Hey guys,

I wanted to share my journey with you on my F550 build. I will give a background first. I am into rock crawling and I built an unusual 4x4 to do it. It wasnt the plan to build an unusual 4x4 but that is what I started with and over time it progressed and that will lead into the F550 build soon.

I built a Hummer H3 into a rock crawler, I had it when it was stock and slowly built it up over time, I cut the suspension off, did a solid axle swap with 1/2 ton axles, then 1 ton axles and 40in tires and now on 43in tires. It was all DIY and a learning experience as I went along, engine swaps, axle swaps, etc. and part of the fun was keeping modern day electronics happy with all these aftermarket parts.







Next to my brothers jeep on 40's



I drove this thing around everywhere. I would drive 300 miles, beat the **** out of it and drive it 300 miles home. For any off roaders on here, I applied and got to go on Ultimate Adventure in 2017 and 2018 which had me log 2-3 thousand miles on the H3 in a week while beating the **** out of it in between. With all that said, the goal was to beat the hell out of it and drive it home and it still does that today but some things do change.

As my friends and I are at the age of getting married and having kids, our trips are less spur of the moment for a quick weekend and now we have longer planned out trips. Also, a few of us have moved 5+ hours away from where we used to live so driving our built 4x4's in a caravan, where if one of us have issues, one can go grab parts at the parts store and we can do roadside repairs arent as common, now some of us are driving long distances by ourselves (especially me.)

That is where the F550 comes in. Being in Idaho and driving to CA for off road events like King of the Hammers, I quickly learned I am driving some EXTREMELY desolate roads. the 95, the 93 and the 6 in Nevada are so desolate I can be over 100 miles from a parts store, without cell service and I am traveling in a caravan of 1, so if I have an issue I am screwed. I did the drive a few times in the H3 before I realized I will end up stranded one day. This also happened around the time I finally said to my self winter wheeling trips where the weather is unpredictable and camping in a tent for a week at a time in the cold sucks. So I knew towing a travel trailer with an H3 is a bad idea, even though it has a 6.2L LS and deep gears it wont tow a travel trailer. I dont want to pull doubles, and I need to get a travel trailer and an H3 to the destination.

My friends and I came up with every possible scenario,
-maybe a crawler hauler (2 car gooseneck with truck bed camper on a gooseneck with your rig behind the truck bed camper.) The downside to that was price and small camper for our intended use, especially if/when we have kids.
-truck bed camper in the bed and a car trailer behind it, it was cheaper but same space issue.
-We thought about an RV and a car trailer but to tow that weight we needed a diesel pusher and they are pricey as hell. A C class would struggle with a 6500 lb rig, then the weight of a trailer and camping stuff.

Then we got to thinking about putting a rig on the back of the truck and pulling a travel trailer behind it. Sweet! That will work but I need to find a 16ft bed to make it work....and I wanted a crew cab.

I found that is damn near impossible to find, until one day I found something odd on craigslist.







I found this truck in Stockton, Ca for $5500. I spoke to the young guy who owned it and he was using it for a moving company. He got a letter in the mail from DMV stating the truck was no longer registerable in the state of CA Jan 1 2021 due to new laws. He would have to add a DEF system to it. My brother lived in Lodi (between stockton and Sacramento) so he looked at the truck, he isnt a car guy so my 7.3 owning friend told him what to look for. We texted back and forth for a week, I told him the best I would do is 5k, looking back, knowing how oddball the truck is now, I wouldnt have risked it but luckily it sat and he agreed to 5k.

I sold a little 6x10 trailer I had no use for anymore since I was getting this truck for $800, so I am $4200 in this new monster!

 

Saw this over on Irate, nice.

 

So, I send my brother the money, he picked up the truck and store it for me in Lodi. I get a one way ticket to Sacramento, pick up the truck and head to so cal. Another thing I forgot to mention on my list was 4wd! I have seen so many RV's and semis get stuck on dirt roads going to offroad events so 4WD was a must and fitting in the garage and not storing offset is a plus. Having a truck is also more useful then an RV or semi day to day as well.

a few specs on the truck. 376k miles. 7.3/4R100/ 2wd factory 4.88 gears with a Dana S135 bone stock motor. This truck was worked hard all its life.









The pics make it look nicer then it actually is.

So I pick it up and immediately take off the So cal, I get the truck weighed and it is 11k empty.



