I picked up a former plow truck a few days ago, the price was right for a 4x4 diesel with a manual transmission and aluminum flatbed so it followed me home.

This thread will detail my repairs and mods to turn a rusty POS into a reliable farm beater/tool hauler/backup daily on the cheap. Bear with me as I work 40-50 hours a week and the weather hasn’t been cooperating lately so this may take some time


Truck specs:
F350 cab and chassis
Single cab dually
6.0 Powerstroke
ZF-6 manual transmission

301k on the odometer, heat and A/C work well, drivetrain is solid.




First thing it needs is a power steering line replaced- it leaked about 1.5 quarts in my 45 minute drive home.




Batteries- the old ones were Interstate and 27 months old so my local dealer replaced both for free. I suspect a significant drain but for now I’m just going to put disconnects on both positive cables.


Up-pipes from the manifold to the turbo need replaced as the truck builds zero boost and has the typical screech and exhaust fumes in the cab. I still held 60mph in 5th gear but only on flat ground. Don’t confuse the up-pipes with the charge pipe that’s seen in the picture, those like to blow the boots off under hard acceleration which sounds like a 12 gauge under the hood




Front bumper and plow mount are junk, I have a winch bumper that will be replacing that mess. Already rounded a few nuts off so I’ll just be torching all the bolts out. I actually have extractors and penetrating oil that would probably work but ain’t nobody got time for that




Interior is pretty decent other than the console, just needs cleaned up. It’s an XL trim truck so it has the vinyl seats/floor, crank windows, and manual 4x4 shifter (GD’s favorite truck)



Other things I plan on doing in the future:
straightening one corner of the bed up (jackknifed trailer)
repainting the wheels
cutting rockers and cab corners out and hitting all the raw edges with undercoating
undercoating the front of the frame, oil pan, and steering linkage
straight pipe (still has the cats and muffler )

What year is the truck?

Why no full view pics as a ‘before’ reference?

2006

Where it's parked right now I can't take a full view without getting a couple of the neighbor's houses

The consoles and seats in that era f series all went to shit in the same ways seen in your pictures.

gotcha

Its a 6.0, get a Scan Gauge and keep it mounted somewhere in the truck. Its a necessity for diagnosing this motor if you run into issues. Make sure the oil temp and water temp are within 15 degrees of each other while running at highways speeds. Any more than that and your oil cooler is likely plugged.

https://www.scangauge.com/support/x-gauge-commands/ford-lincoln-mercury/

Screw that. All but one of my vehicles is older than that but I couldn’t own anything with rust like that. It doesn’t help that it put out salt all winter.

Also, you say it doesn’t build boost but also say it blows intercooler boots off.

I drive a 7.3 most days.

I can see where a boot was blown previously and incorrectly reinstalled.  The up pipe is cracked is the reason it's not building boost. 7.3s go for stupid money here, and my daily is another 6.0 so it streamlines things

What makes that the one to go with? I don't know anything about scanners. I've got a 6.0 with plenty of issues that are going to come to a head. I bought a generic bluetooth OBD2 but haven't tried anything. I've heard of Forscan but most people seem to be using it on newer cars.



My Excursion has the same hole in the seat

OP buys a 300k mile 6.0 stick shift.....

mas·och·ist
[ˈmazəkəst]
noun
a person who derives sexual gratification from their own pain or humiliation:
"the roles of masochist and mistress"
(in general use) a person who enjoys an activity that appears to be painful or tedious:
"what kind of masochist would take part in such an experiment?"

Which one is it?

Girls call me daddy, so the second one

Finally got the leaking line off... of course the little extension (called a pressure hose TCP) is obsolete and not available from Ford. I'll put new o-rings on the old line and run it until I get a hose made (middle of next week)



Also, full body picture

Got a bit done today even though it was only 45° and windy


Torched the front bumper bolts off and heated a few of the stubborn plow mount bolts before removing it. The driver's side tow hook was treated with Kroil and left to soak overnight since my impact wouldn't remove it. Started cleaning up the front end to undercoat it

Also fixed the power steering leak, at which point another line promptly started leaking

So I'll be replacing the last 2 lines before she's road worthy again

Please don't worry about folks not replying after your every update.

We're watching with appreciation.  

No worries here... this is tech not GD

Sanded and undercoated the front end after removing the tow hook (Kroil overnight did the trick)



Painted the wheels




Sanded and undercoated the bottom of the doors, and cut out the worst of the cab corners and rocker panels



Still need to replace the up pipes, mount the winch bumper, and replace the underbody box latches, but it's coming right along

With the turbo out of the way to replace the exhaust manifold to turbo piping, you're not too much further from removing the EGR cooler, valve and oil cooler replacement.

