1993 Ford F-250 diesel dually(?!) aka the garbage truck

Two things have happened recently in my life that make it seem like owning a truck would be a good idea; I got a 21' trailerable sailboat for free that I'd like to take out and my girlfriend and I are buying a somewhat rundown house with almost an acre of land. The budget? Extremely low, which explains how I've ended up looking at this thing:

At its core, it's a 1993 Ford F-250 diesel with the 7.3l IDI and the ZF manual gearbox, or so I think. At some point someone put a dually rear axle on it and the cool flatbed. My friend purchased it in probably 2008 or so and used it as a waste oil collection truck for his business. That didn't last long and after having been retired it sat in his lot for a number of years and then was moved to the side of his new shop where it's sat for another two years. Back in the aughts, my friend's company not only collected waste vegetable oil from restaurants but also converted cars and trucks to run on waste oil. This truck has one of his conversions which still works, amazingly. My girlfriend and I have taken to calling it the garbage truck because it is garbage, was previously used to suck up garbage, and will be eventually used by us to move garbage to the dump. 

Anyway after some junkyard batteries, a jump pack, and some ether (more on that later) it roared to life and we managed to get it out onto the street for its first drive in awhile. It was immediately apparent that there were no brakes so it went up in the air for some investigation: 

Tracked it down quickly to this: 

So after putting a new line it runs, drives, and stops. Turning is a problem because the power steering fluid ends up on the ground very quickly. There's also a stuck front caliper. And the other brake lines look suspect, to say the least. 

I have a rockauto cart with new calipers, pads, hoses, a power steering pump, a lower balljoint for the passenger side, and some filters ready to go. I also know a guy with a landscaping company that replaces all of his trucks' tires every six months, so I'll pick up some used ones from him. Purchase price for this bad boy? Probably $500, the deal is yet to be inked. 

Now I mentioned the ether earlier and that will be a recurring theme for this truck. The number 7 glow plug is broken off in the head and at least four others are stuck. At some point those cheap plugs were put in and now here we are. After some investigating, I've decided to eventually install a remote ether start kit and just go with that. This truck is not worth removing the heads and having the plugs extracted!

This will be my first foray into full-size truck ownership (RIP my trusty $700 Ranger), so any words of wisdom are appreciated. 

that should make for a pretty serious workhorse after some maintenance is sorted.  

At that price it's really hard too go wrong, my preference is always gas engines but you likely won't find one that solid for that kind of money. Rear brake parts are strangely exspensive and you should just go ahead and replace all the ball joints. Obs fords seem too eat them quickly.

Well I haven't done much to this so far other than poke at it a bit. I realized that one of the junkyard batteries I bought was for a gas truck and is only 850 ca, which is not enough juice for this beast so I'll have to go exchange that. In good news the stock dual-tank system works and the fuel level needle moved when I selected the rear tank which is a good sign. The "water in fuel" light came on almost right away and a quick look confirmed that there is no rear fuel cap so I'll be draining what little is left in the rear tank before doing that again. 

The tachometer doesn't work which isn't a huge deal, it's kind of impossible not to know where the revs are it given how loud this thing is. Still I'd like to get that working eventually.

Some more pictures I took to show how the vegetable oil conversion works:

The interior is pretty spartan and pretty dirty. An OBS Ford seats will bolt into this cab, correct? The bench seat is pretty torn up and uncomfortable. There's an Eddie Bauer 150 at the upull right now which I imagine will have much nicer seats.

Here you can see the brake controller and much wiring hackery. Everything from the cab back will probably need to be rewired; few of the lights work and I really doubt this brake controller can control anything right now. The two rocker switches control the fuel selection solenoids for the vegetable oil system. There is one for the supply side and one for the return side. In order to reduce cross-contamination of the fuel system, you heat the motor up (and thereby the veg oil via a coolant heat exchanger in the tank), switch the supply side solenoid over to veg, drive for 10-15 seconds and switch the return over to veg. At that point you're driving on vegetable oil! When you're about a mile from your destination you switch the supply back to diesel, count to 30 or so, and switch the return over. Then you can shut down without fear of veg oil congealing in your injection pump or in the lines. Fairly simple. People have made computer controllers to handle all this for you, but this vehicle was never intended for the "casual" driver so you have to do all the counting on your own.

Here you can see the two fuel solenoids above the corner of the battery. They use an electromagnet to select which input is providing fuel. They generally work well and are easy to disassemble and clean out if they get gummed up. These both currently work which is shocking considering the truck sat for... six years? To the left of those is the flat plate heat exchanger that further heats up the coolant right before it's sent to the injection pump. Getting squished into the injectors heats it up quite a bit more.

Lastly, here's the external fuel tank for the vegetable oil. It's probably 30 gallons or so? Unfortunately there is no fuel gauge. Like I said the fuel pickup has a water jacket that fills with hot coolant and heats the vegetable oil up to about 160 degrees before it goes through the fuel filter (a 10 micron Donaldson) that is also encased in a water jacket to prevent heat loss. The fuel lines for the vegetable oil are aircraft aluminum tubing run through 3/4" heater hose which carry the coolant to the filter and pickup heaters, so the oil stays nice and hot even in freezing temperatures.

A bit of a crude system, but it works well. Vegetable oil offers no improvements in fuel economy but you get to burn what is essentially recycled plants that were alive not so long ago. Plus it smells vaguely of french fries as you're cruising down the road.

Anyway next up will be a parts order and an oil change. I think these engines take 10 quarts!

Okay finally got to do some more on the 250:

I had put in a rockauto order for balljoints, pads, calipers, and brake hoses as well as a new air filter and rebuilt power steering pump. Yesterday I did the balljoints which went smoothly, especially with my friend's balljoint press at hand. I also regreased every joint with a zerk fitting on it since it had probably been a long time. 

