My 14 year old son bought his first truck. 93 7.3 2wd

He has been talking about finding a truck for the past year as a project. He is into older vehicles. When Netflix filmed a scene from "White Noise" at our farm this past Oct, He was all over the prop cars.

Well today, at church, a super nice guy (Al) was talking about getting his new truck. His old one, a 1993 Ford F-250 7.3 diesel with 220k miles, dropped either a torque converter or maybe the transmission last week. He needed a truck right away for his job so he bought one.

He said his 93 was up for sale. My youngest's ears perked right up. Al noticed the interest and said "make me an offer". My boy said "can I look at it first"? Al said sure. We made the 35 min drive to his house and took a peek. Al wasn't there so we didn't start it, but we know enough about the truck and his character that we didn't need to hear it run.



While there are several tranny shops around, there is ONE man people take their transmission work to around here if they want quality work, fair price and exceptional service. This is who I was going to call first thing on Monday (tomorrow). We talked after viewing the truck. My son had a $ number he was comfortable with knowing it might need a transmission, a little body work and maybe a seat cover. Talking to Al on the phone on our drive home, he said that THE transmission guy had already quoted $2300 for a complete rebuilt transmission or 800 if it was only the torque converter.

My son bought the truck for $1k. It will be dropped off at the transmission place next week. The transmission guy will be the determining factor, but my son thinks he is just putting in a rebuilt trans. I fully trust the shop to offer sound guidance on this.

He is already looking at complete rust free beds from down south, but likely the weld in panels will be the solution. The frame is solid, as are the rockers, cab corners and tailgate hinge points.

Yes, my son is buying and paying for repairs with his own $. He milks for a farmer 3 nights a week, does tapping and leak checking for a maple farm from January to late February a few hours a week.

He has a nice little nest egg saved up.

I'm looking forward to helping him with his bodywork project this summer.

 

Good for your son. I have done the repair panels and it looks by the picture that one has had them already. I am sure you guys will figure it out but just to pass along if you don't know about it. Dundee Automotive (just Google it) have southern beds. Located here in Ohio.

 

That's way cool, I love to see youngsters doing real life stuff.

 

Nice buy...I had that same color scheme on a 95 F150...and rust in the same spots too!
After he does the body repairs on it, get it oil sprayed...we have a guy down here that does pickup trucks for $60...he doesn't use used motor oil either, its new oil made for the purpose...real "sticky", reminds me of summer bar oil.
At 220k I'd be tempted to just have that trans gone through while its out, before something "grenades"...there's things can be done to it to upgrade the known "weak points" of the model while its out...I know our local shop uses a certain brand rebuild kit that comes with all the improvement/upgrade parts and directions, based on the intended use for the trans...wouldn't surprise me if your guy does this too.

 

Thanks!

I bought a bed put in Defiance from Big Mike's Truck stuff. I doubt they have 30 year old beds though.

 

I agree on the transmission, I'm guessing that will be the suggestion by the transmission guy.

I have a 5 gallon pail of Fluid Film that has enough left for 2 more trucks. I usually hit them in the early spring. We'll coat his as well.

Unfortunately, my 2006 F350 plow truck seems to reject fluid film. It is rusting away chunk by chunk. It spent it's early years in the parking lot of Geauga Co. Job and Family Services. Never washed and it had a salt spreader in the bed. I'm not doing that again.

 

Go 14 yo Go!!

 

He needs to befriend an A&P mechanic at an airport who services turbine and jet engines. I had a steady supply of Jet-A that was drawn out of fuel tanks of airplanes that wasn't allowed to be put back in the tanks. Probably some kind of law about that these days. Come to think of it, there was probably a law about that back then too.

 

Whatever happened to everybody going around collecting used fry oil? Don't hear much about that anymore...guess EV's don't work so well on it

 

They'll probably start tapping into parking lot lighting before long.

 

Just park next to the pole...like the new phone chargers, get'r close and your good!

 

Reminds me of needing lead in a 64 motor for lifters

 

I might post a separate thread at some point, but he is looking at Waste Motor Oil (WMO) centrifuges. Apparently, he researched the 7.3 IDI a few months ago and knew how forgiving it is with alternate fuels. Oh boy!

Anyone ever use or had experience with one of these things? I watched a few videos on them this morning. This is the extent of what I know about them at this point. However, they are intriguing, especially fueling my 1973 Massey MF20.

 

When I was at the dealership one of the guys had a centrifuge and an auxiliary tank in the bed of his 7.3. He would save all the automatic fluid and run it through the whirleygig. The atf then went in the aux tank. He would start the engine cold with diesel let it warm up then switch over to atf. He said he had a hard time running only atf in the winter months. I know he saved a ton of money doing that and diesel was under 3$/gallon then.

 

I've been Googling and see "Coking" of injectors as a mentioned issue if idled or run through a cold engine. This has two tanks. Keeping diesel in one and switching to the other tank with WMO, that's been cleaned, might be the ticket. Some guys are suggesting finding a shop that changes a lot of the thinner 0w20 5w20 type engine oils. Still researching, but seems viable, especially in the warmer months.

 

This guy said that aft ran way better than waste oil and we had a pretty steady supply so he didn’t mess with the waste oil. Maybe cut the oil with some diesel? Either way good for your boy. I too had a truck and knew how to drive it long before the state said I could do it legally. I was dumbfounded when I took drivers Ed and some of the other kids had never driven a vehicle before!!!

 

I am seeing that most people play with their mix and ratios, depending on what they have available. There is a lot of info from the 2008-2009 time frame during the last session of outrageous fuel prices.

On another note, the go to tranny guy said he doesn't really want to work on older Fords. He recommended a shop in Erie, PA. I asked a friend what he thought , since I know next to nothing about transmissions. He has a kid the about the same age as my boy, and my son buddy's around with him.

He offered to coach those two on tearing the old trans out and put the rebuilt unit back in. Those two drive the dad's big trucks around at his yard. This oughtto be a hoot.

 

Lol, can’t blame a fella for not wanting to work on old fords in the rust belt! That truck would be a good one to learn on. Added bonus of doing it yourself is you learn not to tear stuff up because you know what it takes to fix it.

 

Exactly!