Picked up my first diesel truck today. It's a 4WD 1995 F-350 XLT Crew Cab Long Bed with the 7.3. Has 350,000 body miles, 270,000 motor miles and 150,000 transmission miles. Is far from perfect but picked it up as a project truck so wouldn't be much of a project if I bought a pristine truck Thing cruised real nice for the 2 hour drive back home. Only problem was it would vibrate a bit more then my liking at 70+ mph. My guess is the wheels aren't balanced. Look into it in the future when I get to it on my long project build list. Will post pics of the truck tomorrow!

 

Subscribed and watching!

 

Here's a few pics as promised (Can't figure out why some came out normal and why some didn't)

 

Here's some of the progress:
Gutted most of the interior. Since it was a "Roll A-Long" truck it had all god awful elecrical add-ons gimmicks (Light-Up Exterior Handles <a href="http://www.sherv.net/"><img alt="Vomit" width=50 height=48 src="http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/funny/1/vomit.gif"></a> etc.) so spent spent the better half of a day figuring out which wires were which and what not and ripping all the ones I would not be utilizing out.

Took the bed off along with other things I will no longer need/will be replacing (ie. the dumb "cowboy" bumper which the previous owner decided to weld on instead of bolt on and the spare tire carrier as it won't fit a 40" tire)

Replaced to broken rear sliding window.

Looking to take front clip off this weekend. Possibly work on disconnecting cab from frame if time permits.

Also anyone near the Philadelphia region with a 8 foot bed they are willing to sell that will fit this truck that is in good condition feel free to PM me as I'm looking for one because the rust on the wheel wells for the one that came off were far to gone to salvage and it had a fifth wheel at some point so had a huge hole in bed which wouldn't work for what I plan on using it for.

Also anyone know best way to deal with this intercooler? I want to get the paint off as it is peeling and looks god awful right now but don't know how to go about it? I don't think sand blasting would be a good idea nor do I think paint stripper would be so really don't know what to do about it.

Here's a few pictures because we all know "Pics or it didn't happen" lol

 

Cant wait to see it progress. Love this body style!

 

Finally warming back up again so I can start working on it again. Over the winter I did very little as #1 I hate the cold and #2 I had to do a motor swap in my daily as I blew it up....but now we're back at it!! Biggest progress I made was ripping the motor out and gutting the entire interior and fixing rust along body seams and other random rust spots on the main body. Will post pictures of the interior rust fixes when I take them as I didn't take any pictures of that but here's the motor out and ready to get compression tested. I'm sure the compression test will work out as it started right up every time, had plenty of power, and didn't knock a bit. If the compression test does show good results then the tear down will commence. I'm not going to rebuild it or anything, the only reason I took it out truthfully was to replace the oil pan and main seals but while it's out I figured I should do a few other things too. Those things include:

1. The hard to reach sensors/senders (and the less costly easy to reach ones)
2. New Water Pump
3. New Fuel Pump
4. New Fuel lines
5. Exhaust Gas Pressure Sensor Line
7. Exhaust Manifolds
8. Y Pipe
9. Beans D66 (Not sure whether to do 1.15 or 1.0 yet)
10. Glow Plugs
11. Baby Swamp Injectors
12. New Harmonic Balancer
13. New Oil Pan
14. New Main Seals
15. New Motor Mounts

Also gonna paint the block before I put it back in. Here's the motor on the hoist.



Over the winter I was playing around with some donar truck interior pieces to come up with a color scheme for the door panels/interior trim and decided I'm going to be doing a mostly black interior with a digital-snow camo headliner with digital-snow camo accents on the doors using vinyl wrap on the door accents and fabric for the headliner. Here's a picture of one of the door panels I was working on.



So that's were I'm at as of now. More updates to come in the following months!

