A while back I ran into one hell of a deal. A friend of mine who owns a landscaping business has a 97 F-350 7.3 that he only used for snow removal. It has a flatbed and a salt spreader on the back and that was it for weight that it dragged around. The truck had around 160k miles on the motor and about 3k on a rebuilt auto tranny. Anyway, I picked this truck up for $500, yep I said $500. So now I finally have my donor motor to slowly rebuild for my 99. Everything else on the truck I plan to sell to help finance this endeavor
(yeah I know it will only be a drop in the bucket) and what I can't sell will probably get scrapped. My plan is to document the entire process from tear down to install and post on here for those who might be interested in following along or helping with some advice when I an doing something jacked up The only thing that is holding up the start of this project is my new shop being a mess. We just bought a new house so I haven't quite finished the move in. I did get a 40' by 60' shop with 14' doors and it all sits on 10 acres... HELL YES!!! Anyway, I'm excited enough about the new project that I just wanted to share with someone. Once I get the truck actually inside the shop I will snap a few pics to get the new project kicked off. Feel free to toss ideas my way.

 

Cool. Looking forward to reading all about it.

 

Wow.. good deal. Look forward to it!

 

Wow.. good deal. Look forward to it!

 

Just a quick question. What kind of shape is the 97 in? Could you sell it whole and make enough to just buy a good rebuild kit or running motor to drop in?

 

Lets see a pic of this $500 truck

 

Glad you got it. I'd love to have that shop, and on ten arces,

 

A '97 donor motor to rebuild you '99.

Will they mesh together?

I thought the '94-'98 were sisters and '99-'03 were sisters?

 

I'm not looking for a quick fix. My current engine is working fine. I got this to have a long term project to work on. It would kinda ruin the whole hobby project thing if I bought a motor just to drop in. The donor truck is not in too bad of shape, not the best but not too bad either. With the tranny, axles, and body panels I should be able to get enough to get my project off the ground. Basically the only parts from the old motor that will remain are the block and heads (maybe some other miss parts). The rest will be new parts that are intended for a 99. I posted a question on here a while back and from the replies I was under the impression that this will work just fine. If not I guess I will adapt and over come. In the end I will have a fresh motor with higher end parts. Stay tuned, I will try and get some pics posted by the weekend.

 

Joe (CSIPSD) has a thread going on another forum, he is putting a 96 motor into his truck. Says intake plenums and exhaust manifolds need to carry over, otherwise good to go. He also had trouble installing the welded oil squirters.