Hello fellow truck owners.

​​​​​​My name is Kristijan and i am new to the forum, i have been reading it for some time now and i finally decided to register.

So here we go. In about 5-6 months i will be buying my first truck. I am primarily looking at 1980-1991 Ford F250/350 regular or extended cab with a 4 or 5 speed manual transmission.
The truck will be used as a daily driver throughout the year. Every day 4.5 miles to work and 3-4 times a week around 10 miles to my workshop. I will occasionally be pulling a trailer but never more than 7500 lbs loaded. Mostly a car trailer and some gravel and wood here and there.

I want to know if these old diesels are ok for daily short trips, when i will be pulling cars the trips will be long but those will be 2 maybe 3 times a year.

​​​​​What gears should i go for?

What kind of MPG should i expect with a manual 4 or 5 speed. MPG is quite important becouse i live in Slovenia(not Slovakia) and diesel and gas are expensive, both around 1€ per litre. Would it be realistic to expect 12-15mpg around town and to work and back?

What mpg should i expect towing?

I have read quite a lot about these engines but this would be my first diesel, untill now i was driving gas powered BMW cars (and still do). But i am mechanically inclined and a quick learner.

What i have read is that the most common problems are fuel return lines, glow plugs, glow plug controllers and injectors. I am not really worried about cavitation becouse as i read it does happen but not commonly.

Any and all information is welcome. I apologize for any spelling mistakes, i trust my phone to correct them.

PS: i cannot buy anything newer than 1991 becouse of a huuuuge import tax we have. After 30 years the car is considered an oldtimer and it tax exempt. I will probably be shipping the car from the USA becouse the offer here in europe is very poor. Oh and it's worth mentioning that my budget is around 6500$ + shipping of course, can i get a decent truck for that kind of money?

It also doesn't really matter to me if it's a 6.9 or 7.3.

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Welcome to FTE.
while the mileage use is a little on the low side, you will be fine as long as you let it warn up before driving.
you fuel mileage concerns are about correct, 12-15 mpg in town driving and a little better on long runs.
towing may bring you down a bit to 10-13 mpg.
and pricewise, you are about on budget too, $6500 should buy you a pretty decent truck.

 

Thanks for the info. That's exactly what i was worried about, i read somewhere that you shouldn't idle these for a long tome, something about overheating issues, but i thought that was a bunch of bull and i was right hehe. Phew well that is good, becouse i was choosing between an IDI and a 460, but the 460 would brake the bank when it comes to fuel mileage. See the price was what really had me scratching my head, i se these trucks for sale from 2k-15k and i didn't know what to tkink.

 

Why don't you buy an Iveco for around $5,400 euro ?

Hobo

https://www.mascus.com/transportatio.../4f9n6gir.html

 

That wouldn't be good for daily driving and also i want a V8 if possible. Also i'm a bit of a Ford fanboy hehe. The problem is that in my country you need a truck licence to drive one of these loaded with a heavier car andthat cost abou 3000€. But if you have a truck and a trailer you need a different licenece that costs around 1000€. I know i could buy a Nissan Navara or a Ford Ranger but running costs are much cheaper for an IDI. Also no V8 in a Navara

 

Just curious why the licence cost is so high there? Is that the price to get one, or is most of that the cost to take the class and test?

Also, personally I wouldn't import an idi over there because I feel like parts availability/cost would be a headache.

I'd try to find something diesel and capable there so I could get parts easily, and just make it my own.

A lorry with a shortened wheelbase would probably be ideal, wear and tear on it would also be minimal since it's overbuilt for what you want to do with it.

There has to be some way to register it to use it more of a pickup than an actual medium duty. I know our laws are more lax here in the USA, but you can have it underrated, where a normal licence will do and insurance is still cheap.

 

Ok so it's like this. For a truk licence you have to take a class and a test. Then you need to rake 30 hours of driving lessons and a finel driving exam. That costs around 1500€.When you finnish that in order to pull a trailer you need a licene for that too. You need to take another class and test and another 30 hours of driving lessons and an exam. Then you have a truck+trailer licence. Yes the country was and is ran by the left or what Americans call democrats.... And high prices for what they consider "luxury" doesn't end there...

 

Parts availability really isn't an issue becouse we have a guy who orders parts from the usa once a month and becouse he has a company there is no customs. If you order privately you have to pay some customs but its not that high usually the parts come within a week. Interestingly parts form Germany take up to 2 weeks to arrive. I thought of buying something else but either the parts are relly expensive or the purchase price of the car exeedes it's value. US cars are really overpriced here in the EU so shipping from the US would save me about 3-4k €. Unless i would buy a gasser than i could get it for around 8k€

 

Understanding... so far.

Question:

Do any of the Military / Government in your country auction off vehicles / trucks there rather than bring them back to their home country?

An example (only) of what is done here in the USA:
https://www.govplanet.com/for-sale/P...uck&pnLink=yes

Hobo

 

I've had my 1991 7.3 IDI dually crew cab for 30 years, and I have found it to be very reliable, but I've only put 90K miles on it. I can't disagree with anything said, except I do want to tell you that I did not know about cavitation, so I did not add anticavitation treatment to my coolant. Imagine my surprise when I fired it up one day, and steam came flying out of the exhaust. It turns out that the last cylinder on the driver's side has poor coolant flow, and tends to cavitate due to the extra heat. That cavitation wore pinholes right through the cylinder walls. The Ford mechanic wanted to replace the engine's short block, but I had him put in a cylinder liner, and the truck has run perfectly ever since. Lesson learned: anticavitation treatment and test strips are highly advisable, from my experience.

I have also had to replace glow plug wiring supplying the relay, as it can get hot enough to melt insulation, and the connector pins for those wires can get hot enough to melt plastic.

I love the IDI, as it is a simple engine, and it tends to keep on truckin' ;-)

 

hi kris, good luck on your project. welcome from one ford fan to another

glad ur here and ur english is better than my slovenian!! i had to look it up and what a beautiful country.

do you know what shipping would be from west coast vs east coast of usa? the reason i ask is that most of the east coast trucks will be toast from snow, salt, etc so harder to find

https://augusta.craigslist.org/cto/d...268817724.html

https://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/c...268595544.html

https://bellingham.craigslist.org/ct...261354596.html

 

They do but the auction off Skoda octavias and old beaten up Puch G wagons(google it). That's what our military drives apart from the humvees but those are never for sale. In the USA you actually have democracy we have something between communism and democracy, and no i'm not joking.

 

Wow that's amazing, owning one truck for 30 years. Well just goes to show what regular maintenance does. Thanks for the info. About these test strips? How and what exactly are you testing and looking for? Obviously the coolant but what are you looking for in there, CO2? Thats how we test bad head gaskets and cracked blocks. Also i wish you the best of luck with your truck and many more safe miles.

 

Test kit.... http://www.hastingsfilter.com/Litera...heets/F506.pdf

 

depends on your Choice of Coolant as to which test kit you should use.