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In the last 2 weeks I just picked up a early 1999 F350 with the 7.3 with 290k miles for 2500$ and for that price I didn't think I could turn that down. I bought it from a local business that I deliver to for work and now I am the 2nd owner. They have had the truck since it was new. The truck has been sitting for quite some time, they thought about 4 years because the transmission was having problems. They couldn't remember the specifics of what was wrong but they had parked it for that reason. I brought some batteries up and threw them in it and primed it a few times and it fired right up and I bought after hearing it run. I did drive it around their parking lot to see if I could figure out what the issue is and every gear worked great except 4th. When I put it in 4th and let out the clutch it was like it was in neutral. Literally nothing happens. I initially thought that it was a linkage issue or something of the sort(not knowing that much about transmissions). I talked to my local transmission shop and he told me he had some bad news for me. He said those transmissions are great, but it was probably ran low on oil or it overheated. He informed me about the hardened metal gears and if they get too hot or worn out they literally with peel like a banana. And when I'm putting it in 4th, that is why I'm not getting anything there because the gear is most likely sheared off.
That being said, I'm currently trying to figure out the best way to go about getting it replaced. I'm currently thinking that I will get a reman and just swap it myself. I've found a shop locally that has a reman in stock so i would just have to pull mine and bring it to them and avoid the core charge. They are asking 3800 for and as far as I can tell, that is pretty fair comparatively to what I've found on other sites and they would charge freight on top of that. I didn't realize that no one wants to rebuild these transmissions and that they only put them in the 99 and 00 if I'm not mistaken.
My main questions are these.
1) Is there anything else that i need to consider when just buying a stock reman? I plan to tow our 5th wheel with this truck and do not plan on daily driving it. I do live in Idaho so I do have quite a few hills around me.
2) What should I replace or look to replace while I have the trans out? I'm going to to check the condition of the clutch and probably do the main seal and bearing while I'm in there.(Going to have a friend with a shop help me as I can turn a wrench but am not super mechanically inclined as he is). Ive found out that the cooler for this trans is mated with the radiator if I'm not mistaken so if you want to replace the cooler then you have to replace the whole unit?
I do have a lot more things that I want to ask about this truck, but am also trying to keep this thread focused on my first and main priority. I sold my clapped out 12 valve with 387k miles on it to pay for the trans and maybe some other little upgrades. I have 5k to work with. Appreciate everyone's thoughts and inputs on this in advance!
We ZF6 owners and transfer case swappers have had good experiences with All Star Transmissions in Tampa FL. Perhaps give them a call and see if you are interested in going with them or the local shop you mentioned.
The cooler is interior to the radiator. You have to replace the entire radiator if you want a new cooler.
I have been driving a 2000 ZF6 cross country towing heavy for almost a decade now. I made the right call when looking for a long haul workhorse of a truck and it gets the job done at a fraction of the cost of a newer HD truck.
We ZF6 owners and transfer case swappers have had good experiences with All Star Transmissions in Tampa FL. Perhaps give them a call and see if you are interested in going with them or the local shop you mentioned.
The cooler is interior to the radiator. You have to replace the entire radiator if you want a new cooler.
I have been driving a 2000 ZF6 cross country towing heavy for almost a decade now. I made the right call when looking for a long haul workhorse of a truck and it gets the job done at a fraction of the cost of a newer HD truck.
Thank you for the welcome and your response is greatly appreciated! Ive been sitting on this truck for these past two weeks just trying to figure out where to start. You've definitely given me a great place to start!
You will find this place is very helpful and forgiving, unlike some of the other social media websites.
One more thing I completely forgot about, do the "drain mod" as seen below. This is my truck when SkySkiJason (another FTE'r) was installing my South Bend clutch. This tube eliminates the possibility of oil or fuel contaminating the clutch material.
If a local shop has a reman unit sitting there ready to go, that's a pretty lucky find and I'd jump on that. Sure, take yours out and haul it over there to avoid the core charge. Full remans are usually in the $3500-4000 range. 4th gear is really just the shafts locked together running 1:1 with the engine, so something must be fubar if you get no output although I don't have intricate working knowledge of how they work. There are guys here who have rebuilt their own units who could probably say exactly what broke.
Safe to assume it probably needs a new clutch and flywheel set also but you'll have to examine the carnage yourself. Luk replacement set (Item # 07155) is all a regular truck needs to do truck stuff and has nice smooth engagement and is pretty quiet. If you're starting with a brand new input shaft, I'm taking the flywheel to the local machine shop and having a 6303 sealed ball bearing installed and it will be a nice precision fitting pilot setup, but I like to do things the hard way. On a half worn re-use unit I'd get the Oil lite bushing and sleeve kit. Those are the only pilot bearing options worth bothering with. The clutch fork might need replaced with the updated one...sometimes they would crack and you don't want that to be the reason the transmission has to come out again. Make life easy on yourself and just have a new hydraulic kit ready because it probably needs replaced anyway and getting the air out of them once they are un-installed is a pain in the butt.
I don't mean to spend all your money but I'm also taking the driveshaft over to the driveshaft shop for a full rebuild and re-balance because hey, it's off the truck already and also probably needs to be done. Expect to pay about $400-500 for that. I'd get a new strap and bolt kit for the rear u-joint and new hardware for the hanger bearing because it's probably rusted out garbage that wont want to come off.
