I'm writing this build thread at the request of a few people. Hopefully it is entertaining and provides some technical info. It is an ongoing project but I'm in the last stages of the build. So future updates will happen.
Anyway, here's the story... Long post alert!

My brother and I own a boat in upstate NY with a small piece of property near lake Ontario. After a few years of going back and forth every weekend and having to set up a tent every time we arrived after dark, we got tired of it... So the hunt began for a vehicle that was big enough to sleep 6 or more and be able to sit comfortably on the 4 hour ride. We thought about an RV but those can be unruly to park at the marina because of their length.

My brother found this gem on facebook marketplace. A 2003 E450 superduty with a 161,000 mile 7.3. It wasn't running, but we hooked up the trailer, grabbed a laptop and forscan, cash, and snacks for the 2 hour drive. We got there hoping to find a simple issue that we could use to knock the price down a bit. But a quick check with forscan showed the IDM was toast. The bus was completely rust free. Not even a spot on the oil pan. After seeing this we start negotiating. the seller was asking $1750. Not to sound harsh but he had no idea what was wrong with it, and we used that to our advantage. I threw out an offer of $800.00. At this point I think his wife just wanted it gone. So he accepted it as long as we could get rid of it that day.




Now for the hard part... Loading a 10k pound bus onto a trailer without a winch. It took us about 2 hours with a come along and ratchet straps. But we got it done. Probably overloaded the trailer by a grand or so... but we made it back to the driveway without an issue. A few weeks go by and I swap in an IDM. This allowed me to run a buzz test. I could hear that 3 didn't even make a sound. But I tried to start it anyway. It ran really rough but smoothed out after a few minutes. But as soon as some heat got in the oil it died. I proved this out by running the block heater, no start when hot. Research told me that probably an injector was so far gone that it was bypassing HPOP pressure and not allowing the engine to run.
And so began the arduous task of pulling the injectors in an e-series body.
Its extremely messy. We are talking grease up to the elbows and lots of banged heads and cramped finger muscles. Some of the valve cover bolts are very hard to access if you have large hands. I pulled the turbo for easier access and found this...

Not the worst I have seen, but the engine ingested parts of the shattered plastic intake box that i discovered while pulling the injectors. This brought me to a whole host of new problems...
Im starting to add costs in my head, IDM, Injectors, turbo rebuild, air intake replacement, and whatever conversion costs will add up to... I nearly reached a point of cutting up the body for scrap and selling the engine and trans to recoup costs. But i soldiered on remembering that I only spent 800 on this paperweight.
So I sent the injectors out to rosewood. A few days later I get a phone call with a confused question. "Where these out of a running truck???" I guess the injectors were rode hard and put away wet. Great, more fuel for the "scrap this now" fire... But he convinced me to get a full refresh with new parts across the board. A week later they were installed and the engine lit off a purred like a kitten. Ahh sweet relief.
At this point we decided to add bellowed up pipes to the list of parts. Easy job on an e-series that is when all the bolts come out... Took me a week of saturdays to get one bolt free.

I think this post is long enough for now. In upcoming posts I'll go into my custom intake, the painting process, and interior mods. Stay tuned!

 

Thanks for posting this project! I'll be interested to see the next chapters!

 

I just bought a 2001 E-450 Girardin Commercial Bus. Looking forward to seeing what you do with this baby. I have the exact opposite situation with the Rust........

 

Second part of the build coming when I compile all the pics.