F 350 1994 7.3 turbo one year wonder ?'s

[icanfixall]

Thank you Russ for throwing Cali into this picture. A member here made the psd injecter quote and another member here had this done on his companys psd. That quote was $5400.00 in the middle of this state. A town called Modesto. But no matter. To even think about replacing an injecter on any pad your clearing most of the parts on top of the negine because all the injecters and glow plugs are under the valve covers plus.. You need to drain the coolant because of the coolant running around the injecter sleeves. Then there is the high pressure oil in the common rail thru the heads. then all the electronics feeding the plugs and injecters has to get into the heads but how.. Well its a design that sends all the electrical power thru the valve cover gasket... Thats right. Its a common crush area that fails and your dead in the water. Sure a cam senser is easy to replace but do you have in in the glove box. Now what about the throttle peddle switch.. Nope?? Now are you ever going to do any turbo work... Not to worry. Ford makes a special cab pulling fixture to lift off the cab so you can reach the turbo. Ask anyone that has a newer psd. I have seen the fixtures on ebay too. They grab the top of the doors and you lift off the cab. Nope.. Not a fun job. On some of the turbo applications on the idi its sometimes necessary to lift up the cab to remove a turbo with the down pipe stuck in the turbo. Thats not the norm but it has happened. So we recommend lifting the front of the cab and placing a 4x4 block in there to remove the stuck turbo parts. No matter what you say. Working on a psd is much more expensive than an idi. Now ask yourself.. Where can you buy new psd injecter and how much will they be. One set of psd injecters will buy 3 or 4 sets of idi injecters. And if you cheap out and buy the ebay fakea$$ rebuilts from Tenn you can buy almost 10 sets of them for the price on one psd set. Money talks here very loudly and clearly. I personally feel we drive the most economical diesel out there. I have plenty invested in my trans and my gv aux trans but I know I have the best for my money. I don't feel I will live long enough to wear out the trans or the GV. I'm very comfortable driving what I have and believe its going to get me there and back safely and doing it with great mpg. I got 18.9 mpg driving home from the 2009 rally in Kentucky doing 75 to 85 mph in double overdrive. My engine has the hp to pull those mpg with 3.55 gears all day long. At 85 mph you don't hear much engine sounds but you hear the air rushing by mostly.

 

[lindstromjd]

I sent my injectors out to Rosewood Diesel and had them turned into premium stage 1.5's. $1200 is his flat rate for that build. He told me that at 220k miles on them, they were at the end of their useful life. They still ran fine but were just worn out. Not that different from an idi injector.

 

[Moretorque]

I just went out and looked at it, the vehicle would have a slight whiff of white smoke when you hit the gas. All in all body was fairly straight and it drove like that generation kinda loose up front. The windows were loose and did not roll up or own. That is where I like the newer cabs better. The 97 n up seem to have a much better made cab in certain ways? All in all did not buy, radiator did have a slight rust look to water. Truck had a slight shimmy when you hit brakes. Rode rough compared to my 150.

You could hear a little turbo whine, not to much black smoke but I wasn't pulling either.
Looked like a good buy for someone wanting to pull around town.

Thanks for any input, am still considering it.

 

[Moretorque]

If I could get a opinion that would be great going back to get possibly, it just ****** me off how the windows fall out of these things.

 

[smolkin]

If I could get a opinion that would be great going back to get possibly, it just ****** me off how the windows fall out of these things.

Are the windows elec or manual? Either one is pretty easy to fix. If they're loose horizontally, it is probably the rubber channel weatherstripping, which can be replaced without even taking the interior panel off. Loose vertically, just needs to be re-glued into the bottom channel. I've had 3 trucks over the years and had to repair 6 doors' worth of windows. Won't raise or lower? Regulators have a tendency to wear out esp. on the manual, and the electric have 3 silicone plugs for "safety" that wear out and need replacement every few years. I've always had good luck with junkyard window parts, since the only thing that ever changed from 80-96' was the electric switch design, so lots of donors out there. Otherwise, you can still buy new weatherstripping, regulators, motors, and switches, and three hex nuts are often used to replace the silicone plugs.

 

[Moretorque]

I went ahead and bought it, it was to good of a deal and I like it. It's just the newer interior cab design is made better in allot of ways and seems to be roomier..