 

So got the motor all torn down and In the process of putting it all back together now! New everything! Got the block painted up and looking good. Debating on painting the intake plenums, inter cooler piping, and valve covers red or didgi snow camo. Trucks going to be white with black rims. I plan on doing a snow didgi camo headliner so kind of want to paint the intake plenums, inter cooler piping, and valve covers to match the head liner but not sure how well I could do that. Red would be the easier option but wouldn't really match anything on the truck. Let me know what you guys think I should do for the color scheme of the engine even if it isn't what I mentions above. Timing cover, HPOP Reservoir, Turbo Pedestal, coolant tank, and turbo are all staying unpainted aluminum. Firewall is getting painted black as are inner fenders and under hood. Anyways here it is so far, parts start coming in tomorrow apparently so hope to get this thing back together real soon! Again let me know what you guys think would be cool for the engine paint scheme!!






Prepping fire wall for paint.

 

Motors starting to look something like a motor again! Got the timing cover/water pump back on, putting HPOP reservoir/HPOP back on tomorrow night. Still waiting on a few parts that are holding the reassembly process up a bit like the LPOP but making big progress. Most of the work is in the painting and paint prep. Been doing more of that then anything. Here's a few pictures of the motor coming together, the modified turbo pedestal I'm working on for the EBPV delete (Shout out to Briansshop for telling me about that mod) and the ever growing/shrinking parts stash. Still a LONG LONG road ahead but were're getting there and learning alot!











Oh and a parts truck I'm getting the bed, hood, and passenger side door off of

 

Very nice, cant wait to see more!!

 

Well motor's just about back together. Only parts left of that I need to order for that is the new Turbo and electronic fuel pump conversion kit. Got the firewall prepped and primed today. Finish painting that tomorrow. It's a shame cause I kind of like the white firewall a lot especially considering the engines mostly black and the truck itself will be white but whites too hard to maintain in an engine bay IMO so flat black it will be. Polished the valve covers as well. Got the front floor board that slopes upward for your feet cut out and repairing the rust that accumulated below that. Got the fuel tanks and fuel lines all out. Same with entire brake system. Also drive shafts are all out and getting new U-joints, carrier bearing, and painted and hopefully digital snow camo wrapped to match the headliner. Once the new suspension hangers come in it's off for a long weekend at the shop lifting the body off, dropping the trans and taking to the trans shop, and prepping and painting the entire frame and underside of body with Por15. Then the reassembly process can begin! Still got ALOT of stuff to do maybe I'll have it moving under it's own power by fall

Here's a few pictures I've been taking along the way.

 

Finally got the firewall painted up, decided to go with glass black. Did a small patch of the matte black and didn't like it. Also got it to the shop this weekend and did an all weekend long thrash with some help from the guys welding up the cab, painting the frame/fixing it, painting underside of cab, and new body bushings/leaf shackles and hangers. Biggest hang ups was one of the body mounts was rusted out so had to fab up and weld in a new one. The frame got a coat of POR15 and clear after first being wire wheeled and stripped of all major rust and the underside of the cab got a coat of POR15 after same rust treatment and then a coat of bed liner. I choose bed liner because of how durable it is to impacts. POR15 itself is very durable against impact but just added the bed liner as an added layer of protection. Also got my Hydroboost conversion parts all in and ready to install onto the truck. Also decided I'm going to upgrade the turbo to a superduty 7.3 setup and most likely running a GTP38R. Those parts are currently en route. And as always here's the pictures!

 

nice progress, updates?

 

I have a major update on the project coming and how it's coming along, I'll probably post on Sunday the full list and all the pictures but here's a pic of the engine all finished and ready to get put back in the truck this weekend.

 

That looks like an awesome update. 'We're not worthy'
i cant wait to read the specs of that engine. It's CLEAN!!!

 

Alright as promised here's the big update! I fabbed up my own E-fuel set up for the truck. I made a thread on the whole setup for those curious about the specifics. One of the biggest accomplishments was finding a Rad Support! It was CLEAN but It cost me big time....not going to say just how much but it was a decent chunk of a change.

Got new fenders.

