Frickin' spare tire
Just got back from the mechanic, who replaced my rear tires to the tune of $270. The van takes regular passenger tires (albeit awfully big ones), but that rusted waste of a rim the spare is mounted on had destroyed the lug nuts and studs it was mounted to. It's also managed to destroy itself -- there was so much rust inside that it loosened up when it was being used, and the lug holes managed to shift from being round to being oblong.
I have the spare mounted up underneath again -- I'll need to get a new rim from somewhere.
The problems I had before with the fuel pump aren't back, but that fuel pump isn't long for this world; the manager at the place I went to agreed that it's making a sick noise, so he's ordered a replacement part from the distributor which should be installed within the next week. Hopefully he can fix the fuel gauge problems at the same time.