I don't remember the thread someone here recommended this rust neutralizer, but I bought some.  Haven't used it yet, though.




Here's the same manufacturer's rust remover that was in the same thread.  Haven't used it either.

It's deleted so no worries about the EGR, deltas were good on the drive back so oil cooler doesn't need done yet.

What pisses me off is that this truck with 301k starts and idles better than my daily with 16k on the engine

Any chance you could get the repair history?  I'd bet it has had a lot of work to keep it running for 300+k miles.

Ford dealership put an engine and injectors in at 120k, nothing except a clutch and turbo since then.

The long block in my daily has had issues since the warranty expired, the most persistent being burning oil due to a ring issue (more blowby and valve seals are good) and I replaced the injectors and turbo on it at the same time

Got the bumper mounted up this afternoon, then hauled the trash off with it.





Still no boost, but at least the pipes are sitting on the counter ready to put in


Box latches didn't fit so they're being exchanged for some that (hopefully) will fit.

One headlight is out and I'm in the process of replacing an LED on the flatbed and pressure washing the deck, but it's a massive improvement IMO

For the right price, as a farm, beater truck, I could deal with that rust, but I don’t know about that monstrosity you call a bumper.  Nice project OP.

@11b4v
That bumper was my first ever fabrication project when I was learning to weld, needless to say I've gotten a bit better since then

It does give a nice platform to stand on when working under the hood, but I wish the grill guard was a little shorter. Total weight with the winch is almost 300lb

I'd get rid of the grill guard, but that's just me.

Good work. Nice seeing this old beast being put back to work.

With it being a 06 be careful with parts.
That is the middle of the switch years.

Go to Ford parts giant and put your Vin in and go by that.

Dads 06 f250 with the 5.4 is a nightmare to get correct parts from the parts stores.

Very few differences with the Oh-no through out the production and they had very definitive cut off years.

IN



Get a Bluetooth OBDII scanner and download forscan onto a laptop...great program. you can do a lot with it like buzzing your injectors etc

Finally went to replace my up pipes, only to determine after removing the fender liner that up pipes wouldn't have fixed the issue anyway  

There was also a hole in the manifold that I managed to weld, now going to let the new sealant cure overnight and see what happens



Actually, there's 3 different 6.0 trucks in the driveway and I had the hood up on all of them
My daily I just wanted to confirm that my fuel pressure was still good after putting the tow tune on and check the front end to see if any additional parts needed replaced when I replace the ball joints/axle seals/tie rod ends here in the next month or so


My brother's truck got injectors, oil rails, valve covers, intake (not pictured) and filter housing (also not pictured) reinstalled. One more pretty weekend should have it back on the road

I have Torque lite on my phone and Forscan lite on my tablet for monitoring and troubleshooting, haven't had a decent laptop in awhile so I don't have the full version yet

Did some wiring over the weekend, got my LED cubes on an upfitter switch and found that my reverse lights were on another upfitter (I thought they all needed rewired) The other 2 switches are wired to the flatbed but they don't seem to run anything- will investigate later


Also hooked the winch up and found tire chains that fit (knew I had them somewhere )


I've driven it to work the past couple days, does pretty good except for the (smaller now) exhaust leak, so I may end up having to put a new manifold on to completely fix the issue

Other people's wiring is a headache...they would say the same thing about mine....I mean it makes sense when you do it

OP, this is a very crude 2 minute photoshop job.  Looks way better if you chop off the top of your lower horizonal grille guard.

Attached File

It does look better- my only concern would be that the next deer I hit will come over the hood instead of bouncing to the side. That bumper was on my other truck at the time but I never let off the fuel and nailed that critter at 60mph, only found some hair on later inspection.

Working night shift has its dangers I guess

Replaced the manifold today, talk about a PITA.


This is why they make extractors boys and girls- every single bolt rounded off. I have a small toolbox entirely dedicated to extractors (both socket and bit type), left hand drill bits, chisels and punches, taps and dies, and one cut-down sledge hammer for when things don't go according to plan


Apparently had a blowout


Another crack



It shouldn't leak now, but I can't confirm because it won't start Apparently I bumped the starter cables just enough while replacing the manifold to turn an intermittent clicking noise into a no crank with the starter nearly falling apart Headed to O'Reillys in the morning to pick up a reman with a warranty- that's $180 I didn't plan on spending but at least it wasn't an electrical problem


My entire experience as a mechanic (both personal and professional) can be summed up by the statement of "it ran fine earlier"