A little background. I have been looking for a cheap, good condition 7.3L X for a while. Basically since I fell in love with my 96' 7.3L OBS truck.

My wife's 1/2 ton suburban is starting to give us maintenance issues, and with 157K on it, the life of the gas motor is something that I am concerned about. So, after selling my rock buggy, I decided to start seriously looking for a good Excursion to build up a little bit. The purpose of this is obviously a DD for the wife, but also to tow with on our Moab, UT and Black Hills, SD trips. I triple tow my son's 4runner on a 16ft flat bed, with a Coleman Sun Ridge pop-up behind that. It puts me roughly at 65ft with my 96' F250. So, the X will be a little shorter. My F250 pulls it really well. Hopefully the X will do that same.

Anyway, I went and looked at two X's on used car lots as far away as Colorado Springs. Both were complete and total POS's. The 1st one came out of MN and didn't even have the 3rd row seat in it. It was a rusty POS. The 2nd dealer really pissed me off when telling me how great of condition it was in, no accidents, "clean" carfax, etc. When I got there, there were fuel leaks in the valley, cracking bondo all over the DS front door, no fluid in the brake master cylinder, and the Ebrake didn't work at all. It was rough. Really rough. That was enough for me and I walked away.

On the way home I saw a PP seller on Autotrader. The Ad was 4mo old, but I called the guy anyway. Amazingly he still had it. I figured I would at least go look at it. It had its issues. Dented front bumper, stereo system was a hack job, worn tie rod ends, tear at the "Limited" embroidery in the PS seat, and again a fuel leak in the valley. But, the rest of the X was in very good shape. He had tons of high $$$ maintenance records on it, new tires, etc. So, I was able to negotiate the price down to a decent $10K for it. X has 176K on it and is pretty much stock except for a disconnected Xzillaraider tuner thing.

Some things I really liked about it was the fact that mechanically (minus the fuel leak) it was really solid. Tranny was replaced at 107K by Ford too. While the stereo system was a hacked installation, it had a $2000 Pioneer head unit with navigation(not working at the time I bought it), DVD player, etc in it. It also had a 13" overhead TV monitor. But, nothing worked and based on how the sound would cut out over a certain volume, I had to rewire it to make it work right. I knew I could go through it and re-wire it. It came with two 10" subs in the rear doors, Then I noticed it had Focal 6x8s in each speaker location. Focal speakers run around $300/pr. That was an added bonus. So, there is $1200 in speakers alone and a large JBL 6-way amp in it. Knowing that I am not really a huge stereo system guy, I decided to gut the amp, and basically just run the system off the already high powered head unit.

So, yesterday I went after it. I got the headunit working, and then rewired it all. Results are an amazing sounding system now that everything works.

The night I bought it I replaced the front bumper with a new chrome one from Cert-fit. And, I replaced the Tie-rod end that was bad. Good to go there now too. I'll be doing ball joints this week and more than likely manual locking hubs too.

I diagnosed the fuel leak and it appears that its just the "water in fuel" drain, so I will be picking up an o-ring kit from Bob(guzzle) on Monday to fix that. My shop is a mile from his place, and I have gotten to know him pretty well over the last few months working on my 96'.

Future mods:
Diamond Eye Exhaust with added resonator
Glow Shift gauges
Large Tranny cooler
DP Tuner
6637 Intake mod
Milemarker manual locking hub swap

Lift of some sort. 5-6" with 315s. Not going nearly as big as my old one. It already has 285's on it now, so one size up shouldn't be too big of a deal. And the DP tuner I want should push them no problem.

I have had two previous X's. Both were V10s though.

Pics of my new one, when I bought it.








Here is a pic of my old 00' V10 with a Donahoe Racing 7.5" kit(now Icon Vehicle Dynamics) and 37s

 

Next up is hood struts and door lock actuators too.

 

Great deal and nice Ex - my favorite color.

 

Wedgewood blue is actually my fav. Or, the 03+ All black limiteds, but I refuse to own a 6.0L.

My other V10 was the same color, but an XLT. I like the Limited's tan base color a little more.