So I get to so cal to show my friend my new to me truck and as I am leaving he yells as I am pouring oil out of the back of the motor....the start to my fun reliable truck!

I am foreign to this engine and all diesels, I have never worked on one and I am now further away from home then when I started LOL.

I found out it was HPOP o rings causing the leak. I spend the night at his place, get HPOP o rings in the AM to get it all fixed and spent way to much at the dealer (only ones in stock) and get the truck fixed. We then go his neighbors to pick up a new axle, an 05+ E450 van axle that is Fwd and factory 4.88s, it was under a van with handicap access so it was FWD. It has weird double cardan axle shafts. I got it for $350

then I went to my parents friends house to pick up the rest of their stuff they couldnt fit in the moving truck when they left so cal for Idaho. Showed my other friend the new truck, he has a super clean F350 dually 7.3 and loved it. So I take off back to Lodi to spend the night at my brothers.

I get to Lodi about midnight, sleep a few hours and head to my buddy's place in vacaville in the morning to put on weld on tie downs.



Then back to Lodi to pick up my brothers Jeep. I put a 05+ front super duty axle up front and a 14 bolt out back on his jeep and he needed some work done to it so I loaded it up and headed back to Idaho.

 

SCORE! I guess at least one thing good came out of CA's STUPIDITY. You won!

I built one last year. It didn't come with the long frame or 16+4 flatbed (I had to build those), but it had 112,500 miles on it and I got it for $1500. A crewcab would be nice, but this vintage didn't come that way.

 

Thanks, figured I should share the story over here since its all ford truck stuff.

 

So all in all, it was a successful trip, I logged about 2000 miles on a truck that had 376k on and it gave me one issue, the hpop lines leaking. Not bad...I even got it to fit in the garage which is a score!











Then I used it to help my wife's work move to a new location



Then loaned it out to my parents so they could move from their rental house to their new house and that is when the fun began.

It wouldnt start. No HPOP pressure.

 

So with no HPOP pressure I actually joined here and made a thread on that.

I assumed the HPOP took a **** or the IPR did but with my parents needing to move and them running out of time I grabbed the hummer, and towed this dead pile to their new house...



It then sat there for weeks. Knowing I wanted to make many upgrades I started just throwing parts at it. IPR regulator first, nothing...then a stage 2 CNC fab HPOP...nothing. Finally a new Melling LPOP.



The LPOP finally did it! The LPOP took a crap. Long term I found it was more then just a bad LPOP and truth be told, the LPOP may have not been the actual issue but the new Melling LPOP overcame the real issue. I will get to that later.

 

Nice! I see thing trend getting more popular, maybe its because I pay attention to it now...I am not sure.

Yep, I scored on their stupidity, I left that place behind because of it and made sure not to bring the stupid values with me.

 

So, as I am navigating diesel world and talking about my build with my 7.3 friend and on irate4x4 (the new pirate4x4 forum) my overall goal is power when towing. I was going to go with 180/30 injectors and talked into the T4 irate kit when I spoke to Dusty at 1023 diesel. In the end I think that was the best decision I made. I was originally going to do a small turbo upgrade but I was told to do it once and do it right.

So the parts are coming....

PHP hydra with 1023 tunes, T4 irate kit, 180/30 Injectors, Injector cups, SXE364.5 turbo with .91 housing, glowshift gauges for boost, HPOP pressure, fuel pressure and EGTs, FPR fuel spring, injector gasket harnesses and a lot of other little odds and ends.

I already have the CNC fab Stage 2 HPOP on, new HPOP lines, Melling LPOP and IPR. I am excited for these upgrades as the truck is hurting and SLOWWWWW. Stock 0-60 was 26 seconds with no pre boosted launch. The old owner was changing 1 injector at a time and I had a feeling a few were no good.









Long story short, I get all this done and the truck is running like ****, my buddy who has worked on 7.3s insisted it runs like **** but if I drive it it will clear itself up. It was smoking non stop if the motor was running....

As I am driving it, I ruin the motor with less then 3 miles on the new setup. I had orielly gaskets/harnesses for the injectors and one was jacked up and had an injector stick open and melted a piston. It was a tough day....

 

Sooo off comes the heads....I found out it was the injector harness because when I replaced it, it ran way better but the damage was already done and the blow by was bad.

Attachment 279967

Attachment 279968

So in comes this guy....

Attachment 279969

I pick it up for 2k, sell a bunch of parts off of it and make a little over half my money back.

