Im getting jealous. My 5.4 F250 CCLB with 3.73s routinely awards me with 400 miles of range on daily commute. And that is with a 39 gallon tank. What does the Ex have? 42 gallon?

 

44 gallons for the big wagon, but some folks have pumped as much as 46 gallons into a near empty tank.

 

One up me? Heck you crush me. I’ve only driven 65 while towing, so I’ll have to try that out some time! Any idea how much fuel is left when the light comes on?

 

The owner's manual says that there is about 2-4 gallons left when the light comes one.

 

That makes sense. Mine has 8 in it when the light comes on... Sounds about right for the manual. There has to be a safety factor because people will push it to the bitter edge.

 

There are two things I would take out of my life if I had the choice.... 1--stopping to **** and 2--getting fuel. Both come at THE most inconvenient times it seems.

 

Haven’t done much to the Ex lately as it hasn’t needed it.

But...about 6 months ago I noticed some red drops on the ground up front. I naturally assumed power steering or my Blue Top steering gear. I wasn’t looking forward to either. A few months later I had the hood open with the engine running and noticed the radiator was leaking somewhat (red Rotella ELC). If I hadn’t seen it actually seep, I would probably still be looking for an ATF leak in the hydroboost system somewhere. The Radiator was 20 years old so I guess I can’t complain.

Anyway right when the Covid thing started I ordered a radiator from Amazon. It came in the OEM box, which was clearly not meant for shipping. It was mangled pretty bad. I returned it and bought the same thing from Autozone. It still took three different Autozones before I found one not damaged. Cost me $70 more than the same thing on Amazon.

Anyway, finally got around to installing it last week. The challenge was tying the transmission into my new OTW cooler in the bottom of the radiator. I had a hell of a time figuring out what fittings to get that fit into the radiator. The simplest solution turned out to be buying Dorman transmission cooler lines and cutting off the one that goes back to the transmission. These were 3/8” lines so I also needed 3/8”-1/2” hose barbs. So much for upgrading to 1/2” lines when I put in the 6.0 cooler.





Of course, this being one of my projects, nothing went smoothly. First off, the drain nut on the old radiator broke off. Took a bit of coaxing to get the rest of it out. The rest of the install was awkward, but not crazy. The major brain fart was when I accidentally added 3-5 oz of motor oil to the transmission (before I noticed) when I went to top it off. Note to self: Mobil 1 motor oil (use in the Honda) and Mobil 1 ATF are in the same exact 1 quart bottle, except the all important label.

I called Mobil tech support and they said don’t run it. Other FTE’ers suggested just draining and flushing the fill tube and pan with some SuperTech ATF. I had almost 20k miles on this batch of transmission fluid so I decided to just do a complete flush and fill out of a preponderance of caution. I did that yesterday. What a PITA. I don’t remember it being that bad last time. This time I had a hell of a time getting the return line back on the trans. I spent about 2 hours under the Ex drenched in ATF cussing like the Sailor I used to be.



Oil slick about 25’ long.


Bruises on my arm from working around the transmission cross member.

 

Man those can all be a bear. Glad you got her sorted! It’s always something it seems, I have heater core hoses leaking and an oil leak on a fresh rebuild.

 

After seeing @BBslider001 LED dash light replacement over in the 7.3 section, I decided to tackle this project. I had a few bulbs burned out so I worked on it this morning.

All the illumination bulbs I replaced. The five black ones are #194 and the single one is #37. The small one is polarity sensitive so if it doesn’t illuminate it is probably in backwards. Check before buttoning up your dash!


The #194 bulbs. I just reused the socket.


Original #37 bulb.


The #37 replacement.


Sorry for the crappy picture, but this is the result. The #37 bulb definitely doesn’t put out quite as much light at the #194’s. It’s dimmer on the speedo between 50-70mph range. While not perfect, it is better than the pure darkness in that region that I had before. I can actually read the odometer now!

 

Very nice Eric! Yeah, my fuel gauge is very slightly dimmer than the rest. I may take it back apart and recheck all the bulbs and replace that one with another one just to make sure everything is okay.

Did you use white or green?

 

I used white. That little #37 just doesn’t put out as much light as the other bulbs. Maybe I just go back to an OEM style incandescent?

 

My #37 works great. Maybe try rotating the bulb if you pull it back apart? I am going to estate the one behind the fuel and coolant gauge. It's not too dim, but dimmer than the rest of the cluster.

 

Yep, I did rotate the bulb. When I had it in the other way it didn’t light up at all.

“Funny” side effect of these dash bulbs is I had to turn down the brightness. Problem is if I turn it down too far my stereo screen starts flickering. Never discovered that before because I needed the brightness turned up all the way to see anything.

 

I did the same retrofit with VLED bulbs. The area in the speedo from 50-70 mph is always a little dimmer than the rest. I’ve battled this with my prior excursion. Just crappy design work on fords part.

 

I don't think it's crappy on Ford's part. These clusters were not designed for LED bulbs.