Motor and tranny seem to be good but the brakes seem to shimmy, the newer style 97 n up cab seems to rattle less and be tighter in design? I am familiar with these old Fords.

This truck is a XLT 1994.

 

[icanfixall]

Congratulations on the purchase. Now please post up some pics so all of us can really enjoy this new to the forum rig...

 

[Moretorque]

Congratulations on the purchase. Now please post up some pics so all of us can really enjoy this new to the forum rig...

I am so bad about pictures, I need to start posting because I get the troll thing going. I will go get the door code. I need a instrument dash cover the plastic one, the diesel one for a 350 seems to be hard to come by, What is the difference in the plastic from a 150 250 to a 350? Ebay has lots for a 150 250 but 350 must be different?

Here is the code from the door jam, body F6M, Trans E, Axle 45, DSO springs Y4F, GVW X 351, MB 155, GVW Fr 4400 Rear 7400.

So I got the last run of the IDI, is it collectable

 

[Moretorque]

I just ran into a thread where they stated a 94 was real beefed up compared to the other IDI's because Ford put a turbo on it? bigger connecting rods and other things ?

 

[smolkin]

If the cab is super rattle-y, open the pass side door and grab the right side of the dashboard. Does it have ALOT of moverment up and down? If so, it's a known problem with the dash, where it breaks the wimpy factory bracket and basically makes the dash collapse. Mine was so bad it had broken the top of the dash mounting points as well. There was an upgraded metal bracket kit available from Ford. Once again the junkyard saved me on that one too, I just looked at a few until I found an F-150 that had the upgraded part. $5 beats whatever crazy price Ford is charging for it I'm sure.

So I got the last run of the IDI, is it collectable

Probably only to a few members on this site, but to no one else sadly.

 

[m885]

My DD is a 210HP/320LBFT 2.8L commonrail turbocharged monster that loves to eat tires. That said, for the price of one injector I can buy an IDI and have a LOT less maintenance and cost. Can't have a truck where I live now but I will be moving in a couple months, so IDI it is....

 

[Moretorque]

So basically from what I am reading these are the most cost effective work trucks ever made? don't get me wrong the new trucks are impressive with their #'s and what they can do but too impressive as a hit on the wallet also.

All the mechanics I talked to told me the new trucks for work trucks were garbage, they said thy were nice but to involved and they would not own one.

I have been lead to believe the new gas overall are better than the new diesel for work trucks these days. To much emission controls and to expensive to fix.

 

[icanfixall]

Well when Ford installed the turbo idi they created an engine that had very few added hp. I think it was 10 additional hp. Its felt they did this for 2 reasons. The knew they were bringing out the turbo powerstroke and did not want a high hp idi competeing with it. So the turbo idi was detuned by crushing the turbo down pipe. that pipe created a huge amount of back pressure and the turbo could not spool up and work correctly. We figured out how to fix that and towcat posted a great pic of a nicelt modified factory down pipe. We have found replacing the turbo outlet and the down pipe really wakes up the turbo idi. Also increasing the exhaust line to 4 inch and deleting the muffler makes the best flow possible thru the exhaust. A 5 inch line is really not worth the time and money to install. As for beefier internal parts.. Not really much to talk bout. The wrist pins were increased in size from 28mm to 33mm but the reast of the engine stayed the same internally. Exhaust valves were made from Inconel material. We have run these na idi engines for many thousands of miles with turbos and they live a very good life so upgrading to a turbo idi is really not a necessary thing but its nice to have too

 

[Moretorque]

The newer Power S is obviously better in some way's but is the IDI $$ for $ cheaper for work in the long run and do they go more miles because they are not a radically tuned? Thanks for your info Fixall.

 

[Lithgow]

Hey Moretorque, congrats on the truck. I just bought my 94 F250 yesterday. This site is great and should allow us to keep these things running for years. For some reason the IDI Fords dont have that popularity of the Cummins, but that is to our advantage. We can buy them cheap and they will last forever too. If you need more power, lots of ways to do that too. The 6.9/7.3 was made for a lot more years as well, so lots of parts cheap out there. A few rattles in the cab is to be expected in an old truck, and most rattles can be tracked down and fixed too.