You definitely do not need to go back to grammar school. I just read the eloquent and poignant message of condolences that you wrote to David ( @dn29626 ) in another thread. You just keep on posting Brother @bsiliani . Just hit that return key every few sentences, so us old curmudgeons can follow along without losing our place.

 

(@bsiliani ) Bob, no need to apologize, we all have our moments. No one is infallible. We are very grateful you do feel comfortable and would like to foster that feeling in the social environment we call the FTE. When I spoke to you on the phone a few months back you seemed well educated and spoken, even though you were on a ferry and rather busy on your trip. Your advice was worth mentioning and we are grateful you did.

It was a bit difficult to read, but the message was there.

In my opinion, Sunuvabug was attempting to help you identify something you may not have seen when you created the post. It is not uncommon for a creator to see something differently than a spectator or observer does. I have not tried to eat a 16oz steak in one bit, but that doesn't mean I won't try one day...

2001F350dualwheel took a bit of his own time to help get your message across as well. Very kind of him.


@2001F350dualwheel Nothing is wrong with the stock airbox being on the truck, as long as it is still sealed and the filter is maintained. I have a good friend with a 2003 7.3L with 375,000 miles with everything original, including the stock air box.

Some people follow internet myths and lore before doing research, but we here at the FTE do our best to squash it. Like different "high and low voltage IDM's from the factory"... That is not a thing...

Statements like the following: ...are what lead to internet lore and myths becoming reality in the eyes of others and visitors alike.

Besides what Y2KW57 said, some of us do enjoy the details in a message, even when it has "10 paragraphs"...

 

No harm ... no foul FTE brother. You wrote an interesting post with a lot of good points ... and ... t'aint nutin' rong wich yer grmer or spelin'. Like Sous said ... just asking to make it easier for us readers to get through your post without losing our place. Looking forward to your future thread on your truck engine rebuild and mods. Cheers and stay healthy!

 

ok. That makes sense. I’ve seen some that had busted snaps or broken plastic ears or cracked housings from abuse. But I never had any issues with mine. I just got them cause my uncle got a employee discount. I don’t know if they flow better. He said they are better. If they do I never noticed any power gains. This was back in the early 2000s when guys were throwing K&N filters in stock housings. I went to his work to get my services done and he said the heavy duty boxes are better. Funny thing is I kept my old air boxes. Years later when California went to smog tests on diesels a lot of diesel guys were scrambling fir stock air boxes. I sold them fir more than I paid for the heavy duty versions. But they were in pretty much brand new shape.

 

The snaps do bust and the buckles tend to break, but I helped another FTE'r on a budget by fixing his OEM air box instead of replacing it due to busted snaps. We used some bolts with washers going through the case of the airbox in order to secure the buckles to. This provided a great seal and he has been running this same airbox for 2+ years now. I dare to say that the airbox with the bolts vs snaps seals better than it did when it left the factory floor.

Now, if you are looking to run bigger injectors or hop up the engine at all, the OEM airbox may become too restrictive. But, for OEM injectors and if it seals well, then it is fine and will work for the lifetime of the truck.

That said, I bought an AIS when I first bought my truck because I didn't want to deal with the busted up OEM air box. I later went to a 6637 when I upgraded to the turbo to a T4 system. I was skeptical of the 6637 due to the noise reputation it has, but that has not been an issue with the T4 turbo. I do still have OEM AD 255,000 mile injectors, but one day plan to upgrade to new Alliant 160/0 AC injectors and the 6637 will be a good match with the AC/T4 combo. Time will tell...

I don't mind K&N filters on normally aspirated engines. I have run a K&N in my 3.6L Subaru for 100,000 miles and never changed it. Only cleaned and serviced the filter. This has been in all sorts of climates from the high desert of ID, to the high desert of NM to the mountain peaks of CO to the badlands of SD. Proper care and maintenance can go a long way.

When a vehicle is this old and there are millions of them, there is bound to be some myth and lore spread about them that is not substantiated. I have fallen victim to these myths before, it happens. Perhaps your statements above may lead someone to realize something before they spend money chasing a myth.

 

I see others have already put words in MY mouth…I’m quite capable of explaining my POV. I’m not saying anything is wrong with the stock air box UNLESS you find it unsealed/locked, Then you could potential the pose the question and ask how long is it been like this? At this point I would take the intake off the turbo and see if it has been dusted, and then point it out to the seller. If I show up to buy your vehicle and there’s a few buckles undone on the air box filter when you’re trying to sell it, and you didn’t care enough to make sure all the little things were taken care of before I looked at it... I have to draw the conclusion that how you took care of the vehicle when you were driving it!!! This is one of those items you can use to haggle over and potentially bring the price down. It’s these little things that tell you far more than any ad will... the Devil is always in the details!


