Hello all,
I am new to the forum and new to diesel trucks. I just purchased a 1993 ford f350 crew cab 4x4 dually with a 7.3 idi, 132k miles, new remanufactured trans (still under warrenty), rollalong package, Firestone air bags. I took it on a 300 mile trip not even 24 hours into owning the truck and it ran great.

after reading on the net thier are some things im worried about and i am hoping to get some solid advise from others. first and foremost is Cavitation, how can i test my truck for this? how can i prevent this? i have heard that seymptoms are similar to a blown head gasket. i have no water in the oil or even sighns of moister and no oil in the water, no steam when starting, and no consumption of oil or water so fare.

also how can i tell if my turbo was stock from 93?. It says ATS under the hood and i have no idea if it is aftermarket or not but it does not look new.

This truck is really clean on the inside and runs great the only two things wrong that i know of so fare is the main tank will not work so im filling the axillary and the a/c pump need to be replaced, both of which i was made aware of before purchase. any idea what could be wrong with the main tank or where i should start?

I purchased this truck hoping i could have a reliable vehicle to tow my 24ft toy hauler and as a back up truck for the family. I paid 6k and have been looking for a few months, however everything i was finding had about a million miles on it. So did i get a fair deal? does anyone have any advise for my existing issues?

thanks for the help and im looking forward to the feed back...

 

sounds like you found yourself a f350 cab and chassis.
i say this because i don't think ford offered a dually 4x4 in a pickup these years.
with a only 130k miles for a crew cab 4x4 dually,im going to say you did great for 6k!!!

read this in its entirety,for all you need to know about preventing cavitation:
Cavitation Article

ATS was the stock turbo used on the turbo IDI's.so even if it didn't come with it originally,it doesn;t matter much.
to see if it was stock or not,you can enter your VIN here:
https://www.fleet.ford.com/maintenan...ls/default.asp

though i think,the stock turbo's may not have said ATS on them.im not really sure about that.


the main tank not working,could be a few things.
the switch on the dash.
the wiring.
the pickup in the tank.
the fuel selector valve.

with the truck off.turn the key forward,and listen for a little motor noise for a second.

we would love to see some pics of this rig!!
by the sounds of things.you really scored a nice find!
just converting a SRW to DRW using a mix of used and new parts cost me well over 1k.(right around 1300 or so i think.)
the Firestone air bags and other things you got too really sweeten the deal even more.

 

Sounds like you got a good deal on the truck. If it was a stock turbo it would have a Ford air cleaner cover not an ATS one. I believe tho that stock turbos were not until 1994? Someone correct me if I am wrong on that!

 

Just posted 2 pics under albums titled "Ford F350". thanks for the positive feed back so fare. I look forward to everyones feed back.

 

nice.very nice.

so does the vin decoder show it being a C&C truck or a SRW pickup.
she's got a stock bed.
either way,someone set it up nice,or what i read about there being no stock 4x4 dually pickups pre-99 superduty is wrong.i don't really know one way or the other.
doesn't matter much.she's sitting pretty today,stock or modded lol.

 

Vin decoder did not specify just says f350 truck, however under boy style it says pick up. do you think it should say dually? now you have me wondering lol.

 

oh yeah.that one doesn't show SRW or DRW i guess.
try this one.i just tried a couple vins from ebay and it does:
Free VIN Decoder - Vehicle Identification Number Report

edit.i found an 01 f350 crew cab that looked like a C&C on ebay,so i tried that one.sure enough it shows if its a pickup or a C&C too.
nice little decoder right there.
thats pretty slick,
so for this example:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ford-...fCarsQ5fTrucks
it appears what he did,was actually started with a dually pickup and converted to 4wd!-harder way about going about it lol.
using other 4wd drives,you can see the decoder will show 4WD.

 

sure enough SRW. so that means single rear wheel? what do you think the gear ratio is on my truck? and what are the pros & cons of a conversion? this makes my truck a little unique so would you say thats value added? can wait to hook up my trailer and see how it pulls.

 

i have a srw f350

 

cool.so its a 4WD SRW (yes single rear wheel) stock truck converted into a dually.
it's either 3.55 or 4.10 gear ratio.
to find out,look on the door jam sticker and find its axle code.its likely that if it does have a converted DRW axle,they would keep them the same as stock,since its a 4wd,to keep cost down.

you want to check a couple things now.so you know.
first.they did the full conversion - the proper way imho.
this means they put adapters or dually hubs on the front,to accept the BUDD style rims all the way around.

1.pull the rear tires off one side.
you will see the axle appears to be wider,meaning no spacers where used,and an actual DRW (pickup) axle was swapped in.
OR you'll clearly see the spacers.
this is info you'll need to know when replacing brakes.and it's just good to know in general.

2.pull a tire up front.
you'll going to see a dually HUB OR adapters.
this is also important info to know so you pickup correct brake rotors etc latter on.

to answer your question about value,
no doubt it added value.
the full conversion like this is expensive to do.all 6 rims,rear axle or adapters,and front dually hubs or adapters,stainless sim's and that dually bed installed and painted to match.
someone payed some coin doing this well done conversion.the result is something not offered pre-'99 superduty(to the best of my knowledge); a 4wd dually pickup (not c&c.)

you'll totally love pulling a trailer with the dually if you haven't yet.

 

Nice truck! Post a pick of the engine bay and we should be able to identify why turbo you have.

 

i'm going to pull tires and check out the above items listed. i will follow up with what i find. i will also post some pics from under the hood. thanks for all the help so far. so what are the benefits of converting to dually?

 

GEEZ I would have dropped 6 grand in a heartbeat for that awesome looking heart throb! WOW That is one super nice truck! Good job! So when you get ready to sell it remember I was the first to offer to purchase it! LOL

 

Better for heavy loads and heavier trailers. If you like the look there is also that.

They also offer a safety net when hauling one of those really heavy trailers in the event of a blow out.

You just need to be careful that the tires are not too wide that they rub against each other when loaded down. That could cause an over heat and eventual blow out.

 

Beauty of a truck find! Steal of a deal IMO.

The factory turbo air cleaner cover looks like this:


If it says something different, than its aftermarket ATS, which is the same system, but improved considering the non-squashed exhaust downpipe.
AFAIK factory turbo was 1993.5 - 1994.5, so 93 turbo is possible, but I'm guessing since your cleaner says ATS rather than FORD is aftermarket anyways.