This is where I said earlier, I will get back to the LPOP story. The more I go into the old motor the more I learn that this was a blessing in disguise. The Oil pickup tube had one bolt missing, it was in the bottom of the pan, the other bolt was hand tight, I guess someone was in there before. As I am pulling parts off I notice so many things are just done oddly, not matching bolts for certain parts, loose bolts, etc. In the end I am kind of glad it happened because something would have left me stranded.

I need this truck to get me to King of the hammers in so cal by Jan. 29th and its early December...and I am a diesel newb....perfect





bad one out....

Attachment 279972



Good one out....



Of course everything is fighting me....a fuel fitting broke in the head, couldnt get it out with an ez out, welder, etc. So off comes the good head to swap on the good block. Might as well do head studs while I am at it....This has snowballed.

Attachment 279975

Goodbye old truck....

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All this is going on while I am trying to finish my brothers Jeep so he can get it back, did aftermarket seats, coilovers, and a bunch of odds and ends.

Attachment 279977

I also dropped the trans off to get rebuild my Bowman Trans in mountain home, ID. He does a lot of off road performance stuff for 1000+ hp off road engines. Hes done a ton of diesel 4R100's he swapped the output shaft for a 4wd one, rebuilt it with some upgrades and a billet converter.

 

So I guess I will stop for a min and talk about 2 things....

1) can a 7.3 pull all the weight I want to pull? 28K +
2) how oddball is this truck? well I find out....

1) my "inspiration" for saying this is possible is a guy on Instagram. he is a hot shot hauler.

Attachment 279731

This is his setup, he has the same injectors, same turbo and a 40hp tow tune from DP tuner and tows a gross weight of 30k-37k DAILY. His is a ZF6, mines an auto but he has a giant 3 car trailer and is constantly hauling Amazon vans, and big trucks. He has shown me Cat scale slips of the weight he pulls. He is on the east coast so he doesnt see the hills I see but still very impressive. He did kill one motor (had blow by) and I am unsure of the cause....He then had another issue with a bad injector harness doing the same thing I did....but he did 30-37k daily and was putting 4k + a month on his truck. he now drives an FL70 but says the 7.3 could pull faster, obviously the FL70 chassis is better for all the weight. He may bring the 7.3 back, he is all about cheap trucks doing the job and both were cheap.

2) I mentioned a crew cab 16 ft bed on irate and said it had the 201in wheelbase. Someone said that cant be true because of the overhang I would have....as I looked into it more sure enough, this truck was a CA truck (not sure what department) but the truck was bought by the state of CA, dropped off immediately for a frame stretch and a 16ft bed. The wheelbase is 237in. This made me feel better as I questioned, "was it worth it?" as I am pulling engines, using older stuff but I cant buy this truck new. If I wanted a 6.7 Id have to pay a premium for it and then spend an *** load of money on an expensive 16ft bed and frame stretch. I didnt want to be in debt on a truck I use very seldomly...far away from home offroad trips and every once in a while to the hardware store. So that made me happy....



These are the guys who did the work.



It was registered for 17k by the kid who owned it but when I peeled off the stickers the state of CA had it for 30k....I wonder if this was the high capacity package with a GCWR of 30k. I know they can register it for any weight but I do wonder....

So onward and upward.

 

So it is almost time, to go to King of the hammers! I have the truck running 2 weekends before leaving. So the truck was driven around for 2 weekends to test everything, the new trans felt great, motor felt great and I had the driveshaft shortened and the manual shift 271 installed. I had to cut and modify the 2wd crossmember to make it all work but it wasnt too bad. It all worked out and had no driveline vibes....

I load the hummer on the back and go for the first loaded test ride up a grade.

It is my first time running loaded with all these new upgrades so I am being extremely cautious of the EGT gauge, that is the only thing I am watching. My ******* FORGOT to put the fan clutch back on and wasnt paying attention to anything but EGTs and POOF! The damn radiator cap comes off, coolant everywhere...I overheated. Oil hit 285. I let it cool off but the oil was so thin it wouldnt start back up. I thought I seized the motor. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Sure enough she ran again, got her down the grade to a gas station to fill the rad back up and gingerly drove home. The head studs paid for themselves at that moment.

Big idiot award goes to me! I was so happy with how it was running, especially for a diesel newb who looked at the 7.3 as a foreign engine when the HPOP lines blew up when I first bought it. I felt like I knew the truck inside and out rather quickly and messed up on something so stupid...but in the end, in some miracle, I didnt hurt the engine....