When I’m looking to buy some thing USED... Trailer, Truck, Car... as I’m looking at it, I point out all of my concerns to the seller as I observe them. In my opinion, this plant the seed of doubt on their asking price. And it may in some situations have the seller agree to my price rather than risking another buyer potentially offering even less money than I am offering...

Regarding records... I keep a notebook it includes every oil change, tire rotation, sensor change, belt change, bearing replacement, air filter change, transmission rebuild, flush...I even put in the book that I change the seat bottom in my truck. I include the Month, year and mileage of whatever I did to the truck. I keep track of everything! I have EVERY receipt for everything I’ve bought for the truck...don’t believe I replaced that sensor....here’s the receipt. Any other questions you have for me?
If and when I ever decide to sell the vehicle or if it gets totaled or gets stolen. I can use that book to PROVE the level of care, time energy blood sweat and tears I put into my vehicle.

Any potential buyer can look through that book and realize this guy takes care of his crap! I could also take this to the insurance company and when they try and offer me $2000 for a 20 year old truck with 390,000 miles on it… I can prove to them that this is more than just a 20 year old truck.

 

CYA thoroughly.....always good when buying someone else's problems. Nothing more needs to be said.

 

I do the same thing ... and keep an ongoing digital summary, in chronological order of everything that went into each of my vehciles repair, service and maintenance wise. Does it help ... well let me put it this way, I don't know about my 4 wheel vehicles because I keep them for a very long time so its hard to tell. However, I've owned almost a dozen motorcycles, all bought used, and even after riding them for a period of a couple years to over a decade each, I've made money on each and every one of them when I resold them. Every one! Records count.

 

well I doubt that’s scenario really is a factor in the air box problems. Broken or unsealed air boxes aren’t a design issue. I was asking because I thought there was some design issue with the stock normal air boxes. Most diesel guys are in the OCD **** side of the vehicle maintenance board. Most of people swap the factory air box with a aftermarket deal anyway. I’m pretty sure if someone has a broken air box the truck most likely it’s beat to hell and isn’t something on most people’s radar. In 40 years of driving having and buying cars the only cars I ever saw with a bad air box was a wrecked or neglected car that wouldn’t even be on my car buying radar.

well it sounds like you taje care of your truck. I’m not sure when the last time you went car shopping but a lot of people today are asking very high prices for stuff that’s trashed out. Last year I was looking for a DD and you wouldn’t believe the amount of absolute trash people were trying to pass as C L E A N. And I mean hey can you send some pics abd the6 send what looks like great pics. Then you get there and title can’t be found but they will give you a bill of sale or the ,I’m selling it for a friend uncle brother cousin sister boyfriend or it’s a Salvaged title abd it was clean titled over the phone) (it’s not salvaged it’s rebuilt ...I had this argument with a guy once) different colored body panels, crunched, broken stuff and the typical it only needs this fixed ($5 part surrounded by $3500 worth of work and they are asking dealer pricing. ) And you get there and it’s 5 different colored body panels, the interior looks and smells like Dirty Mike and the boys used it for a hot weekend.
I ended up finding a creampuff 2003 Grand Marquis with 68,000 miles for $2000 from a retired teacher who was unable to drive anymore. I didn’t even attempt to talk her down at that price.

And as far as records...I like them. It’s great to have them but I found that rarely do people really care that much. I’ve sold cars and it does help. I have the records of the items I repaired or replaced. I use the receipt to write the date and mileage the work was performed. Fluid changes I jus5 keep a running tally on the jacket of the vehicke folder. .


Unfortunately your insurance company isn’t gonna care about the amount of work you put into it. To them they will pay fair market value. Unless you have a agreed upon value type of policy you’re not adding up every nut bolt and maintenance cost to the value. Insurance companies just don’t work like that. They might throw a few bucks more if say you’re had brand new tires installed a month ago but you’re not getting five or ten thousand dollars more because you got maintenance records. To you it’s more than a 20 yo truck. To them...it’s a 20 yo truck with 390,000 miles.

here is the truck I was selling back in 2018. It’s 20 yo with 180,000 miles. Interior and exterior are pristine. I still get people calling abd I haven’t advertised it for over a years more now. People were trying to offer me all sorts of lame offers sight unseen. Most were flippers. When I did phone searches their ads popped up. Trucks like this in my area were selling for 16-19k. 18-24 if it was a crew cab

 

ABSOLUTELY! The last 3 vehicles I’ve sold, I’ve made money on them, including one traded in at a Dealership ended up getting $2300 over BB. I drove one for 9 years, put almost 195K on it, I sold it for $500 more than I paid for it. The individuals that don’t care about records are also the ones that try lowballing you and leave! Someone that maintains their own vehicles and actually SEES maintenance records on a used vehicle truly understands how that translates to a quality used vehicle. Most people know buying used is often a gamble, extensive maintenance records tend to make it a better bet.

