So I went and test drove an X that a friends cousin has for sale. 01' XLT V10 4wd with 136k miles. He is the original owner, and has always had a local repair shop do the maintence. I was very surprised at how clean the truck was for being a MI truck. Exterior had one half dollar sized paint chip on the upper wheel well with some surface rust (that would need to be taken care of) and two of the window moldings showed some signs of bubbling, other than that it was very clean underneath as well. Suspension components where rusty but that is normal. Interior was fairly clean, no rips or anything , could use a good cleaning.
Mechanically it seemed good, oil was nice and clear , Trans fluid was red and smelled like trans fluid not a burned smell. No real leaks to speak of.. some seepage around the trans cooler / rad fittings and I could see signs of oil on the top of the sway bar.. to far forward to be a rear main, I think it might be from the oil changes. Brakes where good. Shocks seemed decent. It has new BF Goodrich allterrains on it.
Now the bad. It does have a slight exhaust manifold leak , to be expected (I know Ill have to replace the bolts anyways).
I was told the 4wd hubs need to be locked in manually if I wanted to use 4wd. Lock the hubs then hit the switch if I need 4wd.. Is this normal ?
The leaf springs are weak, both front bump stops were gone. I planned on doing the V/B swap eventually anyways. There was a rattling sound if I hit a bump, I think it is the sway bar end links it look like the bushings where gone.
Now the steering issue. If I turned a corner, the wheel would start to return to center but not all the way. While driving in a straight line it seemed as if the steering was sticking ? The wheel did not want to return to center on its own. Is this a steering box issue or ball joints ? He said the ball joints where done two years ago, along with U-joints and a CV joint. There where zerk fittings in the ball joints so I don't know if they where stock or not. It look like the suspension points were greased.
On the return back from the test drive I hit the throttle and during the 1-2 shift (about 4500) the Y pipe flange broke. Scared the heck out of me.

Over all even with the issues the truck seemed very solid. I thought the owners original price of $7500 seemed high but this past week I've seen some Junk that was $1000 or more than that. Monday we are going to take it to a friends of mines shop to go thru it, determine if it needs ball joints or a steering box and fix the Y pipe. I've already got a set of manifolds (mounting flange just needs a surface cut) and a Y pipe lined up. My original plan was to offer $5500 but seeing how the owner was with the truck and how clean it was I don't see that happening. I'm not doing anything until we figure out what is up with the steering though.

 

Sounds like the steering box is on the way out. Most recommend the Redhead steering box, but its pricey. I want one though. If I recall right the factory ball joints didn't have zerks either.

As for the price and condition, I will let other experts speak.

 

I'm also leaning towards it being the steering box.
My thought of $5500 was a total lowball and after seeing the condition of the truck and feeling out the seller there is no way he would have taken it. I had $6500 in my head but now after finding these things I don't know.
I hate to walk just because I would rather purchase something that has had one owner and proof of maintence , also this truck has the 4:30 gears which I'm finding out are not all that common on these.

 

Take it to the shop and see what all it's going to need then find out how much the parts are, Then Take around 65% of the parts cost off the price he is asking, I do this on just about everything I buy. It's used but it needs work and x are one of them thing's that it's got to be a persons looking for something so big and a gas hog when I got mine I talked the guy down little over a grand by doing this. But dont look at the after market price on parts look at oem... I hope this help's....

 

Thanks, I will do this. I'm starting to have second thoughts about even making a purchase. I know it's going to need manifold bolts (add headers or manifolds when replacing?) , V/B spring upgrade (I tow a #7500 trailer) , the vacuum system for the hubs has been blocked off so manual locking of the hubs, and who knows what else. It's all normal wear and tear for a vehicle with 130k miles on but I just don't know if I want to jump into it. 3 years ago I sold my Dodge/Cummins because it just sat around most of the time and it was too cramped for our family. Got good money for it but am starting to regret selling it. We thought we could go without a truck but it just isn't happening. The X fits our needs, but just don't want to wrap up $15k plus in a newer diesel one that will sit around most of the time.. that is why we are going the V10 route. It might see 6000 miles a year other than that it will be parked.
I know in the big picture of things, if I get this for $6k-7k and end up dumping $3k into it , it's still WAY less expensive than a new truck. And once all the stuff is done it will hopefully just be normal maintence costs.

