I know the feeling even after 40 years as a garage owner, I still hate to see the crooks give us old pros a bad name.
A friend had the same problem with the same van and I replaced the distributer and set his timing and all was well.
What I would do is locate the "spout" It has two wires and an odd looking gray plug. On your van it is located in the area below the left hood hinge.
Remove the plug and hand turn the distributer until the engine increases RPM. Keep doing this until it seems to run better yet doesn't ping or start hard. Every time you move the distributer shut off the engine and put the spout plug back in. This is old seat of the pants repair but it still works. Don't worry if you set a check engine light. Let me know
Monday, April 17th, 2006 AT 3:47 PM