What would y'all do?

[Mikes91]

I could have my lil truck out here in Nov. (I will have a budy haul it out with his PSD from SoCal ) but that still leaves me with no place to keep my rig, let alone money to work on it. I wonder how hard it would be to just swap motors if i got a good deal on a 6.9/7.3? or if i should just advertise it as running with excessive smoke

Have your friend haul the Ford back to So Cal... and save up to fix it this summer.

Till then, get rides from the women...

 

[towcat]

I could have my lil truck out here in Nov. (I will have a budy haul it out with his PSD from SoCal ) but that still leaves me with no place to keep my rig, let alone money to work on it. I wonder how hard it would be to just swap motors if i got a good deal on a 6.9/7.3? or if i should just advertise it as running with excessive smoke

nick-
here's what's bothering me on this whole thing. IMHO, you are basing some very difficult decisions on one shop's opinion. Granted, the feedback you get from the basement crowd is only as good as the info you post, to me, there is much missing info that I am not reading or you don't have access to yet. what troubles me intensely, is the lack of a definitive location of where the compression gasses is going to. Let's say the rest of the 7 cylinders is running an average of 480psi. I am using this number as a reference since the motor in my '92 has this avg. You have one cyl at 100 psi. The missing 300 something psi HAS TO GO SOMEWHERE. There is no determination on where it has went. Until then, to make a decision in selling the truck at a major loss is foolish let alone irresponsible.
let me give you a text and visual illustration. A couple of years ago, another member bought a '89 f250 4X4 from a kid somewhere out in the central valley of CA. this truck had a nearly new hypermax trubo, ZF5spd with the SMFW kit and only needed a paint job on the driver's door to look nice. What was wrong with it was it leaked diesel feul like there was no tomorrow, idled like dogshit and was owned by a kid who had his heart set on big benchrace HP. Gene brought the truck back to the bay area for $1800. Yup, you read it right. One thousand eight hundred. he really didn't have much of an interest on finding out what was trully wrong with the motor since he really wanted to do a ZF conversion into his '86. What happened next will put Mel on his soapbox tearing me a new ********. We canibalized it... and I do mean bad.
Fast foward to March of this year. My cut on this whole deal was the motor. Just for S&G I did a simple post mortem on it. The shop that condemmed the motor should have been criminally prosecuted. The bad idle and feul leak was caused by loose injection line nuts at the pump end. Yup you read that right too. So....due to the paid opinion of a shop, a somewhat perfectly good truck was taken to its death. I use this example because there are at least six or seven members here reading this who has intimate knowledge of this whole ordeal. this is not the only example i can tell you of a shop giving a misdiagnosis. I have personally witnessed mechanics and shop give terminal diagnosis just to steal the vehicle from the hapless consumer. Do yourself a huge favor. GET A SECOND OPINION. From what I am reading, your problem does not lie internal to the motor. There is a external cause that you have not found yet. Before you get worked up and condemn this truck, do more homework or have the yoda shipped up to you and send the truck home until the summer when you have more time to take a closer look at it. You really owe it to yourself to do it. Here's some pics of what happened to a misdiagnosis.........

 

[The Warden]

Just for S&G I did a simple post mortem on it. The shop that condemmed the motor should have been criminally prosecuted. The bad idle and feul leak was caused by loose injection line nuts at the pump end.

THAT WAS IT?!?

I knew that the problem with the engine was minor, but I didn't know it was that minor...I thought it had a bad lifter or two.

Actually, when I drove that truck around while Gene still had it, the idle seemed okay (if I remember right), and I think it had about the same (or maybe even a bit more) power as my truck does now. It was a shame to see her go (especially since I played a minor role in helping her meet her demise), but the floor pan insert for the ZF is happy in my truck now and all of the cannibalized parts found their way to good homes...

 

[towcat]

THAT WAS IT?!?

I knew that the problem with the engine was minor, but I didn't know it was that minor...I thought it had a bad lifter or two.

Actually, when I drove that truck around while Gene still had it, the idle seemed okay (if I remember right), and I think it had about the same (or maybe even a bit more) power as my truck does now. It was a shame to see her go (especially since I played a minor role in helping her meet her demise), but the floor pan insert for the ZF is happy in my truck now and all of the cannibalized parts found their way to good homes...

tim-
would you believe the motor is in my '92 that I am beating to death right now? there's lifter noise, but it keeps the truck running while I am building a new motor for the '92. Lifter noise and all, the truck already did one TX round trip.