 

This is a little known fact about car insurance. There are more than just liability and full coverage type policies. There are "standard value and guaranteed value" policies. Care to guess which is more expensive and offered by specialty insurance companies? Unless someone has a "guaranteed value or agreed value" policy, they will more than likely be stuck with whatever the insurance company says the vehicle is worth. There may be some wiggle room, but anyone expecting to get $20,000 for their 20 year old truck is kidding themselves if they have a standard policy.

Insurance companies do not typically care about exhaust systems, turbos or maintenance records. They care about payouts and who is at fault.

 

Just another $0.02

$10,000 sounds a tad high for me, expecting that the truck has more rust than it shows.

10K OCI's is certainly feasible, depending on how it's done. I typically hit about 9-10K between changes myself, but that's with an additional oil bypass filtration setup, only high quality synthetics, no abuse to the truck, generally 25 minute drives at a minimum, virtually no hauling/towing (it's a pavement princess). I did a series of lab checks on the oil years ago, and found I could actually go up to 15-18k between changes before the oil would shear down to a 30 viscosity, and the oil condition otherwise was good. I'm also due to probably get another series of lab checks on the oil, just for sanity's sake.

Miss in the engine? Is it only at cold startup and then resolves itself after the engine gets warmed up, or is it always present. If the former, since he did his own injector rebuilds, could be a simple shim issue on the poppet for one injector. Mine has the cold start miss until one of my injectors fires after warming up, and I've probably put nearly 50k miles on it like that with no apparent impact on runnability or fuel economy.

Trans fluid changes? I'm one of those odd birds who has not changed my tranny fluid since I got the truck some 220K miles ago. It's shifting just fine, but I'm stocked with enough fluid to do the change at some point.

DIY maintenance records? I don't really keep hard receipts except for larger ticket items with warranties (i.e. tires, radiator, etc.). HOWEVER, I DO keep intricately detailed written records of everything I do to the truck, and have since the day I bought it, and my notebook is chock full of these details with the dates for all entries, even where you can see that I've twice missed an OCI and went WAY too long on that one run of oil. One of those extremely long OCI's, though, was when I was having a large oil leak for some time and was having to top off frequently enough to where I honestly don't believe there was any harm at all to the system.

My truck runs great. It starts exceptionally well, and gets better fuel economy now than it did 200K miles ago. No smoke at startup (either blue or white). There is virtually no rust at all on my truck, too. If I had to sell it now, I'd ask about $10K for it, even though it has almost 325K miles on it... the mileage just does not show in either appearance or performance.

Again... just another few tidbits for you to use (or not) in developing the context for how you see the vehicle you're looking at.

 

I'm afraid that even Ford would disagree with the assumptions in bold.

Well, not Henry Ford himself, but the Ford engineers who redesigned the 1999-2003 airbox about four times, one of whom spent a good long while explaining to me, in person, and in great detail, the evolutionary design changes and the reasoning behind each production modification, would disagree with you.

Lacking time today to type out some supportive specifics, I found a few posts in FTE's archive that might help anyone who doubts that the OEM airboxes suffered from some design issues, some of which were addressed in production, and the rest of which were addressed by Ford offering the AIS as a retrofit option.

First post in series...

Second post in series...

Third post in series...

Fourth post in series...

Those posts are all in one thread, so if you start with the first post, you won't have to come back to this thread to click the other links, which are only included to skip over some posts because the thread itself (from 2014) is nuanced toward air filters in general, not just factory air boxes.

The late'01 through early '03 air boxes are a bit easier to maintain the seal of than the '99.5 - early '01 air boxes. The differences are in the tab, post, and baffle design changes of otherwise identical looking airboxes. The early 99 airboxes had other problems (ingestion failures from ice damming due to inlet point, and panel sucking up due to thin panel, having no structural support in the panel back, and too small of a seal profile to maintain clamp load, among other maladies).

These were all design issues. Ford did a much better job in the OBS air box filter and design, as well as in the 6.0L and newer air box designs. There was just that brief period there when the 99-up Super Duty came out that found Ford slacking in some areas, like transmission cooling and air box/filter design, which Ford eventually addressed, but not before some of the trucks we focus on in this subforum were already out of the barn. Owners of those trucks cannot be blamed for poor engineering.

 

(2001F350dualwheel) well I doubt that’s scenario really is a factor in the air box problems. Broken or unsealed air boxes aren’t a design issue. I was asking because I thought there was some design issue with the stock normal air boxes. Most diesel guys are in the OCD **** side of the vehicle maintenance board. Most of people swap the factory air box with a aftermarket deal anyway. I’m pretty sure if someone has a broken air box the truck most likely it’s beat to hell and isn’t something on most people’s radar. In 40 years of driving having and buying cars the only cars I ever saw with a bad air box was a wrecked or neglected car that wouldn’t even be on my car buying radar.

