...and still like it with 600 miles added to it.

Spent the first day cleaning the outside. Wheels were red with brake dust from years of no cleaning. Two hours per wheel. Then the body....the roof and hood are bad so the paint shop gets it on the 22nd to redo those areas. New locks on the tool box so it is usable and used course scrubbers to clean the outside glass.....surprise, I can see.....

Next thing was to clean the interior. PO was a smoker and NEVER cleaned the interior of this tan 2000 F250 Lariat SD. Could not read the white letters on any control and my hands stuck to the wheel. Abut 3 hours with some Awesome cleaner and the drivers area looks like it should. Wife did 2 hours on the rest of the interior. Tons of Frebreeze is helping with the old smoke smell....but not all of it.

Then an alignment check and find all the front end is tight, just a bit out of adjustment. Also added a new Rancho steering stabilizer to the stock mounts. This helped a lot. Also, adjusted the steering box and it drives so much better.

Of course a complete fluid check finds it all fresh as the PO said. Took the overhead console out and fixed the bad solder joints so it is working good now. Replaced three burnt bulbs plus installed new headlight units (just went with stock). Not worth the time to try to polish the yellow off. Nice to be able to see. Cleaned the chrome and found the grill needs a repaint. That will happen soon too. Bumpers actually are shiny, not smoked..lol

Next to the clunk of the slip joint drive shaft. Why don't people grease them....? A 20 min. job and no more clunk when stopping and starting.

Now I have to drive it a bit....been doing to much cleaning. Being the first diesel we have owned, it takes some getting used to. It does drive/run great with 153,000 miles on it and 17.5 mpg in town is nice, 19 on the hwy. at 65 mph.

Now to find good mats that will work on the non carpeted rubber floor covering.

Anyway....loving it for sure.

 

This stuff is great for removing the smoke smell


Ozium Original Pump Air Freshener, New Car, 3.5oz: Automotive : Walmart.com

 

GREAT work so far!! Keep it up!! it can only get better!!

 

Thanks ...will look at Wally World tomorrow.

Forgot to add that I found a square hole in the center of the bed. The 2nd PO back...original owner...had a goose neck or fifth wheel hitch of some sort. Also had a couple lengths of heavy channel iron under the bed with bolt holes thru it. Gotta fix that too.

 

Sounds like way to much cleaning. I lose interest fast with cleaning. Great job though.

 

My old F150 I bought from a sub contract sheet rock guy. It smelled like stale sweat and body odor at first but some good old fashioned elbow grease and Lysol and it was gone within a week, driving with the windows down of course.

Can you post pics? I love seeing everyone's truck.

 

keep it up!

 

Sounds like you really had your work cut out for you. Keep up with the smoke smell, it will eventually get better.

 

Don't forget to shoot some of that deoderizer into the air vents. Keep it up, you won't regret the effort. My wife and I treat "Stinky" like part of the family and he has treated us very well. Did you name the truck?

I'm not so subtle with the cleaning thing....

StinkyAir.MP4 - YouTube

StinkyWash.MP4 - YouTube

 

Oh... and don't trust the overhead. We all call that the "liedometer". Hand-calculate your economy and if the liedometer is generous by 3-4 MPG, you may need to do some work on your fuel system.

 

Sounds like exactly how I bought my truck (ss for as cleaning the interior goes).

PO was a sweaty smoker who didn't clean the interior whatsoever.

I ended up scrubbing the WHOLE entire interior. (seats, carpet, roof fabric, etc..). LOTS and LOTS of Frebreeze and let it sit out in the open with all of the doors and windows open.

My interior looks and smells brand new again.

 

If you pull the blower motor and wash the evaporator core it'll get ride of a lot of the smoke smell coming from the A/C

 

My truck was owned for a short time by a smoker. Leave the windows open whenever you can (in a garage, or on sunny days). I have vent visors, which allows me to leave the windows open pretty much all the time.

I rented an upholstery attachment with a rental carpet cleaner and even though the seats looked nice, the return water to the carpet cleaner was literally black. I was amazed. That helped quite a bit.

 

Murphey's cleaning oil. Been around for years! Works like a champ and leaves a great after scent

 

If the inside of the truck was that dirty then I would think that the engine compartment is going to need some cleaning as well. When I got my truck the guy had never cleaned the engien and the truck had 170,000 miles on so to say the least it was bad. I sugest going and getting some heavy duty engine degreser and some simple green.