So, finally got the '91 4x4 crewcab home last week. The story on this truck is as follows. (This one is an F350, with D60 front axle, E40D. I haven't checked the ratio's yet.)

It belonged to a woman that owns a lawn care company, it was one of three crew trucks. Two years ago it ended up being a spare truck, and wasn't used a lot. (2 person crews, the crewcab wasn't needed.) A year ago the truck was parked for winter while they went south for a few weeks, on return, they started it, and noticed a major oil leak on the drivers side. Someone told them it was a headgasket, and they debated whether or not they were going to have it fixed. The summer goes by, and late fall they decided to sell it rather than fix it.

When I heard about it, was when I was debating what to do with the F250 that is (now) going to be stripped for parts. I was still looking for a 4wd for servicing the excavator with fuel and supplies and so on. I also started hanging out here, and had learned that for what they were asking for the truck would almost be the same as it could be to buy the D60. I went and looked at it, the body is fair (for our northern rust belt and the age actually it's pretty decent.)

I ended up giving her $1000 for it, and figured that the headgasket was fine, but it would need an oilcooler repaired or replaced.

We got it home last week (friend and I took his tractor trailer and float up, for some reason it pulled it on no problem!! lol)

One battery was missing out of it, so I swapped in a so-so battery from mine from last winter. Left it on the charger the last couple days, and went out tonight to try it out. I had already topped the filter up with diesel kleen. Turned the key, let the glow plugs cycle through (light was on about 8-10 seconds). Turned key off, waited a couple seconds, hit the glow plugs again, the light only stays on a couple seconds, and I hit the starter. Cranks over, and after 5-10 seconds, fires up!!

I had a flashlight handy (was just starting to get dark) so I looked under the hood, and sure enough, the oil is peeing out the bottom of the cooler tube. I shut it down before I lost too much, as the next time will be just long enough to run it up on ramps to pull the cooler.

I'll likely check out the cooler on the parts truck, hopefully it's okay, but everything on it is rusty, so I dunno. I did know where there was another cooler a year or so ago, I wonder if the guy still has it.

First project will be the oil cooler issue, then after that I'll start on some other areas. The front axle needs going over, I think I'll do a total teardown, new u-joints, seals etc as this truck may have a plow put on it too. It's not an ideal plow unit with the length, but more on that later.

 

we need pics!!!!

 

The cooler issue is more than likely the orings, or is the cooler rusted through or something.

 

I'm hoping to take pics along the way and do write ups on each part of the project. (If I can keep the grease off the camera!)

I'll try to grab some pics of the truck tomorrow in the daylight though.

 

you could just saran wrap the whole camera to keep it from getting nasty

 

It's rusted through I think star, just about dead centre it is 'peeing' pretty much straight down. It's not real common, but around here I do here of it happening at times. Of course I won't be able to confirm it until I get under there and look closer, or until I get it pulled out.

I'm kind of thinking about making up a test plate for them though if I can, so that after replacing the o-rings I can put a low pressure of air to it and see if it leaks....I know this won't be the last one of these I get involved in.

 

I know where there's one at a junk yard up here, if you can't find one around here. The guy will probably charge an arm and a leg for it though. For some reason he thinks that his parts are made of gold. The messed up thing is, if I didn't buy any parts off of that motor, it would all be crushed anyway. I really don't like dealing with him anymore, but I would for someone on here.

 

Stop by Ford and price an oil cooler.

Rear header is about 400 dollars.
Center bundle, around 1000 dollars.
Front header, around 150 dollars.

If you have a good relationship with the dealer and parts man, you can usually cut those prices in half, but it makes it easy to see why salvage yards seem so expensive.

 

Ouch....I think I'll inquire about the used one I knew of, even if I don't need it, the guy was asking $100 for it. Though that was a couple years ago.

I should have a decent one on this parts truck, or if I end up cutting this superduty I could steal the one off of it. Or there are more trucks coming too....I've been adding to the fleet again, just haven't said anything yet, LOL.

 

Here's the pics:







I took a look at the oil cooler on the truck, and the parts truck...they both look pretty crusty. I'll have to get one off and take a look at it. Dave, any idea what the centre bundle is made out of? I know the one I helped replace on a 350 Cummins looked to be mostly brass soldered together, but, brass doesn't rust!!

 

The outer tube is steel.
Inside is brass if I remember right, been a while since I looked at one on the inside.

 

Looks pretty good!

Btw grey, the truck you linked me to a while ago sold. Found another I was planing on seing, I talked with the guy yesterday. He decided to part it out. Had a front end collision, wanted 600$ OBO for the whole truck. Rebuilt 302 and new rear end. Now is parting out, and wants 500$ just for the bear cab and box. No rust, but been re-done. So i'm gonna pass on it. Wanna try and stay away from "re-dones". lol

Found a farm truck in Montreal with 90,000km on it. Looks brand new, but thing about farm trucks, they most of the time look new on the sides, but are rotted underneath from mud over the years.

So I'm going tomorrow morning if the guy calls back, if not, it'll be next week. Wants 800$ for it, fuel pump is dead, runs good off the bottle, kinda like me. lol

 

Hmmm..... $1000 for a new one huh? Steel, brass, all a lot softer stuff then what I worked with in the toolroom....wonder if it is possible to rebuild one and put a new outer tube on it.

Biggest issue would be finding a tube that is the right diameter inside and out, I suspect that if one could find a source, it would be a relatively straight forward procedure to replace it.

 

Something will come along. I've been watching for any possible donor trucks for a box for you over this way, but there hasn't been much for a while now.

This truck has been oiled pretty regularly, so the crossmembers and so forth are decent. The box sides/wheelwells are tired, I may look at some weld in panels to buy me a few years. For what I'm doing, body doesn't need to be 100%, as long as it looks reasonable. There's a small hole in the floor under the driver's mat, I'll pull the seats and carpet, weld the floor up and fix that this summer. While I'm at it, there will be some musical seat parts, the bench from the rear will get swapped with he front as it has a lot less wear. The driver's side fender may just get replaced, the bottom of it is pretty well gone.

 

I was thinking about how hard it would be to rebuild one last night.

I have a spare somewhere I think, I may try to dig it out and see what my machinist (son) thinks it would take to rebuild one with a new outer shell.

You would have to pressure test it to make sure it had no leaks to a pressure above your normal cold start oil pressure, but that would not be that hard to do.