Ford says to put ATF in these things which is uh...total blasphemy in my opinion. Too light. They later updated it to GL-4 gear oil in the 6.4 trucks and it's the same transmission. Redline MTL or MT-90...dump in 6 quarts through the top before you put the shifter back together and easy peasy off you go. Royal Purple Max Gear 75W90 is also smooth running stuff and is easier to find locally.
If a local shop has a reman unit sitting there ready to go, that's a pretty lucky find and I'd jump on that. Sure, take yours out and haul it over there to avoid the core charge. Full remans are usually in the $3500-4000 range. 4th gear is really just the shafts locked together running 1:1 with the engine, so something must be fubar if you get no output although I don't have intricate working knowledge of how they work. There are guys here who have rebuilt their own units who could probably say exactly what broke.
Safe to assume it probably needs a new clutch and flywheel set also but you'll have to examine the carnage yourself. Luk replacement set (Item # 07155) is all a regular truck needs to do truck stuff and has nice smooth engagement and is pretty quiet. If you're starting with a brand new input shaft, I'm taking the flywheel to the local machine shop and having a 6303 sealed ball bearing installed and it will be a nice precision fitting pilot setup, but I like to do things the hard way. On a half worn re-use unit I'd get the Oil lite bushing and sleeve kit. Those are the only pilot bearing options worth bothering with. The clutch fork might need replaced with the updated one...sometimes they would crack and you don't want that to be the reason the transmission has to come out again. Make life easy on yourself and just have a new hydraulic kit ready because it probably needs replaced anyway and getting the air out of them once they are un-installed is a pain in the butt.
I don't mean to spend all your money but I'm also taking the driveshaft over to the driveshaft shop for a full rebuild and re-balance because hey, it's off the truck already and also probably needs to be done. Expect to pay about $400-500 for that. I'd get a new strap and bolt kit for the rear u-joint and new hardware for the hanger bearing because it's probably rusted out garbage that wont want to come off.
Ford says to put ATF in these things which is uh...total blasphemy in my opinion. Too light. They later updated it to GL-4 gear oil in the 6.4 trucks and it's the same transmission. Redline MTL or MT-90...dump in 6 quarts through the top before you put the shifter back together and easy peasy off you go. Royal Purple Max Gear 75W90 is also smooth running stuff and is easier to find locally.
Thank for your input, I need to look into the machine shops around my area as I haven't had any experience with any of them in my immediate area yet. I did see a write up about the oil lite bushing and was looking into the oil as well. I think I will look into the royal purple as well!
After trying several different fluids including the one Brandonpdx mentioned for the ZF6, I picked Redline High Temp ATF 30204. This fluid has provided my application the smoothest shifts and zero gear rollover.
The others fluids I tried were good too, but not to my liking after trying the Redline product. You may have to try a couple before you find something you are happy with, or you might get lucky with the first pour in.
Brandonpdx is dead on about filling from the top at 6 qts too.
Deglaze the water pump pulley. They get all slick and then the belt slips at the worst possible time, when the truck is laboring up a mountain pass. Fan clutch locks up and then the pulley won't spin the water pump either. Motorcraft fan clutch in my truck would not disengage. Roared alll the time. Yeah this is off topic, but I'm heading for sleep for the time being and making this post to subscribe. I've been through 5 clutch jobs and two transmissions on the ZF-6 towing a 13k 5th wheel. I believe the high failure rate was running the stock clutch at more than the GVW it was designed to operate with. I now have a Stage II in there with fingers crossed.
A strong recommendation for bellowed up pipes from me as well. I gained 1.5 MPG just buy installing them. The factory design, no matter how careful you install those compression gaskets at the collector, tend to leak and that costs you exhaust pressure to drive the turbo and then you don't get as much boost as you otherwise could with the bellowed pipes. The stock factory intake wheel will stall very easily when towing and you'll get a fluttering sound from the intake unless you run it over 2500 rpm or so when towing. I'm still running an old Wicket Wheel from quite a while back and never have had any reason to replace it since then.
I'll be back in the morning. Congrats on the truck. Sounds like a good find.
Originally Posted by Kwikkordead;[url=tel:21390604
21390604[/url]]Deglaze the water pump pulley. They get all slick and then the belt slips at the worst possible time, when the truck is laboring up a mountain pass. Fan clutch locks up and then the pulley won't spin the water pump either. Motorcraft fan clutch in my truck would not disengage. Roared alll the time. Yeah this is off topic, but I'm heading for sleep for the time being and making this post to subscribe. I've been through 5 clutch jobs and two transmissions on the ZF-6 towing a 13k 5th wheel. I believe the high failure rate was running the stock clutch at more than the GVW it was designed to operate with. I now have a Stage II in there with fingers crossed.
A strong recommendation for bellowed up pipes from me as well. I gained 1.5 MPG just buy installing them. The factory design, no matter how careful you install those compression gaskets at the collector, tend to leak and that costs you exhaust pressure to drive the turbo and then you don't get as much boost as you otherwise could with the bellowed pipes. The stock factory intake wheel will stall very easily when towing and you'll get a fluttering sound from the intake unless you run it over 2500 rpm or so when towing. I'm still running an old Wicket Wheel from quite a while back and never have had any reason to replace it since then.
I'll be back in the morning. Congrats on the truck. Sounds like a good find.
Thanks for the reply. I have vacation the week of Thanksgiving and am going to crack into it then. It will definitely be interesting to see what they have going on for a clutch situation. They mainly pulled a gooseneck with poly pipe so it did weigh a fair bit. Really appreciate everyone’s reply’s and inputs. It’s giving me a bunch to look into before I can get the trans out.