 

Oh, and here is my 96'. I love this truck. I wish that Ford made the 99+ models as sound as the OBS models.

 

Good luck with your new build. Your old X looked sweet with the 37's

 

Nice find bro!
Keep us posted on your progress.

 

Nice X! I have a feeling it will triple tow no problem.

 

Brief update.

Ordered a bunch of stuff this week to get this dialed in.

3x Glowshift a-pillar gauges ordered
Diamond Eye turbo back Exhaust ordered
MBRP resonator ordered
6637 filter ordered
All four door actuators ordered
Hood struts ordered
New clear headlight lenses ordered
New Silverstar ZX3 Xenon bulbs(as close to HID as you can get without all the downsides)
Ordered a new 80gb hard drive for my Pioneer AVIC-Z1. This comes with all new, updated maps for the GPS and a much larger hard drive. It basically updates it to a Z3. This head unit is amazing to be honest.

Also rebuilt the fuel bowl drain valve with new O-rings from Guzzle. THANKS BOB! Leaking fuel sucks.
Rebuilt the auto locking hubs, and they work fine now. (no need for manual locking hubs) But, it needs ball joints.

 

Are those TreadWrights on your OBS truck?

 

No. BFG A/T KO2s.

Not my favorite tire, but work well for the truck considering I got them at 95% tread left for a good price. I hate that they are 16.5's though.

 

Today I got the new intake and the Diamond Eye exhaust with MBRP resonator installed. No, audible difference inside the cab and best of all no drone at all either. There is a fairly noticeable difference in throttle response and I was able to hit 19.2psi of boost based on the scan gauge at WOT. The DP tuner should push that up to around 25psi on the higher settings.

I ordered my Toyos and Racelines this morning. So, I should have those by the end of the week.

At this point I am still trying to narrow down what I want to do with the suspension lift. I am soooo torn right now. On my old X, I had a Donahoe Racing 7" Edge lift and 37s. The ride quality was excellent. I put over 40k on that X with that lift and I loved it. That being said, I just can't bring myself to spend $2500 on a, now Icon Vehicle Dynamics, lift. I am looking at the ProComp 4" with rear blocks that I can get cheap, or a BDS 4" with full rear springs. There is also the Rough Country 5", but based on what I have seen, it give a lot more lift than 5". Guys are running 37s on it, and I don't want to go that tall again.

I am leaning towards the BDS at this point. Mainly because I am scared that the ProComp is going to be really rough. That and they offer the rear 4" springs and their warranty is just amazing.

 

So, Saturday night, I didn't plug the X in. It was 10* on Sunday morning. When I started it, she immediately puked a seal out the oil cooler(original o-rings). I had a 4ft slick of oil running down the driveway.

I didn't catch it until I went into the shop later to swap the door actuators. So, I spent yesterday afternoon/evening rebuilding the oil cooler. I can't say enough how great Bob is at dieselorings.com here in Greeley. He gave me the seals at 2:30pm on a Sunday afternoon. I cannot tell you how he has saved my *** and my wallet with these seals. If you need powerstroke seals, he is the guy to go to.

So, at 179K, its now got a completely rebuilt oil cooler that should last another 175K. My F250 puked the same seal at 242K. It usually always happens when winter rolls around. The seals get hard and brittle over time and finally let loose when temps get under 20 degrees.

To pull the cooler requires a full drain of the oil as well as the coolant. I switched out to Rotella T5 synthetic when I did it which helps a lot in the cold. And its now got a full coolant flush too.

 

I've only had to replace oil coolers on our diesels from rust. Seals would be fine but the $425 cooler tube would be rotted threw. Had to replace it twice on our 94.

 

Bob (some of you guys recognize his "Guzzle" name because some of us are always posting his helpful web pages) has a great Mechanics Cabinet assortment of O-rings he's put together that is a "must carry" for guys who like to wrench on their 7.3's.

Scotty, you're lucky you live close to him! As much as a great resource he is for FTE being a supporting vendor, it's even better for you since you can just drop by!

Stewart