 

Not to hijack your thread but I am in MI too and if you are looking for a nice Ex I would consider selling mine. It is a 2001 Limited that I have owned since new. It has ~92k miles on it and there is nothing wrong. I have already replaced the 4x4 hubs with Mile Marker units. I have already had the exhaust manifold studs/nuts replaced. I have already had the ball joints replaced. I've even replaced the spark plugs TWICE and it has 10 new Motorcraft COP's as well. Everything works as it should. There is NO rust on it either. Let me know if you are interested.

 

That's true I would take him 6500 cash and tell him, It need's this and that, point it out to him what all it need's, Then tell him I have this in cash money right here and now and that's all I can pay for it. Cash talk's and there might be someone that will pay 7500 but you got to wait for that person to get it and you are here with the money now... and go and look at the KBB on it and see what it says...

Kelley Blue Book

 

Email me at scarabchuck@aol.com with any details or pictures. I'm about ready to hit the sack so I will look on my email tommorow.

That is pretty much what I planned. Once it goes to my friends shop he will look things over and go from there. There are also two others to look at tommorow. This is the third one I've looked at. The first two I wouldn't have given $2k for them. So I was excited to see a really nice clean one.

 

Just keep looking you will find a nice one with the price you want to pay... and let me know if that work's out for you...

 

I am currently dealing with a similar situation with my steering not returning to center.
Prior to my new ball joints (moog), the X seemed to drive pretty good on the fwy. I had recently added V/B mod springs new shocks and tires. Since I did so much work I took it to an alignment shop and they said I need new everything in my front end.
So I added ....
New ball joints upper and lower
New front end links left and right
New steering link
and one more link I can't remember what its called.

After I added the ball joints the steering was not good on the fwy and it was all over the road it did not and does not return to center. This was causing me to steer the X to keep it centered.

The alignment shop told me that the ball joints are tight and need to break.
Prior to the ball joints it seem good and I can see that the ball joints are somewhat breaking in....

I lowered the air in my tires and I removed the steering dampener. These have helped the drive but not fully. I feel that my steering box is too tight from the previous owner and is not returning to center because of this.

My theory...Since my old ball joints were no good the tight steering box compensated for this which made the drive ok. But with good and tight ball joints the steering box may now be too tight on it causing it to not return to center. I am going to back it off a bit and hope that it has not been overtightened and now no good which may have me purchasing a redhead steering box.

Tim M

 

That's interesting to hear about how bad the selection is around here. I haven't looked at any recently, though that sounds about right to what I saw last summer. I'm planning to put my black '02 up for sale within the month (I have to get it cleaned up and ready for sale first) and since it was in Florida all previous to me and well taken care of all along, hopefully it'll be a quick sell. I started looking at Craigslist the other night to get an idea of what's out there in metro Detroit and there's a number of them out there, but it's hard to tell what they all need just from Craigslist pictures.

Tim, I was thinking the same thing. I tightened the steering box on both of mine, but I'm pretty sure the '05 has a bad ball joint (one was replaced already). The '05 wanders all over the highway and is a bit annoying to drive (I plan to get that replaced soon), but the '02 handles very well and really doesn't require many adjustments to keep it going straight on the same road. Neither steering box returns fully to center now, though they're close.

 

I just backed off the steering box by about a 1/4 turn (loosened it) and it has helped the constant steer I had to do while I was on the fwy.
It didn't completely remove the issue with it not returning to center but it drives much better.

I no longer have to continue steering the X trying to get it to center.

Tim M