As I get closer to completing the 914 GT clone project ( yeah right ) I've been thinking about getting a car trailer. But currently I only have a Toyota RAV4 and while it has a very strong 3.5 litre V6 it's not capable of safely towing a 16-18 foot car trailer with a 911 or 914 on it. So for the past few weeks I've been looking for a cheap pickup truck to fill this need. Today this ad on Craigslist came up http://orlando.craigslist.org/cto/1106099736.html and I was interested. Trucks like this don't come around too often as most are beat to crap or have 300,000 miles on them. After a good visual inspection I took it for a drive and holy crap does this thing have torque !!! With that 7.3 litre diesel and 5 speed manual transmission this will pull down a house ! She has some cosmetic blemishes but runs fantastic so I made the deal. I think this truck will laugh at a car trailer with a 914 on it. The owner said on a recent trip with the cruise set at 70 it averaged 18-19 mpg !!! So now I have to learn about diesels and their maint. requirements. Oh yeah how do you make bio-diesel ?

T.C.

Nice snag. Looks like a darn good deal to me. Barely broken in.

That's what I was thinking. I've looked at enough of these to say this is a decent truck that should run for a long time. I think I could part out the engine and transmission and a few other parts and make my money back

Follow this list.
Check and replace the rear brake lines....all the way from the master.
Check and replace the rear brake valve on the rear axle.
Check the rear spring perches...they rust out and are pretty easy to replace.

Get a new water seperator filter.

Enjoy it..it should last a while.

Rich

Bio Diesel:

Play Willie Nelson songs over and over for 24 hours
Drink a couple bottles of Jack D
Smoke 4 Joints
Drive to Texas and fill up on his brew at his truckstop. By now you won't care about the trip or the price but you'll have fun.
Bill

I've got a '99 F-250 Diesel with about 135,000 miles. Change the oil & filter every 5,000 mi. Change the fuel filter and drain water seperator every 15,000. Only major problem was a water pump went out. I use Shell Rotella oil also.
I have a work truck with 345,000 miles on it and have always used the 5.000 mile oil / filter change rule.

Sounds like the brake lines are prone to rust? Is that why you recommend replacing?
And what do you " check " on the rear brake valve?
I'll inspect the spring perches.
The water seperator/filter is on top of the engine correct? I see a brand new WIX fuel filter cannister that I assume is what you are talking about.
I appreciate the feedback thanks.

Oil + filter every 5,000 miles check.
Change the fuel filter every 15,000 miles check.
Drain the water seperator........ummmmm where is this located?
Shell Rotella T is what the owner just did a oil + filter change with. He used straight 30W would you recommend the 15-40W instead for the future? And are you using conventional dino Rotella or the synthetic?
I appreciate feedback from those that have "been there done that".

I use the 15-40 dino.I buy it by the 55 gal. drum as both trucks use it. The water/fuel seperator should be on top of the engine. That year should have a knob to turn. Mine is a valve that I turn. Drain it for about 30 seconds with the engine off.

Rear brake lines are laying against the frame in an exposed area...and yes they rust out and they are cheap to replace...if you are towing, you want rear brakes.

Rear brake proportioning valve is bolted to the rear axle and it has a lever that touches the bottom of the bed. The purpose is to add more rear brakes as the load increases. Its crude, but it works.
The problem is that its totally exposed, gets rusty, and once again....you loose rear brakes.

The rear spring perches, where the back shackle bolts to the frame is a bad design. Its shaped like a cup that holds water, salt, rust etc.
Get up in there with a hammer and make sure both of them are really solid.
They use solid rivets to attach to the frame. The part costs about $30.00 and then you use three grade 8 bolts to attach the new one to the frame.
Simple to remove the old one, use a die grinder and cut off the three rivets...

Rich

It may also be on the fire wall on the drivers side. What year is it?

Nice truck, my 85 F-250 had over 400,000 when I sold it. It's still running.

A guy up the street who used to have a s10 ev, is making his own diesel for about 1.05 a gallon to run in the older diesels. He's centrifuging it and running it through some harbor freight filters and adding some new to use it. He says until the new battery design and controls cost gets cheaper that old diesels is the cheap way to go.

It's a 1991. I pick it up tomorrow so I'll be able to study it better.

Rich's advice is spot on. We've had to do all of those things on our F150.

One additional suggestion though, check the front spring perches while you are looking at everything else. They tend to rust too. We replaced those on our F150 last fall after one broke; it turned out that the other one was almost rusted through and ready to break too. These are maybe $80 parts and not a big deal to replace either. Like in the rear its as simple as cutting rivets and bolting the new pieces on.

If you find that any of the perches are rusty, replace its companion. The second usually isn't too far away from breaking either.

Other than that, Fords of that vintage are great trucks! They really do go forever.

Well this truck deal went down the tubes. Last night my wife and I got the call that her father had a stroke. So purchasing the truck is low priority as some of the money is now going to emergency flight to N.Y. I called the seller today to " back out " and he was very understanding. You have to have your priorities. Hopefully my FIL will recover as he is 79.