Today was all about brakes and oil:

I really love this still of Ford caliper, they're so easy to work on. The... pins? that hold them to the knuckle are exactly the size of a 3/8" extentions and then the whole caliper pops right off. The hoses were pretty straight forward as well although I believe I need another bleed as the pedal feel isn't exactly confidence inspiring. Still, now the front wheels actually roll without smoking so that's nice! I also replaced the other line on the rear axle as a precaution, the rest of the lines on the truck were done 8 years ago or so and still look okay.

I left the oil change for last figuring it would be a nice, easy way to close out my day. For those curious, here's what $70 of Rotella and a Motorcraft filter look like:

11 quarts per oil change with the larger Powerstroke filter (I would have gone with the proper size but they didnt't have any in stock. Anyway  as soon as I got a wrench on the drain plug I should have known I was in trouble. What I thought was grease and grime was a huge glob of RTV... uh oh. I got the old, very stripped plug out and drained out the 10(?) year old oil. Then I went around the corner to grab a new plug. What size do I need? 14 x 1.25 says every parts counter guy and internet resource. Once I got back it wouldn't thread in so I drove to the parts store 15 minutes away to get a 14 x 1.25 tap. Hmmm that is definitely not the right size, what the hell? Finally I found a dieselstop thread about how some of the oil pans are 1/2-20, go figure! So I drive to yet another auto parts store and pick up a 1/2-20, drive all the way back and... success! For two turns of the ratchet. Then it stops dead. I check the box again and I accidentally grabbed the OVERSIZE 1/2-20! One last demoralized drive back to the parts store and I finally completed the oil change. Anyway, for any of you IDI International diesel owners, watch out for that. With the maintenance complete I went for a celebratory drive around the block:

It's looking alright for a $600 rust-bucket. Next up will be more cleaning, getting the rear tank up and running, and maybe seeing if the A/C system will hold a vacuum?

Got the new power steering pump in but I can't for the life of me seem to get it bled. Anything special on these OBS Fords? Driving this thing with manual steering is essentially impossible. 

So it turned out the new pump wouldn't bleed because it was bad. Getting remanufactured parts that don't work is always such a red herring and inevitably I exhaust every other possibility before considering that there may be something wrong with the part itself. Anyway, another rebuilt pump went on and now I can steer with one finger, the way Ford intended. 

Just in time, too, since the flooring for our new house needed to be picked up from the warehouse. It was my first time driving this thing on the highway and it did alright, even with 1600 pounds of lumber on the back.

Notice the nice shiny paint on the fender where power steering fluid got spilled; is this the deadbeat's buff and polish??

Little update picture of the truck doing truck things. I like that this forum enjoys abused tow-pigs. This picture is actually taken after I spent 30 minutes in the parking lot replacing a rotted out section of the power steering return line. 

This truck has been very useful but I'm definitely at a crossroads with it. The cab corners are destroyed at this point, one of the leaf springs broke (Possibly from putting 3k pounds of masonry debris on the bed), the front tank has started sweating fuel out of it when full, and it seems to have more creaks and groans every time I drive it. 

I also lost access to the shop space I used to use so working on it in my gravel driveway sounds much less appealing. There's a world where I sell this on to someone else and get a new truck but... I haven't come across one that fits my desired budget (sub $1k lol) so I think I might spend the winter trying to nurse this truck along for another year. Or two (hard to believe I bought this two years ago).

I love actual work trucks and keeping them on the road.

Looks like its time for new shocks, at least on the front.

Well I attempted to replace the front tank this weekend and it didn't go as planned. I ended up dropping both the tanks, knowing full well the rear tank hadn't been used in 15 years or more. Surprisingly it still had maybe a gallon of diesel in it that still burns! The metal lines running along the frame rail up to the fuel selecter valve were rotten apart in multiple places. 

On the front tank I attempted to reuse the sending unit. This was foolish. It was crusty looking and the float had cracked and filled with diesel (hence the non-working fuel gauge). After buttoning everything back up It ran for about three minutes before the supply-side fuel barb cracked enough to leak fuel out and air in. I should know better by now than to try and save a buck on rusty garbage; in for a penny, in for a pound. 

So I have a rear tank, straps, and sending units for both on the way. My credit card feels a little hot to the touch...

In reply to orthoxstice :

There are few things quite as expensive as a free boat!  

In reply to John Welsh :

Ironically, the above pictured sailboat was completely free! I've spent very little on it aside from buying an old Johnson Sailmaster outboard...

But the point stands. I have to remind myself that I dragged this truck out of a thicket of knotweed after it had sat for at least six years. It's 30 years old and has been an Eastern Ohio/Western PA truck its whole life. Anyway I need to make a scrapyard run and am looking forward to having these new fuel tanks in. Then down the road I should do shocks. Probably need to find a new (or good) set of rear springs. Should really patch up the cab a bit. It would be nice if I had working glow plugs. On and on!

Shiny and chrome... Forgot to snap a picture of the front tank but it looked the same, but different. Both tanks are installed, both supply fuel, bo-er... only the front sending unit seems to work for now. I suspect the connector for the rear isn't seated properly or something. Now that the truck has a theoretical range of 500 miles it's back to doing truck things:

Just did a quick review of the thread and a few other notes: 

- This truck is a 1992 so I'm not sure why I said 1993 in the title. 

- I did attempt to charge the A/C that summer and, incredibly, it worked for a whole year. This is an R12 system I put those little adapters on and filled with R134 and it worked great. Now it's all leaked out again but it was impressive nonetheless.