New Truck, Need advice.
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Joined: Oct 2010
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New Truck, Need advice.
Hello all,
New member here, but hopefully will be around for a while. Just picked up my first Ford truck. This may sound like bragging, but the subject vehicle is a '97 F250 light duty supercab 3 door 4x4. With 13,000 miles. Better news is that I paid below blue book for it.
My question is this: how many of the rubber parts should I expect to be going bad on the vehicle? The tires are borderline (passed inspection in July), but will most likely need replacing at the next inspection (I'm thinking most likely before the wintertime). There are some odd "ka thunk" noises coming from the front end of the vehicle right at the moment I stop, and usually (though less severe) when I start up. I'm thinking motor mounts (as those are usually rubber, don't know about this vehicle in particular). I gave it a once-over and the belts look okay, again they may need replacing. Do you think it'd be worth it to take it to my Ford dealer and have them look it over, with an eye toward cracking rubber pieces?
New member here, but hopefully will be around for a while. Just picked up my first Ford truck. This may sound like bragging, but the subject vehicle is a '97 F250 light duty supercab 3 door 4x4. With 13,000 miles. Better news is that I paid below blue book for it.
My question is this: how many of the rubber parts should I expect to be going bad on the vehicle? The tires are borderline (passed inspection in July), but will most likely need replacing at the next inspection (I'm thinking most likely before the wintertime). There are some odd "ka thunk" noises coming from the front end of the vehicle right at the moment I stop, and usually (though less severe) when I start up. I'm thinking motor mounts (as those are usually rubber, don't know about this vehicle in particular). I gave it a once-over and the belts look okay, again they may need replacing. Do you think it'd be worth it to take it to my Ford dealer and have them look it over, with an eye toward cracking rubber pieces?
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Joined: Jun 2009
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I would start by replacing all the hoses, vacuum lines, belts, spark plugs, plug wires.
13 years old - they are all rotten/bad by now.
Unless you got records from the previous owner on fluid changes, I would change tranny, transfer case, rear end, coolant, oil. Use synthetic in the rear end and transfer case (that is what they call for from the factory).
Also check your brakes and do a fluid flush on the brake fluid.
Now you can drive it and start to diagnose other problems. The clunk you hear may be from the transfer case and changing fluid may solve it.
13 years old - they are all rotten/bad by now.
Unless you got records from the previous owner on fluid changes, I would change tranny, transfer case, rear end, coolant, oil. Use synthetic in the rear end and transfer case (that is what they call for from the factory).
Also check your brakes and do a fluid flush on the brake fluid.
Now you can drive it and start to diagnose other problems. The clunk you hear may be from the transfer case and changing fluid may solve it.
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Joined: Oct 2010
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Yes, there's definitely some sort of gasket that broke down in the transfer case, as I see oil seeping out of the bottom of it. I won't even say it's leaking, at least not enough to cause a drip.
I'm just glad that we talked the guy down below blue book for it. He was pretty adamant about how pristine the truck was, with only 13k on it. I was of the opinion that a truck that's sat that long will have issues of its own kind, dry rot on just about every piece of rubber.
I'm just glad that we talked the guy down below blue book for it. He was pretty adamant about how pristine the truck was, with only 13k on it. I was of the opinion that a truck that's sat that long will have issues of its own kind, dry rot on just about every piece of rubber.
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