 

[Nickbf2504x4]

I hate to admit it but iam pretty much at the will of my mom. So unless i can convince her otherwise, she has bailed me out of all the earlier problems with the truck, i will ask the mechanic a ton of questions though when he gets back in on tuesday and i will keep y'all posted. :Sly

 

[idiabuse]

mom

no disrespect to anyone here but what kind of indian giving is going on here?
I have been reading this soap opera goin on here with this poor kid and his mom, bottom line is he has the truck, its paid off, cost much less than another vehicle at this point.
any vehicle that is used will need $$$ to keep running.
any young man growing up and living in terrain like colorado sure could use a 4x4 ford truck.
A truck that runs good would be nice, but if you eat garbage you will feel like garbage, you cant drive any vehicle to the ground and be upset cause its the vehicles fault.
your mom needs to get a grip and stop hanging this vehicle in front of you and complaining about whatever, if thats the truck you want and you have spent some money any time fixing it and you would keep it then stand up and claim your rights!
from what I see towcat has giving some excellent advice, the shop that is working on the truck dosent sound good so far, whats better to a shop owner that has a mom and son come in with a diesel truck that needs repair? do you see the gold teeth shinning yet?
get your truck back from the shop and spend one night checking things yourself, check the injectors to see if they are loose, spray soapy water on them, that dosent cost $75 a hour to do. think about how valuable the truck is in good running condition? if you dont have a bad engine(cavitation) then you should keep it no matter the cost at this point, if your mom dosent approve to spend the money or let you store it for future repair I believe your mom isnt playing fair.
javier

 

[towcat]

not mom's fault...life lesson.....

Idiabuse-
this is one of those "life lessons" nick is going to be put through. unfortunately, the truck is going to be a pawn for the lesson. IMHO, there's too many people out in this world who "want it all" before they are ready for the responsibility of paying for it. I don't know what nick's situation with his parents as far as tuition, room and board funding is, or his vehicle situation funding. All I can offer is my .02 in what is presented to me. But I personally see friends of mime with kids going to college and what happens when the kids get a car that they can't afford to upkeep and the parents have to come up with the money to fix it. its very fustrating for both ends. My first car I bought was a '79 MG midget when I was 14. yes, i was driving without a license. the engine let go 2 weeks after buying the car and I wound up working for the repair shop to pay off the bill. Ever since then, I learned to drive junk cars and trucks. Outside of my towing equipment, I dragged home and rebuilt everyone else's cast-offs. As a result, I didn't have a car hanging over me while going to college and i learned a basic trade too. nick has some hard decisions in front of him, no doubt about that, and its going to cost him money either way. Hopefully he and his mom will make a careful and educated decision on what to do. Bottom line is even though these IDI's are not 50k pricetag trucks, they still cost $$$$ to feed and upkeep. Oh yea, there's vultures like me drifting around to pick off the cast-offs too.

 

[apextrans]

I've been where you are. I was very fortunate to have my parents put me thru college & pay for most everything. I had a 1977 Jeep J-10 Honcho(which my old man foot the bill for as long as grades were good) that I ran the snot out of until I trashed the tranny. I was bouncing at a bar in town but couldn't afford the repair. My dad sunk so much money into the truck from all the other damage I did & just plain old age repairs that he wasn't willing to dump more into it that time around. So the truck sat behind the dorm for 3 months. I bummed rides home for FD training, bummed rides around campus & town sometimes & got used to riding a bike in 10 degree weather. It sucked ASS but I saved enough to fix it on my own. I almost sold it more than once. I learned three valuable lesson from that ordeal.
1. Don't abuse what you got for "free" just 'cause it was "free".

2. Don't sell something just 'cause it's broken. You'll get screwed every time.

3. Never be rude the next morning, to the girl you went home with the night before. You never know when you'll need a ride :Sly .

Bring the Toyota out & keep your truck until you can fix it

 

[idiabuse]

I still have my first car 1967 mustang GT 390, even tho my mom hated it and it has a broom stick dent still on the rear, yes I learned the mechanics trade very well as I have ruined lots of transmissions and just a few engines, but now in life I make much better long term desicions, im curently wondering what should I do about Wilma?
anyway I hope we can help with our combined $ cents worth and this kid can make a dollars worth of sense, if not he will remeber the experience. I have to go Wilma is coming!
Javier

 

[Nickbf2504x4]

I sincerely appreciate everyones comments, the real question on my mind right now is that running or not, I dont know if it is economical for me to own a 3/4 ton diesel truck considering I never tow anything and am in college,

my original thought was that it would be nice to have for the long haul back and forth between here and california ( and we all know these trucks kick butt on long hauls ) but with fuel prices, its way more economical to hop on a jet :Sly

 

[apextrans]

You "tow" your Quad don't you? How big is the campus? If it's not too big & the town is small, leave it parked. Then it isn't costing you money. And when you head to the big field parties you'll be the most popular guy around with your big truck . Seriously man, don't let that truck go. You'll regret it somewhere down the road. I promise. There's 2 or 3 I regret, but never again.