FalcoColumbarius]

Cool... Welcome to Delica Canada, Horsehead

For a G note, eh? What shape is the wagon in? Do you know which designation the engine is?

Make yourself at home. We have a small reference library of service manuals under L300 in FAQ & Technical Reference Libraries, see if they're of any help... smiles.

Falco.

[horsehead]

designation? its in pretty fair shape, i bought it from an old man who had it since 93, it came from california, just put new plugs, cap and rotor, wiper blades, air filter, and changed the oil. it has a few things i will need to fix... gas gauge, water temp gauge, radio, and the oil pressure light is on hmmmm? any thoughts?

[nxski]

oooohhhhhhh, it's a Vanwagon! That explains so much!

[R.Costa]

Welcome!! I have one of those vans too!!!

[horsehead]

so... am i in the wrong forum? or is there help for vanwagon people?

[thedjjack]

so... am i in the wrong forum? or is there help for vanwagon people?

Very much the same except ours are 4x4 and the majority are turbo diesels with the steering wheel on the right side.

Think this is as close to a forum as you will find...welcome :)

[FalcoColumbarius]

Yeah, think of us as your "Cousin Kevin"... Nah, just kidding.

There are differences between the Vanwagon and the Starwagon, to be sure ~ but there are also many similarities. I believe the wheel hubs are different ~ Starwagons have six studs, Vanwagons I understand have five. We have the manual for the 4G64, you will find many answers here. Also, there are other American members in Delica Canada with the same wagon as your's. As well we have European members with their Delicas (slightly different still).... This is a good place for you to come, just don't presume that everything is the same... but a lot of it is. I wonder how many members have Vanwagons?

Falco.

[R.Costa]

Also be aware that there is a flaw with the original ECMs on the Vanwagons. They used substandard capacitors in them and they cause all kinds of driveability issues. My van when I got it, ran like crap and got about 10 mpg. I isolated it to the ECM being bad. I replaced the ECM and had no issues after that. So, if the "Check Engine" light doesn't work and you replace the bulb and it still doesn't illuminate for 4 seconds when you turn the key to the on position, follow the trouble shooting procedure in the Mitsubishi Service Manual for your van. Just food for thought. I'm not trying to scare you, just to provide you information should the issue arise. Hope you enjoy your van!!! I love mine!!!!

[horsehead]

thanks all! i have an owners manual, does chilton or somebody make a repair/maintenance book?
oh and i noticed some coolant leaking when i shut it off today, couldn't exactly see where from...
do the water pumps leak when they go bad? or should i start checking hoses and such?

[R.Costa]

The waterpump does leak when it goes bad,(most of the time) Mine did that and all it it ended up being was a bad radiator cap. It's not a bad idea to check the hoses, I found one on mine,(under the van just above the transmission) while I was cleaning the contact on my starter, that was starting to seep a bit. I replaced the clamp and it's good as new. As for a repair manual, the best one to get is a Mitsubishi service manual. I have one for mine, I got it off ebay for like $30 USD. There is one on there now for the 1987 Mitsubishi vanwagon.

Here is the ebay.com link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1987-Mitsubishi ... re&vxp=mtr