Project "Deezle" 1989 F-250

New to the forum, just discovered it due to recently purchasing a 1989 F-250 XLT Lariat with the 7.3 (obviously) and the ZF-5. This is my first diesel rig and I absolutely love it. I won't bore you to death with my vehicular history prior to this, but I have always been a Chevy guy... up until this point. I knew I wanted a diesel for my next truck, but the cheapest Duramax's are the LB7s which are still at least $10k, and I also didn't want to keep a spare $3k waiting for the inevitable day I get a bad tank of fuel and the injectors decide to **** their pantalones. So I started researching with my requirements: 4x4, long box, ext or crew cab, stick shift, diesel. The only truck that met all those needs was the IDI Ford. After a less-than-exhaustive internet search, the amount of praise garnered for these ultra-reliable, easy to work on, and more than capable power plants easily won me over to the blue oval. Within a couple weeks I had my "new" Deezle truck:













Truck is originally from Oregon but was down here in Vegas because a college student who was on the rodeo team drove it down here to haul horses. He didn't have the horses down here anymore and didn't want to drive the truck home. Purchased for just $1,500 with an odometer that reads 26k-ish, so I'm thinking probably 226k-ish is the reality. Believe it or not these pictures were taken just outside of Vegas in the Spring Mountains, gorgeous wilderness that few people are aware of.

I will be slowly building this truck up into a capable off-road/overland rig since it's not my daily, I have a 1988 Honda Prelude 2.0Si for that (I love classics). This thread will also serve as a record for the maintenance that I perform on the truck, which is the first order of business. After reading all about cavitation I immediately went to the local dealer and picked up 4 bottles of VC-8. I poured 2 in right away, and the other 2 will be used when I do a full coolant flush/add a coolant filter next week. When I put the SCAs in the coolant it looked to be in pristine condition so that was a good sign. Next up will be an oil/filter change and a fuel filter change along with the coolant/filter. Stay tuned...

So during the drive home Deezle was pouring black smoke out of the tailpipe. With my limited knowledge of these trucks so far I just figured that this was due to the truck having sat for such a long time, which was over a year according to the previous owner. But once I got it home and got the air cleaner off the real cause was pretty evident:







In all honesty I don't know how the truck even ran. One of the issues on the drive home was it would stall when I pushed in the clutch when coming to a stop at traffic lights, but would fire right back up instantly. This was completely remedied once I cleaned out the intake tube and filter housing. The truck also produces no more smoke except for a small amount of white smoke on cold starts. A new filter should be here tomorrow from Rock Auto, along with all my other maintenance items.

Another issue I had was a "clanging" sound in the drivetrain. I crawled under it this afternoon and, again, easily found the problem:







This was the middle u-joint on the driveshaft. Quite a lot of play in the joint, and once I got it out it was evident as to why: no bearings left in the cups, both broken, and check out the wear on that cross! Yikes!

Lastly, the A/C on the truck isn't charged/working/hooked up, which can be an issue here in the desert. An even bigger issue is when the secondary A/C system aka the windows won't roll down. Luckily this truck is equipped with a tertiary A/C system in the form of wing windows haha. I tore apart one of the doors, removed the window motor, and found the internal plastic parts to be completely shattered. Dorman makes a repair kit and I installed it and one window works perfect now. Apparently this is a common issue for trucks of this generation. I'm in the process of repairing the other window and will make a write-up to help others out.

Sweet truck you got there,real jealous of your captains chairs, wish I had those in my truck, I would also replace ZF5 fluid, rear diff fluid and check the condition of all rubber hoses. I would also make sure you don't have autolite glowplugs and check the resistance of whatever you have to see their condition.


Goes to show you how reliable these trucks are, they will go through hell and still get you home!

welcome to the forum. Nice looking rig too. Appears you had a critter packing the intake horn full of crap.. Sure glad the air filter was in there. Might look inside the intake and see a wire screen. that is a factory installed safety item. I don't know why its there other than that is a big opening and "things" can fall into there when working on the engine sometimes.. Just ask questions before buying parts. This forum has so many members than know where the good stuff is.

Thanks guys. Definitely plan on replacing all of the fluids front to back. Would also like to replace the clutch/flywheel with a non-DMF setup. I've been driving around and just listening to the truck and then reading on here to try to figure out if anything is wrong and I think the amount of noise coming from the clutch area may indicate that the DMF is getting tired. About the glowplugs, I've read that if you hear a clicking sound prior to attempting to start that means one or more plugs have failed. I hear the clicking, and even though I'm new to this type of diesel and this truck, the minor "struggle" it has attempting to start in 75deg ambient air has me thinking there is at least one that has failed. So those are going to get checked and likely replaced, and I'm looking into converting to an electric fuel pump with the Facet 40223 being the likely choice. And yes the wire screen is still intact over the intake manifold opening, so that's good.
Any issues that I come across I'm sure have been brought up on this forum before so I'll try to judiciously use the search function before cluttering it up too bad with redundant questions.

Very handsome truck. I'm pretty jealous of how complete the "parts the previous owners always lose" list is there. You've even got the cold air intake plastic duct which in about 5 vehicles I have yet to see a trace of.

My quick once over doesn't see any stray wiring chopup either. That's nice. The stock electrical system is pretty easy to diagnose. As soon as people start screwing with it, it gets challenging to sort out.

I'm with you on your assessment too. These IDI engines, with the investment of a turbo are superior in terms of maintenance, competitive on mileage, are far better in terms of reliability and the total cost of ownership is a fraction of a newer truck.

My current collection is - A 1993 E350 7.3 IDI, an 89 4x4 project, an F450 with van cutaway cab parts vehicle, two spare IDI engines (one with 88k miles). =)

sgallaty said:

Very handsome truck. I'm pretty jealous of how complete the "parts the previous owners always lose" list is there. You've even got the cold air intake plastic duct which in about 5 vehicles I have yet to see a trace of.

