I picked up a 2003 F250 7.3L Super Duty on July 18th!! It has 140,000 miles now and so far I love the beast, I got it to haul my 27' "Extreme" toy hauler by Kit manufacturing with a GVWR of about 11,000 pounds. I've been reading a lot on this forum about towing with these diesels (as I'm new to the personal diesels as well) and see a lot of you upgrade your tranny coolers to keep the temps down.

I live in Kansas so hills are few and far between, and the hauls that I do my "stock" guage always reads dead center to just below. I do not really need to know what cooler to put in etc... but my question is why would Ford engineer a truck with a 12,500 pound traditional tow capacity if doing so "stock" will prematurely wear your tranny out.

As far as I can tell everything on this truck is stock, and I'm a big fan of as stock as possible and using what the engineers designed for it but my reading is starting to convince me I need to go ahead with guages and a cooler.

Summary of actually 2 questions:
1. Why is what Ford put in not adequete in your opinion
2. If I have no mods and the trans guage reads dead center or just below while hauling do I need to worry about guages and a cooler?

P.S. thank you for all of the valuable info I already garnered from this site with out having to make a single post (till now)

 

in stock you can over heat the trans. so a gauge would be good or a 6.0l trans cooler. for the rest someone will have to answer.

 

'Stock' is for an all around general truck. Very good, but it is possiable to tweek it a little better.
To push the envelope a little more with better mileage (High Proformance) and easier pulls (long haul pulling) you need a Chip or Tuner. Getting a Chip/Tuner will put more strain on the tranny than the engine. Hence a larger (6.0) tranny cooler located in front of the radiator to where the fan pulls air through it instead of below the radiator and only road speed forces air through the smaller 7.3 cooler. Ford messed up on the location and size of the tranny cooler. Your truck is just broke in as I have driven 7.3s with over 600,000 miles on them. You may like your stock truck, but a Tuner will really pay for itself in a year or so with better fuel mileage. On top of that you will be able to choose your pulling situation of 'stock', Hight Proformance and towing. What this does is really change your shift points and your rpms. One thing to remember is to leave your OverDrive ON so the truck will bump up to OD on the flat lands of Kansas this will keep your rpms as low as possiable, the sweet spot is just at 2,000 rpms. You will not have the lug down as you will in a gasser. You may only need to take the OD off if you are going up Mountain passes in the Rockies.


Welcome to Ford Truck Enthusiasts

 

In my opinion, the transmission that Ford provided is satisfactory for the rated GCVWR which is 20,000 lbs. The 1999 models suffered a bit by not having the integrated cooler in the radiator like the later models but you have a 2003 so you are good. We have about a dozen and a half 7.3 trucks in our fleet and about half of them pull trailers each and every day, GCVW is about 18k. They are completely stock and we have had very little problems with any of those trucks. No transmission failures yet and some of those trucks have well over 200k miles so far.

If you have no mods then you will be just fine driving without any gauges. These engines are very durable in stock form with a stock tune, so it's very hard to hurt the engine.

That being said....be advised that it's commonly accepted that the 4R100 is the weakest link in the powertrain. I toasted mine at 138k miles and I was towing over the rating of my truck (24,500 lbs). There are probably quite a few other owners who have had to replace their trans as well. Based on that info it's a wise thing to add a supplemental cooler just for some additional measure of security.

I have always wondered if by chance the 2003 models might have come with the 6.0 coolers anyway. That was the year the engine size switched so I suppose it's possible. Might be worth checking to see what size transmission cooler you have. If you post a photo we can tell you right away if it's a 7.3 or 6.0 cooler. I've seen stranger things happen during mid year production changes...

 

Hate to sound dumb, you just want a picture of the coolers up front right? from the 2nd reply I gathered stock is not bad as long as you obey the limitations. And on the 3rd I heard you should be good but just "honor those limitations"!!I find myself saying already that I "could tow what ever I hook up" but I know thats a bit of an exageration.

Do you just need a picture of the coolers up front for the determination or from a different angle? Thank you guys in advance,



P.S. Now I'm really showing my newb card, I had to search posts by username to find this. There are so many posts eberyday that I lost mine. Can I go to user control panel to see my posts or check a box to update me when a reply is posted?

 

how much the truck run you...trying to get a sense of the market

 

Don't forget..."Stock" means Ford made a "really good truck" at the lowest cost they could, in order to maximize profit. A perfect example is with the Excursions where they put Load Range "D" tires from the factory, then had to recall them all and buy everyone a new set of Load Range "E" tires because the D's were hazardous enough for numerous lawsuits. What was the cost difference from the factory putting E's versus D's initially? Probably $20 to Ford. But multiply $20 times 500,000 units a year, and you're talking real profit there.

So, lots of things on these trucks are similar. If YOU want to maximize the potential of the truck, you can choose to spend your own money to upgrade it.

Before you do any major modifications, if you are towing, you need to do these three things in order (in my opinion):
1) Open up the intake with either a Ford AIS retrofit ($200), or something like the Tymar setup (6637 filter system, about $100)
2) Open up the exhaust with a 4" turbo-back exhaust system ($300 from MBRP or a plethora of other vendors)
3) Get a 3-gauge pod including PYRO (exhaust temps), TRANS TEMP, and BOOST

Anyway, once you start doing small modifications, you will realize you want to do even more. A lot of mine are for better longevity, but with extra power too. Some go to the extreme for power, but I'm more concerned with longevity and reliability...but usually you get more power from the better made upgrades.

 

so many mods to do when i get setup...great info

 

It ran $13,000. It is a pretty clean truck, and it sounds like I'll be making some mods or upgrades soon! Thanks for your help guys,

 

The way i understand it, the water and trans temp guage is not much more than gloryfied dummy lights.... they both go to the center (or under) and stay there until it too late,when they move they go quickly...I would say that a Trans tenp guage is wise to have stock or modded,it also can help with trouble shooting with the trans.... just my .02

Welcome aboard

 

Thanks Joey, I'll be visiting another post soon to read whats already been posted about adding a tranny temp guage etc... There is a boat load of info on this site!