So off to KOH I go.

Instead of gardening tools I have axle shaft holders!





On the road and doing great!!! I am running in the 1023 medium tow tune.



Outside of bishop....



This setup weighs in just a tad under 20k gross. I had it weighed but no slip, they just wrote it on a piece of paper.

The truck is 11k, the Hummer is 6500-7k the rest is spare parts, camping stuff, etc.

When we got to so cal we picked up this trailer to rent for the week. We dont know when or what we will buy so renting one first and local to the event was best.





At about 64 feet and at 28k lbs there she is in all her glory.

Attachment 279728

Towing up the 14 freeway went surprisingly well. I was able to maintain 65 most of the way and got under 55 once when I got stuck behind a truck, this was on a heavy tow tune.



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We enjoyed the week and I even had to leave to tow my friends broke 4500 Ultra 4 car to his place to thrash 2 days straight and get it ready for the race. That was probably around 20k gross.

All in all she got us from Idaho to so cal and back with plenty of pit stops in between to tack on mileage. She did 2200 miles, about 1900 of it was 20k gross and 300 of it was 28k gross.

 

It happens! We all make mistakes, what sets us apart is how we recover and learn from those mistakes. You seem to have done just fine in both of those categories.

You are accomplishing an incredible amount of work! Love the pictures as well, thanks for sharing them with us.

 

So after the truck got home I put it back in the garage and let it sit for a bit, I would drive it here and there but it got to rest....and so did I, I was tired after all that work! lol

I did get 4 new tires.





I went with 245/70R19.5 Roadmaster RM257's. New 87 mph speed rating, slightly taller then 225s to drop rpms a tad and can handle more load then the cheapo chinese tires that came with the truck. I still need to do the fronts and will do that soon. It brought me from about 66 mph at 2500 to near 70 mph at 2500 rpm. RPM was a concern of mine, its screaming all day long at 2500-2700 rpm but I have done it for 4k miles now at 19k-28k gross and it doesnt seem to care. I originally thought of regearing it lower but I think the 4.88s help off the line and are a great rpm when driving and towing slower in CA. I have thought about an old school brownie box for when I am unloaded. I have the room with 3 driveshafts and 2 carrier bearings LOL. Gear vendors will break according to them and I cant fit a US gear overdrive unit but for now I gained a little top end with the slightly taller tire.

Next trip was Moab. I was camping on this trip so no trailer.



I logged a little over 1000 miles on this trip, also around 19-20k gross.

I had to stop at the SLC airport to fly to NY to go to my cousins wedding so I drove from Idaho to SLC, then came back and finished the drive to Moab.



On the way there, I hit 30 lbs of boost and lost the boot from the turbo to the hot side IC piping. It then happened again at like 14 lbs of boost. I lost a few hours dealing with that crap. It was annoying!!!

Had a great time in Moab though.



Before leaving Moab I took it all apart and really cleaned it the boot and IC piping well and tightened it all up and about 100 miles into my 500+ mile drive home I lost the boot again!!!! Going over solider pass near 8k feet with no spot to pull off with 19k lbs was HORRIBLE, no boost and it was just flat out bad....I was able to band aid it enough in SLC to get me about 120 miles from home.

I did see this, poor new ford.



I kept boost low, no more then 12-14 lbs and the headwind was horrible. At 120 miles from home I lost the boot again, I fixed it AGAIN, and finally it got me 30 miles from home. At that point I had been driving and fixing it all damn day. I was tired and pist off. I was also close enough to home to feel like I could drive back quickly in the AM to fix it and get it home. so I pulled off the freeway, unloaded the hummer and drove the hummer home. I came back the next day and in 30 miles had to fix the boot 2 more times.

Cleaned up and back home...



That was frustrating as hell! I used Sous's suggestion on that hoselinx boot but they were out of stock. They said they should have more of them in stock in about 2-3 weeks. I will buy 2 so I have a spare. Losing the boot was so damn frustrating...I have a mix and match of OE Intercooler to intercooler piping boots, riff raff boots and Irate boots. I think its time I go with all riffraff boots for the intercooler and the intake plenum, use the hoselinx one for the turbo to hot side piping, new clamps, maybe hairspray? and move on!

 

Thanks! I appreciate your advice through PM's and when dusty recommended the t4 kit I read your thread and that is what sold me.