I've just ordered parts for 03 and have all been correct ,my truck is an 03 never purchased anything from Aus, mainly because we don't stock much.

 

BrianB, 6/99 till 2003. Late in 2003 the US got the 6.0 with front coils on the 4x.

Your 2002 maybe a US truck as I said above. Anyway, ordering is easy for you, 2002=2002.

My understanding is when the 7.3 stopped being produced in the US in 2003 Ford moved the plant to Brazil and kept manufacturing of the 7.3 going there until 2006. When Brazil stopped in 2006 FA decided that there were not enough Ozzy F250 sales to justify going through ADR compliance on another F250, and so brought in Ford Transits from the UK. A great truck in their own right & ironically enough probably more suited to Australian conditons than the F250 - Australia having the most urbanised population of any country on the planet - Transit being better in the 'burbs so to speak.

Personally, I think we're on to a winner here with the 7.3 - you can still easily source anything from the US, and everytime I look at the US forum the largest number logons of any of the forums is on the 7.3 forum, and that is the place where the later models are readily available, but none the less are viewed with suspicion because of the increased complexity.

Blue - you have to allow PMs. My PM send to you got rejected.

Blue, thanks for your kind offer! I'll PM you my address & receive with great thanks!

Also, you're not the first here to modify one of those Tuff-Bollocks dampers to get it to work - although you'd be the first to remove the spring. It sounds like a good idea.

One last point - when you've got the front end of the truck up checking the steering damper action from side to side, move the steering from side to side slowly - say no quicker than 10 secs full lock to lock - otherwise you may blow the cap off the PS fluid reservoir causing a mess and a stress (oh no the steering's stufft). And I don't know cause I'm smart if you get my drift.

 

Simon,
How do I tell if mine is Kentucky or Brazil?

 

Thanks for that advice Simon, i had a good idea about the overflow of the steering pump, i always take it easy when working around steering and brakes.

How do you set up you signature? Does this take a little time like the PM system?

 

BrianB, yours being a 02 would most likely be a Brazilian model .

Have a look at where the hood lever is if it on the drivers side (right) and if it hasn't got a glove box it's not US manufacture, your ID (vin) plate should have that on it .
Have you two vin plates?
IIRC the motor ID or numbers place the motor and running gear to Brazil.

Also if you have two steering boxes as well, the box on the left side is used as a idler box.
The left steering box on the Brazilian model has been blanked off by FA

In the US built trucks the left box is used and they run an idler on the right side.

 

Thanks, right side bonnet lever and no glove box so it sounds like it's Brazilian built.

 

Also the park brake will be a push pedal on the left side if the foot well (US) ours has the park brake handle next to the console (like a commodore) ouch i shouldn't have said that.

 

Steering Up-date, well i decided to cut the spring off the Toughdog steering Stabilizer and try it to see if that wander has disappeared , it has fixed the problem to a certain degree I'd say it's 85-90% fixed , when i get my new Tuff Country SX5000 stabilizer this will be the fix, now if it doesn't fix it completely there is still the adjuster on the steering box (I don't really
want to go there) that said and done I'm used of driving the work ute (BA Falcon F/T) which has rack & pinion steering so I'm probably expecting too much from effie.

WARNING be careful when cutting off the big spring it does have some pressure on it, once you've got the spring off you'll have to weld on a mounting bolt to the stabilizer rod to secure it to your drag link.





These washers hold the spring in place




This is the finished product , painted semi-gloss black

 

Hi Blue, what a great job! If that damper is still working properly then I don't think you're going to notice a great deal of difference to the Tuff Country one. It'll be interesting to see.
Can you imagine the extra strain on the PS to compress or expand that big spring?

 

Yeah if i had another spring (2) like that I'd rip the leaf springs out and have a coil sprung 03 F-Series . they are heavy and have a lot of pressure on them.

 

All Australian delivered F250's and F350's were made in Fords San Paulo plant in Brazil. The design engineering for the RHD trucks was done by a team in the US. The trucks were sold in Australia, New Zealand, and for a few years the 4.2l engined trucks were sold in South Africa. They also made LHD 4.2l F-series for domestic Brazil/Argentia/Venezuela markets.
If a truck was made in Kentucky, it is a private import that will have been converted to RHD.

The trucks were sold from late 2000 thru 2007, with model years of 2001 thru 2007. In 2007, the Brazilian plant stopped making RHD variants, but continue making modified versions of the F-Series for local South American markets for some time after that
(with the 3.9l cummins engine), but have since discontinued that. During the time they were sold in Australia, they were sold alongside the Transit in Australia (the Transit wasn't a replacement for the effie!)
The 7.3l and 5.4l trucks that were sold in Australia are closest in spec to US delivered 2001 model. There were no significant running changes to the trucks from 2001-2007 except for offering some different packages (originally no XL trim F250's came with the 7.3l, but was later made available etc.), and fixing some issues that came up with the trucks in service. The US trucks made running changes in the 2002 and the 2003 model years (and then beyond that), that were not introduced to the Australian market. Powdered rods on the 7.3l, increased HP for 7.3l manual trans variants among a bunch of other things, however nothing hugely significant, and for most parts, any 2000-2003 7.3/5.4 parts that aren't unique to our RHD vehicles will work.
From 2007 there were plans to continue selling the RHD F250's/F350's, but moving production to Mexico, and the model years would keep up to date with US spec (i.e. Aus would have received the 6.0l - 6.4l etc.), at the last minute, the Mexican plant said they couldn't support it, and the plan was dropped. To the best of my knowledge I don't think Ford of Australia has reconsidered bringing the F-Series back after that, which I think is disappointing.

Outside of the fact that they are RHD, there were a number of other changes to the trucks to either meet Australian design requirements and/or our conditions. Things like the hand operated parking brake, stack exhaust on F350 models - narrow chassis only F350, "quadrashock" rear, "bed delete" etc.
The 4.2l trucks use the same body/chassis, but differentiate even further from the US (and 7.3/5.4l Aus trucks) in more parts - only rear ABS, rear drums, 4.10 differential ratio, no engine computer
It will be Brazil.
I've seen a couple of 7.3's that have had a coil sprung front conversion. Makes a big difference (for the better).

 

Thank you for that very Informative report Adrian, we will all know where our trucks started out from now .
So are you saying the from 02 the FA trucks had powered rods?

 

No, sorry should have been clearer. The 2001 7.3l US trucks had forged rods, and all Aus trucks (01 thru 07) had forged rods. Powdered rods got introduced in US trucks sometime in 2002 (I think), and they had a few other changes that Aus trucks never received.

 

I got PMR's ??? I doubt you will find a AUS truck with forged.

 

Really? I was told by Navistar Brazil they all should have been forged. Was your engine made there or US?

Anyway, it wouldn't surprise me that the cheeky buggars lied!