My quick once over doesn't see any stray wiring chopup either. That's nice. The stock electrical system is pretty easy to diagnose. As soon as people start screwing with it, it gets challenging to sort out.

I'm with you on your assessment too. These IDI engines, with the investment of a turbo are superior in terms of maintenance, competitive on mileage, are far better in terms of reliability and the total cost of ownership is a fraction of a newer truck.

My current collection is - A 1993 E350 7.3 IDI, an 89 4x4 project, an F450 with van cutaway cab parts vehicle, two spare IDI engines (one with 88k miles). =)

Click to expand...

If you need the intake elephant trunk ducting thing I've got a spare

You can inspect you clutch thickness and lubricate your throwout bearing once you remove your inspection cover on the bottom side of your zf. The exhaust can be in the way but its plenty doable.

Thewespaul said:

If you need the intake elephant trunk ducting thing I've got a spare

You can inspect you clutch thickness and lubricate your throwout bearing once you remove your inspection cover on the bottom side of your zf. The exhaust can be in the way but its plenty doable.

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly, but not sure if yours would fit - I'm a van guy. I need the one for the e350 (with the square end at the aircleaner) which is another special snowflake.

Have any plans for the build on top of routine stuff? Turbo maybe?

sgallaty: The only added electrical on the truck is a trailer brake controller to go along with the gooseneck hitch, and I consider both to be good additions to the truck. I want to go through the underhood electrical and clean it up/check grounds/connections/etc. to ensure it's all satisfactory.

Thewespaul: I'll be sure to lube the release bearing today.

88 Ford: Right now I'm just getting the truck up to date on maintenance, and checking/replacing any wear items. I have a decent amount of play in the steering wheel so I'll be addressing that here soon. As far as upgrades go I plan on fabricating my own, simple bumpers; adding some off-road lights; Sky ORD 2" shackle reversal and lift; 33" tires; then I want to build a rack for the bed for storage/overland equipment, and eventually get a rooftop tent for camping trips. May try my hand at painting it too, thinking matte finish olive drab with black wheels for a kickass military look.

I will definitely be looking into performance down the road, but since it's useable as-is I'm focusing my efforts (money) on making it more capable for getting into the wilderness.

Sounds like a fun project man! Update all the time with pics! Can never have to much truck ****!

I agree, can't have too many pics. Here's a random rear 3/4 view I took today:

So been busy with some other "life" projects, but I've been able to perform some maintenance on Deezle. Flushed the coolant, which looked damn good when it came out which was a good sign. Used basic Prestone and added the SCAs, then tested and have 1.7-1.9 so that's perfect. Picked up everything to add a coolant filter but haven't done that yet. Also changed the oil, went with Rotella T 15w-40 with a quart of Hot Shot's Secret Stiction Eliminator, just for the F of it. New fuel filter, and also utilizing Hot Shot's Secret Diesel Extreme fuel additive. I have no idea how the truck did prior to me, but in 150mi of stop-and-go city traffic hauling stuff to and from a storage unit I got 16.1mpg so I was stoked about that. Lastly, I got rid of the restrictive stock muffler and straight piped it. Sounds awesome under full throttle, but not annoying at all when cruising at 65-70 and I have 4:10s. Hard to see it in the second pic, but it's there. Also strapped the spare into the bed which makes the truck look way more badass haha.

How-To: Window Motor Repair and Switch Replacement

Couldn't find a good write-up on this on any forum so figured I'd give it a go.

The window motors on these trucks have a tendency to break these plastic roller pieces inside the gear housing, which then jams the motor and stops it from working. This is how to fix the motor without having to buy a whole new motor/regulator assembly for as-near-as-makes-no-difference a shitload of money.

Order Dorman part 747-412 from Rockauto for about $10. Both of my window motors were broken, but my driver's side window switch was also broken, so if that's the case for you also order Dorman 901-302 from RA, also for about $10.





When those arrive, pop the door panel off, pretty self ex procedure.



Remove the plastic and get out your drill. You will see the motor behind the inner door skin, with one fastener accessible via a combo wrench. The other two are located behind the door skin, but don't **** your pants. Ford dimpled the door skin exactly where you need to drill, making it a walk in the park. Drill progressively larger holes, up to 1/2" which will fit an 8mm or 5/16" deep socket to remove the remaining 2 fasteners. Use caution, once the motor is removed the window can fall freely in its tracks, so I safety wired the regulator arm to the door skin and it stayed put. The picture shows the holes drilled. The combo wrench accessible bolt is accessed through that hole that you can see the wires in.



Unplug the motor and bring it to the bench. There is only one small phillips screw that you can remove, so remove it. The cover will come off and you'll probably find a mess of grease and broken plastic behind it, like so:





Pull all of that **** out, wipe it down, doesn't have to be spotless, and then lay out the parts from the repair kit. Install is reverse of removal (no ****). You'll see in one pic that I put the screw back into its hole while I was working. I didn't want to lose it as it's the only piece that doesn't come in the kit and gets reused. The following pics show the install procedure/order:

Now plug that ***** back in and test it out. It should Rock Hard and Ride Free, Judas Priest style ... AKA it should work. If so, bolt it up. Tip for the lower drilled hole bolt: use some sort of grease on the head of the bolt to hold it in the socket as you reinsert it. That one can be kinda tricky. Also, it doesn't matter where the window is in its travel, the motor just spins until the window stops which stops the motor.










For the switch it's also pretty straight forward. Push the broken switch out of the holder from the backside. You don't need to remove or touch any of the wires.







New vs old:



Then just reinstall the switch housing in the door panel, put that back on, and enjoy your working secondary A/C system again