I'm 99% finished my interior color change. Long story short on the interior I have been experimenting with different paints and application techniques since last fall to find the most durable and scratch resistant paint for the interior and believe it or not I found Rustoleum Spray Can Bed Liner to be the toughest stuff and the best results for what I was after so I literally used Bed Liner on the hard plastic interior parts and then Dupli-Color Vinyl and carpet flat black spray paint on all the soft/rubber/carper pieces of the door with adhesion promoter. Didn't use a clear on any of it. The bed liner takes about a full week to cure in non humid conditions but once it cures it durable as H*** and doesn't scratch easy. It also stays on against GooGone and Armor All as well and doesn't wipe away with those products.

Also got the motor back in this weekend! The motor and everything on it was replaced with brand new stuff minus the injectors, head gaskets and ICP sensor. All the stuff that wasn't replaced with new stuff was just too expensive to justify taking a working one out just to put a new one in type of deal. The ICP sensor is easy enough to change out even on the side of the road. I have one I'll be keeping in glove box along with a back up CPS sensor just in case. I didn't do headgaskets as motor only has 150k and 7.3's aren't notorious for blowing them and truck showed no signs of having any possible issues. The oil had no water/coolant in it when was drained and the coolant was like Gatorade and not dirty at all. And then injectors....I plan on upgrading to some stage 2 hybrids one day and I just couldn't justify taking 8 good, working injectors out and replacing them with 8 new ones. Going to run the stock sticks till one goes then I'll put the hybrids in. Yes it would be so much easier to do while the motor was on stand but it's not that hard to do in the truck if you take the time to make plenty of room for yourself in the engine bay. It's just going to be a weekend toy so It won't hurt it if it sits a few weekends while I take my time doing the injectors and not fighting myself.

Oh and it got converted to the Super Duty Turbo system and got a GTP38R to help clear up the stage 2 hybrids I plan on running in the future I'm running the GTP38R with the 1.0 non wastegated turbine housing.

So far only hang up with the super duty conversion was the intake pleums and the down pipe is not wanting to clear and firewall is already bashed in when it got installed on the old system. I haven't solved the down pipe issue as I'm waiting till I decide on where I'm going to get my transmission from and to bolt up the trans to get a better idea of just how much room I have and where it can go. I have an idea of where transmission will be and where the pipe needs to go but just don't want to waste the time fabbing up the pipe and have it not fit because the transmission isn't sitting where I planned so just going to wait till I get my trans to fab the down pipe up. As far as the intake pleums go I bought 3" superduty pleums and little did I know superduty 7.3 heads have an extra hole machined into the heads for the pleums that my non superduty 7.3 did not have so had to weld up the two holes on each pleum where I didn't have holes to run bolts into.

I also finally got the truck converted to hydroboost. Not sure If I mentioned that one in any of the above replies but yeah the hydro boost is in and ready to go. While doing the hydroboost I converted to all prebent stainless brake lines. Don't really have any pictures of the set up so will make sure to take some pictures and post em in the next update.

Ignore the rigged up hood...it's not staying permanently, its only on there right now to help with realigning the front end and protecting motor from elements.

There's probably more little things I'm forgetting but I got a lot of the big stuff out of the way and it's starting to look like a truck again!! My one jobs season is starting to slow down so I'll be getting more time to work on it instead of just the weekends so hope to keep the progress train rolling till at least my winter job season picks up. Not a lot will get done over the winter as I HATE working out in the cold and she doesn't even fit in the garage halfway

So yeah that's where I'm at! With any luck the next update will come with a video of her rolling down the road under her own power!! All 20 different body colors of her and all! Sorry some of the pictures aren't well lit, suns setting way too early and was too busy wrenching all day to stop and take pictures. Will get some better lighting pictures on the next update!




Bed Lining New Gas Tanks





































Fuel Filters Just Barely Hang Down. Only notice if your far from truck and looking for them.



Where I had to weld on intake pleums.



Motors Back In and Reassembling the front clip.







Interior is all black except for door trim pieces and dash trim pieces and headliner...still debating on whether I want to do a digital snow camo accent or not. Originally was gonna paint truck white and do the snow camo but now I'm leaning towards a light grey paint job and don't think the snow camo would go well with the grey....







Mishimoto Radiator.