The Adventures of Obtaining a New Work Beast.

My 2002 SuperDuty is showing its age. The engine, at 435k miles, is showing its age and rust around the cab is becoming a growing problem. It's time for a new work beast.

We narrowed down our search to the same configuration as the 2002 I've been driving, which is a crew cab F-350 Powerstroke. We found one in Jacksonville, FL which happens to be a great looking Lariat with nice 20 inch wheels to set of the Grey paint. I talked to the seller and it was a highway driven truck in "immaculate" shape and perfectly maintained. Well, here we go!

On Tuesday the 22nd of August, two of my daughters and I flew through the eclipse on down to Florida to pick it up and drive home.

Right off the bat, there were problems. First of all, the wipers wouldn't shut off. The seller told me that the local Ford dealer had the part because they had this problem before, so they ordered the part but never brought it in to have it fixed. Ok. So, off we went to try to get the part, as I didn't want to drive all the way home with the wipers going. Sadly, the dealer had just closed when we pulled in.

The truck also had a horrible droning fuel pump sound.

Oh, well. Stake dinner time.

We debated during dinner about whether to stay the night and have the dealer fix the wipers and fuel system in the morning or just grin and bear it and get home. No one wanted to waste time, so we headed up the highway.

It was a nice drive. It would have been nice to see the scenery, but it was evening, so we rolled on in the dark. The interesting thing is that south bound traffic was at a crawl for no less than four hours as we trucked on north. North bound was just fine, and I'm guessing it was the eclipse tourists.

Thankfully, after several hours, the wipers stopped. Instead, a check engine light came on. I kept rolling until morning when we stopped at a Knoxville Ford dealer to have it looked at. The dealer replaced the fuel filters and rear brake pads as well as told me it needed a new radiator that I decided against. I'm glad I decided that way, as I'll go into shortly.

We finally made it home! This is actually the first time I get to really go through the truck.

The seller told me that he had the truck serviced at his local dealer shortly before I picked it up. The invoice was in the glove box. The problem is that the truck had NO FLUIDS. I checked the oil - none. No windshield washer fluid, DPF fluid was almost gone, nothing. Those ass-wipe dealers never touched the truck.

What's done is done. Now I'm just going to have to iron out the kinks, which I got started on right away. I changed what was left of the nasty oil, ordered the part and fixed the windshield wiper problem.

After I got those few things worked out, I dropped the truck off at my shop and they got started on the cooling system problem. It turns out that the water pump that had been recently replaced was actually falling off! They are going to replace both the primary and secondary pumps and then bang on it a bit to see what else they can find.

Once I get it back, I'll start deleting the EGR system, replace the intake and exhaust systems, replace the rear springs, add a rear stabilizer bar (the 20 inch wheels don't get one for some strange reason), replace the intercooler pipes, tune it and see where that leaves us. That is what it should take to get the maximum longevity out of this machine. It also has the lovely side effect of transforming it from a seething monster to a fire breathing dragon.

If you are interested in seeing all that, stay tuned!