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GLewis
01-11-2005 06:01:05
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Re: buying F250 w / diesel good or bad truck in reply to jdemaris, 01-10-2005 20:28:35
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I guess I need to weigh in on this one. I have an old 91' Ford F250 4X4, 5 speed manual with 3:55 rear. I bought the truck used with a nearly new utility body and 100k miles on it. It now has about 219k on it. It doubles for work and pleasure. I pull the utility body off and replace it with a regular pickup body to haul my 10'truck camper around for vacations. The engine got a Bank's Turbo at 150k along with exhaust, extra engine oil cooler, dual filters, K & N air cleaner, etc. It is a waste gate affair with a max boost to 10psi so you can't burn the pistons out. What a difference it made. With the utility body on it will do 14mpg at 1900 to 2000 rpm/62-65 mph. Go any faster and the mileage will go down to 11 or 12. And trust me, it will run faster. With the empty pickup body, I checked it on a trip from Maryland to Albany NY at 19 mpg. With the camper on and all that wind resistence up there it averages around 12 mpg on the flat if you keep the speed down to 65. In my current business I use it to pull an old 9 ton three axle level deck trailer. Some months back I purchased an 1845C Case skid steer loader in Alabama. Hurricane Ivan was moving in on that area so I had to make a quick trip to get the machine or loose it. Drove 2,200 miles in 38 hours dragging the trailer to get the machine home. The truck averaged 11 to 12 mpg at 70 plus miles an hour. I am tagged for a 25,000lb. gross combination weight. At home I haul my 350B Deere dozer w/full cab/winch around to job sites with ease as well as loads of pilings, lumber, etc. The truck has been driven across 35 states picking up crane parts, equipment or just vacationing. Two years in a row we covered 5,500 miles in 15 days on trips to Yellowstone, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, etc. The engine is original as well as injectors and pump. Only the usual bolt on stuff has been replaced such as water pump, power steering, alternator, etc. Drive train wise, it has had a transfer case, a couple of front universals and a complete brake job once since purchased. I have never owned a tougher more reliable truck. Tomorrow I am heading to Indiana with it to pick up an 8' X 22' 4 1/2 ton steel pushboat hull for my pile driving business. A friend of mine bought a new 1 1/2 ton Chevy with a 6.5 when I bought mine to pull a hydraulic boat trailer. It now only has 48,000 miles on it but it has had 4 injection pumps in it. It has a 512 rear in it but can't get out of it's own way on a hill. He has to get down in 3rd to pull up a local bridge with a 1 1/2 ton boat that I can run with my trailer and dozer in 4th direct, go figure. He finally bought a used Dodge with a Cummings to pull boats and retired the Chevy for service calls. In short I love the old 7.3 IDI and plan on running it for another 100k. My only complaint is the high first gear and the dual mass flywheel set up that jerks when taking off with a load. I am toying with putting a U.S. Gear underdrive box behind to trans to be able to pull off better when heavily loaded and to be able to split gears when pulling hills. Keeping up this old Ford beats $40,000 for a new one that I can't work on for all the electronic chips, etc. Additionally even the new ones don't come with all the extra springs, oversize fuel tanks, tires, custom seats, front winch, etc. that I now have in this one. In short I haven't heard many bad things about these old 6.9 and 7.3 Fords in F250 and F350 chassis.
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