I am looking at buying a diesel truck, but not sure if the older models were troublesome , or could really pull. were the fords of 1988-2000 with the 7.3 diesel good trucks/motors??

Is there something better, more bang for the buck?

Only have so much to spend, need something that will pull 8000lbs


thanks for the info Greg

 

No doubt the Dodge 5.9L cummins is the most reliable of this time period before the turbo IDI 7.3L or PSD came out. These trucks are carrying a rather LARGE resale value for that reason too. My boss has a '92 W250 with a cummins/NV4500 5-sp. It is in excellent condition wiht about 90k miles. He's had several offers of 12k for it. Aftermarket parts are very abundent. They had 160hp/400ft/lbs of torque. Getting parts for the truck itself can be fairly hard as practically no companies carry parts for these trucks anymore. I have a 1984 W150 that's in decent shape with rust. If your going with the 94+ style, then consider a 1998-2001 12v cummins with the bosch electronic injectors. It has about 205hp? and is probably the most respected year for the cummins trucks. If I were looking for a Dodge diesel truck, I would pick one of those over the 24v anyday.

I would recommend a Ford with the 7.3L from 1988+ myself. There are plenty around and getting parts for the truck is very simple. Watch for cavitation though, if you find a truck and it has cavitation, forget it, a rebuilt motor can cost $5000. These had 185hp/415ft/lbs of torque. If you can find one, go with a ATS turbo IDI from 1993-on, they have considerably more power. The PSD trucks have more power, better fuel mileage and EVERYWHERE. The pre-Superduty era trucks are getting really reasonable now, and have 215hp/425ft/lbs of torque. For a diesel pickup, these are the best value for the $.

Forget GM's from this era, the 6.5L is a POS (they started in 1992). The 6.2L is really weak, but reliable. The duramax was new in 2001, and is by-far the best diesel available in a GM truck, however they are in great demand, so you wont' get one cheap.

 

the 93-89 ctd dodges were really nice. you can't get as much HP out of the inj pump they have, but there are many out there that are cheap and have a lot of life left on them. They come stock with the 160hp engine but 5min will give you 230hp +/- easy. The best year for the 12v p7100 pump engine is 96-98. they had 215 hp in the 5spd. the late 97-98 had the newer interior which I like better. They 7.3's are a good engine also and with a added turbo will do very well. or you cound just buy a turbo 7.3 that they made for a year or so.
dm01

 

Great info, I don't understand some of the acronyms:
PSD power stroke diesel?
IDL

92 w250 is a ford truck? only heard of f250

what the 12v and 24v? valves?

cavitation: I know what it means when a hydrualic pump cavitates, when a truck cavitates what is that?

what years would pre-Superduty era trucks be.

Sorry for all the questions, just getting started. Would there be a good publication on this subject?

 

The PSD is the Powerstroke diesel introduced in 1994. It has a better <a href="http://motorhaven.autoanything.com/">fuel injection</a> system than the previous models.

IDI means in-direct injection. The Powerstroke Diesel had direct injection where the older units had in-direct injection.


W and D models were what Dodge called their 4x4 and 4x2 (repectfully) prior to the 1994 newer style Dodge trucks. In 1994, when the newer style came out, they started going by 1500, 2500, and 3500.

Yes, the 12 valve trucks had 2 valves per cylinder 24 valves had 4 valves per cylinder.



Every diesel has the cavitation problem, however the Navistar diesels appear to have the problem worse than other makes. Cavitation is where the coolant wears away at the cylinder(s) and eats holes in each cylinder. The motor is junk when that happens and is not rebuildable.

In 1999, Ford started making all of their heavy duty trucks 3/4 ton+ the "Superduty" series. Prior to that, (the older style) were just called F250, F350 and so on. I called them "presuperduty era" in an attempt to eliminate confusion.

 

Again good info. You may allready know, but you can prevent cavatition by using a chemical balancer (my terms) . I have to use this in my backhoe to prevent this. I use test strips to see how much of the additive i need to prevent this problem. If you would like more info I will get the brand I use.

greg

 

That's very good information to know when looking at diesel pickups. There's a lot of people out there with "deals" in diesel pickups and usually their too good to be true. Theres a guy in my home town that tried a trick like that got himself sued, but you never know, another six months and he would have been off the hook.

We use the Ford strips at work, not exactly sure who makes them. What do you use?

 

For a diseal truck, probably the best for your application would be a 97-98 F-250 heavy duty. You get the full <a href="http://motorhaven.autoanything.com/"><a href="http://motorhaven.autoanything.com/">float</a></a>er 10 1/4 rear with the dana 50 ttb up front (although it is semi idepentent, it is still very strong.) i don't know if you can one with it, but try and get the 4 speed (BW t-18 correct?). My dad has a 88 3/4 ton that he got for $3000(canadian) for the same reason you are. Anyway the truck he got has more springs than a 1 ton and has all the 1 ton drive train but it only has a 351 in. But to correct that problem he had it rebuilt (cost only $3000 total for everything and he is installing it himself) to 350hp and somewhere around 400 ft lbs of torque at i think around 2000-3000rpm. Also he's converting it to a manual clutch so he doesn't have to deal with all the hydralics. Anyway if you can always go the same way my dad has with his truck, but he tows a lot more than 8000lbs. A built up half ton can handle that load with things like sway bars, springs, higher ply tires, a cam, intake, exhaust, and either a chip or carb will do the trick just fine. But anyway if have any questions on this truck and what hes doing e-mail me, but anyways good luck on the hunt for a truck.