I know this is has been done before but figured I'd ask for some advice. I have a '96 F-250 4x4 Ex-Cab 5.8L 5spd with 230k on it. I use it primarily for towing car trailers and would like to add a slide in camper in the future. It's been a really good truck but it's getting tired. A friend of mine has a 96 F-350 cab-chassis that came from a salvage auction. It has around 100k on it and suffered from an electrical fire. The cable to the hydraulic pump rubbed through on the frame, dead shorted, and proceeded to burn a path across the rad support and the drivers side top of the motor. I rebuilt a fire vehicle in the past and was left muttering never again, but... I can get the motor, trans (auto), t-case, fuel tanks, drive lines, exhaust, steering column, etc. for a song. My question is, do you guys think the motor is OK,? How hard is it to come up with a new harness? What swaps between the gasser and the diesel? And lastly, any links to a swap like this? I figure even if it costs me a couple of grand it's still probably cheaper than rebuilding what I have or buying another truck. (plus the 5.8L/ZF would look really nice in my '70 Bronco ) Thanx!

 

look over everything VERY good. your going to need a lot of stuff that IS NOT cheap on these engines. under hood fire will probably mean you will need at least the harness, multiple sensors such as the ICP(injection control pressure sensor), IPR(injection pressure regulator), EOT(engine oil temp sensor, and fuel bowl harness. then you have the IDM(injector drive module) thats probably now fried, the PCM is probably dead as well. i'd start by looking up ALL of the sensors on the engine and seeing how much money your going to have in just the electronics. so look up the ICP, IPR, EOT, map sensor, EBP(exhaust back pressure sensor), the fuel bowl harness, the rest of the engine harness, alternator and associated wiring, A/C stuff, power steering pump, probably even a new balancer, water pump and coolant sensor, oil pressure sensor, oil cooler, UVCH(under valve cover harness and pig tails), oil lines that run from the HPOP to the heads, possibly an HPOP??? lots of stuff in there to look at. these engines have lots of electronics to run the injectors, glow plugs, and the high pressure oil system.

start reading up a lot in this forum to learn about these engines and how they work so that when you do the swap you will know what everything is and how it works. it's almost impossible to make it work if you don't know what your looking at... ask me how i know.. stupid 5.0 and mass air flow..

 

my engine harness from ford for the engine and was around 800.00 plus all the other other harness's you will need, plus the time to swap and change ur engine crossmember, if u want a diesel do a cummins swap imo,

 

From my understanding it sounded like you had fun with you swap Travis lol. I heard stories.