OK guys, I just joined the ranks of PSD owners. I traded my 2004 F250 V10 for a new 2010 F250 6.4 PSD. Taking delivery tomorrow after spray in bedliner and 5th wheel hitch are installed.
I have never owned a diesel before and reading these forums scares the bejessus out of me. What are the most important things to be aware of with the new truck? What are all the things I should be looking for every time I drive it?
By the way I love the way you guys can talk about these engines like you designed them.

 

You just need to do what you have always done, weekly fluid checks, pay attention to the out of ordinary.

Read the manual, follow the severe maint. schedule.

Break it in per the manual and then what is not covered is what next.

Well in order to seat the rings and do it right you need to hook up to the heavist trailer and hit the steepest, longest grade and work that motor for a good 50 miles.

Now that may not be necessary but it has always served me well.

 

It has it's first date with the 5th wheel coming up on October 4th when I bring the trailer back from the lake. I have to go over Shermin pass in WA but that is only a 15 mile haul up the pass, and 125 miles total trip.

 

Also stick with OEM filters. Very important with the 6.0 and 6.4 engines.

 

that should be a decent test and break in.

 

Congrats on the New Truck! You will enjoy the PSD.

 

I am also looking at a 6.4L and getting rid of the 7.3L I am looking at a few that have about 80K miles on them. Anything I should be worried about with this sort of mileage or did they improve the 6.4 over the 6.0? Just wanting to know what I should expect as the mileage gets on up there.

 

We bought a 6.4L with 73K miles on it, made sure the OASIS was clean first. Of course the first week we had it, it started eating coolant but turned out to be one of those stupid O ring fittings leaking. We had a '05 6.0L and it got better mileage than this 6.4L gets, roughly 16mpg vs 12mpg but it also had tons more problems by 70K than this 6.4L has had. You'll be amazed at the power increase over the 7.3L's, just make sure the engine hasn't had problems its whole life.

 

What is OASIS? Is that like a carfax report?

 

oasis is a report provided by a Ford dealer. Cost should be free if you ask nicely. It will show a history of warranty repairs/recalls.

It will also give you an indication that warranty on the motor is intact.

 

You will love the 6.4 check the tail pipe and make sure it is not black. Have a good look at the exhaust and make sure everything is stock.

 

I have been looking at the DPF Delete kits and can you still get the truck inspected once the you have done this and can someone point in the direction as to what exactly this is?

 

sorry, I'm not quite sure what the exact questions are.

1. in my state, TX, Diesels are exempt from emissions testing, so far.
other states are much more strick, and would require u to put back ON the DPF prior to inspection.
2. "can someone point in the direction as to what exactly this is"
define "this" in that sentence. dpf delete, inspection, or ??

seems it would NOT to be DPF Delete, as you said 'looking at DPF Delete Kits'

Sam

 

Sorry about that, what exactly is the DPF kit and what does it do?

 

ok.. the diesel emissions requirements demand less/no diesel smoke,
the way the Ford designers (and others) have done this is to put a 'filter' inline in the exhaust to capture the smoke particles. aka DPF = Diesel Particulate Filter

hm.. the filter will get full eventually.. then what
so, they add another system, which injects fuel into the exhaust system
(some use the engine cylinder injectors (Ford), some a separate exhaust tube injector (GM))
to cause a controlled burn (fire) of the exhaust particles, and push them out as ash..

well, on the Ford system there are cases where some of the injected fuel gets past the cylinder rings, and into the engine oil below it .
(we call it 'making oil' cause you get out more 'oil' on a change than u put in)..

the fuel used to burn the exhaust, is obviously also not used to drive the truck.. and there is some concern about the
effectiveness of the oil if it has fuel contamination/dilution.

the DPF delete kits provide new exhaust pipe sections to remove the filter. You will also need SOME aftermarket programmer to tell the engine computer that the fuel injection is NOT NEEDED... the Ford system has a filter failsafe, if the pressure sensor fails, they WILL Inject fuel about every 600 miles, no matter what unless a programmer over-rides that.

Now, there ARE side effects to all this

1. IF the truck gets an emissions test, one should expect it to fail, cause you WILL get smoke without the filter
2. because u are fiddling with the computer program that controls the engine and exhaust, there are/have been claims of violating the terms of the vehicle warranty.
3. the programmers ALL go beyond just stopping the DPF clean (regeneration aka regen), and also change the fuel mgmt characteristics, to generate more power. see item 2.
this last part caused lots of problems on the 6.0 motors as the bolts and gaskets that held the heads on didn't have the extra capacity for the extra power demands.

Sam