1975 Ford with a Modern Diesel Cold Starts and Plays in the Snow: Freaky Friday

Old Ford pickup is powered by a 6.0-liter PowerStroke diesel, making it a beast that hates winter.

If you live in an area that gets frigid winter temperatures and you drive a Ford truck with a diesel engine, you might know what it is like to get it to start on a very cold morning. If you don’t have an engine block heater, it will be slow to start and when it does, it will run poorly until it gets up to temperature. Hard cold starts can be an even bigger problem if you have a modified diesel pickup, especially if you have a modern diesel engine in a classic Ford pickup.

This week’s Freaky Friday video comes to us from the FordDaily YouTube channel and it features a 1975 Ford heavy duty pickup powered by a PowerStroke diesel. This footage provides a great example of a cold start with a built diesel, but it finishes up with some light off-roading and some drifting in the snow.

Old School Ford with Modern Power

The details on this 1975 Ford pickup are short. We don’t know whether it is an F-250 or F-350, but we know that it is powered by a diesel engine. Ford didn’t offer a diesel engine back in 1975, so the owner of this truck removed the original gas engine and replaced it with a 6.0-liter PowerStroke from a modern Super Duty.

In the modern Super Duty, the stock 6.0-liter PowerStroke offered 325 horsepower and either 560 or 570 lb-ft of torque, depending on the model year. For comparison, the most powerful factory engine option for a 1975 F-Series pickup was the 460-cubic inch V8 with 239 horsepower. In other words, a stock 6.0-liter PowerStroke is considerably more powerful than any of the engines from this era of the F-Series. More importantly, based on the amount of soot pouring from the single stack in the bed, we would guess that this engine isn’t stock.

It could be heavily modified or it could just be tuned with some minor upgrades, but based on how well it rolls coal, we would bet that this diesel engine is offering far more horsepower and torque than it did when stock.

The Cold Start

The video begins with the 1975 Ford truck struggling to fire-up on a cold morning. We can see that the truck is covered in snow and we don’t know if it had an engine block heater overnight, but it takes a minute to fire and when it does, it is chugging like an old farm tractor. As the engine idles at what seems like an impossibly low RPM, puffs of thick, black soot shoot from the stack in the bed.

If you are unfamiliar with the impact of a diesel engine in cold weather, this early footage might seem troubling, but fear not, this old Ford truck is operating normally for this weather.

To show us that the old F-Series is running right, the cold start footage is followed by a quick clip of the PowerStroke’d Ford climbing up a snowy hill. It sounds great in the process, but it gets stuck near the top of the snow-covered slope.

Donuts in the Snow

Finally, the video ends with this classic F-Series doing a series of diesel-powered donuts in the snow. As the truck spins around and around, it kicks up snow and rocks, flinging debris at the person behind the camera, but overall, it puts on a great show.

This last segment doesn’t show us anything that we haven’t seen before, but it is always fun watching a huge, old school Ford truck play in the snow.

Crank up your speakers and enjoy!

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

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