87 F350 last legs?

[djviscom]

I have a F350 crew cab thats sole purpose is to tow. it just tows my families drag cars. It has 147,000 on the clock and cosmetically is really nice but its in need of mechanical attention. Recently the electrical has gone a-stray(lights and guages), but has been fixed. The feul lines inbetween the injectors were just replaced because they were cracked and made starting very hard (anyone else have this problem?). Next on the to do list is the oil consumption. it comsumes 1.5 quarts every 100 or so miles. I know it has a rear main seal leak and it smoke ALOT. under any load, uphill or downhill. I suspect the valve stem seals because the truck sits alot and sat a whole year when we stopped racing. 1.)So i guess my first question is : how involved is this job. with the motor in? or out? best way to do it. 2.) knowing that i have to drop the transmission to do the rear main seal i want to upgrade to a overdrive transmission the 3 speed auto is killing me. what transmissions will work? what are my options? 3.) is there any "weak link" that i should look for while doing this "refurbishing". thanks for the help

 

[FordGuy100]

I have a F350 crew cab thats sole purpose is to tow. it just tows my families drag cars. It has 147,000 on the clock and cosmetically is really nice but its in need of mechanical attention. Recently the electrical has gone a-stray(lights and guages), but has been fixed. The feul lines inbetween the injectors were just replaced because they were cracked and made starting very hard (anyone else have this problem?). Next on the to do list is the oil consumption. it comsumes 1.5 quarts every 100 or so miles. I know it has a rear main seal leak and it smoke ALOT. under any load, uphill or downhill. I suspect the valve stem seals because the truck sits alot and sat a whole year when we stopped racing. 1.)So i guess my first question is : how involved is this job. with the motor in? or out? best way to do it. 2.) knowing that i have to drop the transmission to do the rear main seal i want to upgrade to a overdrive transmission the 3 speed auto is killing me. what transmissions will work? what are my options? 3.) is there any "weak link" that i should look for while doing this "refurbishing". thanks for the help

Yes a lot of people have had problems with those lines in between the injectors cracking and getting air into the system making it hard to start. Are you running any diesel additive? A lot of people think that the new ULSD (ultra low sulfer diesel) is causeing these problems, because the sulfer part of diesel is what gives it its lubricity. So if your not running any type of additives, you might want to look into it.

Your oil consumption is to high like you mentioned, 1.5 quarts in like 500 miles is acceptable, but in 100 miles, its not. The most common areas for oil consumption are like you said bad valve stem seals (or something along those lines), or bad rings. The best thing to do would be to pull the heads and inspect the valves to see if they are the problem. This would best be done with a cherry picker or something, because IDI heads weigh a ton from what I have been told. And taking the engine out would help alot, but it would be a pain just to get it out in my opinion, so if I were you I would just do it in the truck.

Yes those 3 speed auto (C6) make the fuel milage crap, but they are practically bullet proof. I suppose you could convert to a E4OD, but there would be alot of electronics that would go along with it (the E in E4OD stands for "electronic"), and they are know to not be the best trannsmission (have some problems with them). Now you could always add a aftermarket overdrive unit, like a gear vendors, or US gear overdrive unit to it. Those though, are really expensive, and are hard to find used. But if you didnt care if you had an auto or manual, you could convert over to a ZF-5 speed (5 speed overdrive).

Hope that helps.

 

[blaster77]

I have an 87 f250 and my oil consumption isn't as bad as yours, but it's getting there. Probably a quart and a half low every time I fill up. I'm convinced that it is the real main seal as well. does yours leak a lot of oil when it sits?

 

[Agnem]

Valve seals can be done with the heads in place, but I've not done it so I'll defer to someone with experience there. The rear seal problem is well known, but may not be the main source of your problem.

 

[djviscom]

Yes, when it sits a little puddle accumulates underneath the back of the block. Even at idle when the truck hasnt run in a while and is cold there you can see it drip every couple minutes.
I forgot a question i had to ask. its a 3 speed auto. It has the tow package from ford. how much rpm should it be turning to do 55 mph?

 

[aaklingler]

Does 2700 sound about right, I'm guessing.

 

[Diesel JD]

Its the C6 and 4.10s I'll bet. When I had this setup, I saw 3000RPM at 68MPH, shaved a bit off of it with the 3.55s, but not too much of a gain in fuel economy. GV or US Gear is the standard answer on overdrive units, but there was a guy on the forum with the handle "gravey" who said he had a cheaper unit he designs and builds for the C6. See if you can track him down. You definitely need to fix the rear main seal and see if thats solves your oil consumption. If not, you'rte probably looking at tearing down the engine and doing rings or living with some oil consumption. Now, Zigg has done the valve stem seals with the heads on. He's a pretty handy guy and he can definitely tell you how to do it. Like Mel, I haven't done it, so I'll defer to him. See if he has the article on his site. I'm ditching my C6 for a T19 if I can make it happen over the holidays. I'm tired of the VRV, vaccum problems, crappy fuel mileage and just autos in general. Any of your options depend on how much you like your truck, how much you race, and how much money you spend on fuel versus how much savings you can get out of an aux. trans. They ain't cheap, but fuel is no longer cheap....

 

[RLDSL]

I've done valve stem seals on the engine. It's not that bad. If it comes to that I can give detailed instructions, but before you resort to surgery, aside from the rear main leakage, the oil consumption may just be from sticky rings. Very common on diesels. Try running a couple of treatments of Auto Rx through the thing before resorting to surgery. I've averted countless seal jobs on mine and customers cars with that stuff, some were real gushers, and I've brought compression way up and seriously reduced oil consumption on bunches of engines with it. I have no connection with those folks aside from how good they make me look when I get someone fixed up cheap
I've had a few diesels that inhaled oil worse than that, that were cured with the stuff.
Diesel rings have a habit of getting gummed , sooted and varnished up over time and they quit flexing. When that happens, compression goes out the window and they start inhaling oil and getting hard to start when cold. A good cleaning once in a while does wonders.

--------Robert

 

[djviscom]

Thank you everyone who have responded. I have my work cut out. I guess the Auto RX is first up and then the rear main and see where my oil consumption is at and see if it needs surgery. thanks again, Drake.

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

Wow some really good things written about that stuff.
We have a 20,000 or less mile crate engine that sat for 7 years that burns oil like crazy, plus some other things one these. Think we're gonna invest in enough for atleast one application and see how it works. Then maybe clean the whole fleet with the stuff.

 

[RLDSL]

Thank you everyone who have responded. I have my work cut out. I guess the Auto RX is first up and then the rear main and see where my oil consumption is at and see if it needs surgery. thanks again, Drake.

I've got a lady's car in my shop right now for some scheduled service that had a gusher rear main seal about 4 years ago that I did the auto rx trick on, hasn't leaked since ,somewhere around 30-40k miles.

At the very least, even if you do wind up going into the thing, you'll have one seriously clean engine to work on.
I had one old poorly maintained diesel car with a quarter million miles on it I rescued out of a junkyard that i ran a couple of treatments of that stuff in and it brought it back to life, but about a year later I had to go into the thing for something unrelated and I didn't even need a ring groove cleaner, I cleaned the pistons up with a spray can of brake cleaner Usually that particular type engine is a chore to clean the ring grooves up on.

-------Robert

 

[Andylad13]

I dont mean to brag, but it's kind of funny. i was concerned about my diesel drinking about 1 quart every oil change, 3,000mi!

 

[h2odrx]

I dont mean to brag, but it's kind of funny. i was concerned about my diesel drinking about 1 quart every oil change, 3,000mi!

I've found mine is 400 miles for 2 quarts.