Ok, once AGAIN, I never said anything about design flaws...THAT was other members insinuating what I meant by me even asking the question about the stock air box.
THIS IS WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID:
I’m not saying anything is wrong with the stock air box UNLESS you find it unsealed/locked, Then you could potential the pose the question and ask how long is it been like this? At this point I would take the intake off the turbo and see if it has been dusted, and then point it out to the seller. If I show up to buy your vehicle and there’s a few buckles undone on the air box filter when you’re trying to sell it, and you didn’t care enough to make sure all the little things were taken care of before I looked at it... I have to draw the conclusion that how you took care of the vehicle when you were driving it!!! This is one of those items you can use to haggle over and potentially bring the price down. It’s these little things that tell you far more than any ad will... the Devil is always in the details!

If most diesel owners are on the OCD side of **** care THEN a clip shouldn’t be missing at the time of sale OR any other time for that matter! Yet, these clips break and go missing, apparently even for the most **** of owners, so maybe it IS a design flaw after all, typically things like this don’t jump out at you in a picture. You won’t really KNOW if something is on your radar , or will stay there, until you actually see it in person unless of course the pictures clearly show warning signs.

(2001F350dualwheel) Unfortunately your insurance company isn’t gonna care about the amount of work you put into it. To them they will pay fair market value. Unless you have a agreed upon value type of policy you’re not adding up every nut bolt and maintenance cost to the value. Insurance companies just don’t work like that. They might throw a few bucks more if say you’re had brand new tires installed a month ago but you’re not getting five or ten thousand dollars more because you got maintenance records. To you it’s more than a 20 yo truck. To them...it’s a 20 yo truck with 390,000 miles.

Well, my truck got totaled (per the insurance company) in a hailstorm 3 years ago. They offered $3500 minus my deductible of $1000 they sent me a check for $2000. I vehemently protested that amount and the agent attempted to explain 20 years and the mileage etc, she told me to cash the check so they can close the claim. I refused, put the check in my safe and held on to it for almost a year. I received multiple calls and letters “reminding” me to cash the check.

I received a call one day from a Supervisor inquiring why I had not cashed the check almost a year later? I explain to her that I had put new injectors in the truck, they cost $1600, I told her I had the transmission rebuilt, that cost $3800, I explained I had the rear differential rebuilt and added a true track that cost $1500. I continued to explain to her all the upgrades that I had done to the truck and none of this was being taken into account when they were considering the value of the truck. She said, that if I had kept receipts for any of this alleged work it would be a completely different situation. And I asked her in what way? She then proceeded to tell me that receipts would prove the work was done and the appropriate value would be assigned to the truck. I explain to her that I had receipts for everything from the day I bought the truck to the moment we were on the phone. She interrupted me and then stopped talking, and I asked her how she would like me to get those receipts to her? I then scanned $17,436 Worth receipts and emailed them to her, I received an email back stating that they would go through them and get back to me shortly. Approximately a week to the day, I received a phone call and she begins to tell me they willing to offer me $7519 more than the original offer of $3000!
The terms were 1) they were void the check for $2000 that I had. 2) They would Direct deposit $9519 into my bank account. 3) I would agree to close the claim and to those terms.
Most individuals would never hold on to a $2000 check for almost a year...this is where my leverage began. Most individuals rarely stand their ground and fight for something that is important to them...they’ll sell their position for a quick buck today rather than an appropriate payment next month. I’ve never walked from a fight especially when I know my position is legitimate!

My original point of my post to the PO: Without records aka PROOF OF MAINTENANCE then the truck itself in front of you will tell you how well it was or wasn’t cared for by the owner. It’s up to you to observe and point out every little concern you have as they pop up... this will justify a possible lowball offer or in some cases justify the sellers asking price.

 

Yeah I know. That’s why all my vehicles my RV etc are all on agreed upon value terms with my insurance agency. It’s really not that much more in premiums and if something happens I want to know I can replace the vehicle with little oit of pocket.. If I remember right the difference was 130 bucks t do agreed upon value. But they bundled it with the home and umbrella policy. Unless you have such agreed upon value policy you’re not getting crazy compensation for your $1000 turbo and $5000 transmission. In fact they won’t even really care. To them...it’s supposed to have a transmission. Or tires or a exhaust. They usually give a little extra If you fight them say yiu just put new tires and brakes and some yahoo slams into you.

really insurance companies basically want to pay out as little in compensation and take as much as they can in premiums. What I wonder is how are they gonna be able to charge you crazy premiums when self driving cars come around. I guess they will up yiur premium every time yiu go in manual mode.