Do I want an "OBS" 7.3l Powerstroke?

I have been shopping for a farm truck for a while, we're currently truckless, I have been looking at '92-'96 F-150s to help SWMBO relive her high school glory days, but finding a match to her first truck, that isn't a steaming pile, or exorbitantly priced has been way more difficult than expected.

I've found a clean, rust free, southern, single cab, auto, 4x4, Powerstroke, F-250, with mostly straight body panels, for a reasonable price.  The catch, it's got 230K miles on it, and "everything's original."  The seller hasn't freely divulged anything I haven't specifically asked about, and the ad is short on details.  I have learned it's got, original injectors, and pump, I did get the seller to tell me "it could use some glow plugs," it has "good tires," and they drive it 60 mile a day.

I didn't know much about Powerstrokes until yesterday.  Been doing a lot of reading.  Stuff adds up quick.  Looks like you're into injectors for around $1K no matter how you slice it.  Glow plugs aren't too expensive, considering, but the labor is almost the same as injectors.  The HPOP is $500+.  Turbo is $300-$700 depending on what level of Chineseium you're comfortable with.  I'd guess that the E40D is due for a rebuild.  Assuming it's been in 4WD a few times in its 230K miles the transfer case's chain is probably stretched.  Then there's fluids, and all the other wear stuff, hoses, belts, water pump maybe, and all the other things I don't know enough to be worring about yet.

The truck is priced cheap enough, that even with all of those things I think I know, I'm still considering it.

How crazy am I?

Otherwise, find me a rust free, short bed, single cab, 4x4, auto, '92-'96 F-150, with a 4.9l I6, and I'll come get that instead.
 

If it's already cheap you might want to be careful how much you poke them about stuff or they'll just stop responding and make it impossible to buy from them. E40Ds are a good trans at normal power levels. If it does need a rebuild it should be a one and done deal, but it might not need one. Glow plug labor doesn't include the possibility that they've swollen and wont back out of the hole any more.  They aren't hard to work on compared to any newer diesel but they're also not god's gift to reliability like some people seem to think. They have one built in advantage to longevity which is that it's literally impossible for it to run with low oil pressure, so some of what people think is reliability is just that it won't start in situations that would otherwise damage the bottom end. 

I have a 96 Bronco (5.8 gas) with an e40d that has been through Hell for 200k miles.  It's a former Game Warden truck that I turned into a daily driveable rock crawler.  The E40D is tough as nails, mine has a leak that I cant fix so I've been running it on tractor supply hydraulic fluid for about 30k and it works better than any other truck trans (all Chevy and Dodge) I've owned.  The t case has had the fluid changed and been bounced off of 3 or 4 dozen Civic sized rocks and shifts into all drive modes easily.   It is a manual shift 1356 t case.  The cooling system is original save for the water pump and will keep it cool in a 20 vehicle line of Jeeps and such in an Alabama August with breaks only to climb a near vertical rock face then back to just above idle with the AC running.  I cant say anything first hand about the diesel except my buddy's 95 F350 dually pulled a 5000lb load through the TN and GA mountains without a hiccup and he is known to be lazy with his maintenance.  Not that 2.5 tons is a big load.  I've towed several cars on dual axle car trailers with me Bronco without issue as well.  The pain in the shiny happy person for me has been front end wear.  Keeping in mind that it came with like a 27 or 29 inch tall tire and I'm running 15x10 steel wheels with 35/12.50 mud terrains (the tires are over hood high to my stock Miata) I'm having to replace ball joints and tie rod ends every other year.  Drag link, pitman are etc all goes to crap very quickly and I'm buying good quality stuff,  not Oreilly specials.  In other words, I say give it a shot unless the ad actually says "would be a good farm truck"  Make sure you get Warn Premium manual locking hubs too, the auto lockers can cause problems 

That’s honestly low miles for one. Figure that’s about 120k on a Normal Honda and go from there. Where are you located? In south Florida we don’t really need glow plugs but they are admittedly a common failure after 20 years. I love my current truck. It’s a 97 f250 extended cab 2wd with 125k miles. I routinely get 20+ mpg on trips. My last one did require a water pump that I replaced at around 270k, and the next owner replaced the air pump at 300k, but it’s been running great ever since, I see him around town quite a bit. 

Good point Jim, I do actually need to replace my original ball joints at the moment. 

Until you chip it it will be the slowest turbo diesel you’ve ever driven.  Then afterward you’ll be like “my god, what have I done?”  They respond well to playing with injection timing.  Just make sure you go with a good custom tune...preferably a selectable one so you can turn it down for heavy towing.  Then get some gauges so you can keep an eye on it.  Just running around empty these can live a long happy life with the wick turned WAY UP.  230k isn’t anything to worry about at all.  Bill Hewitt got over 700,000 out of “Spot” and I think he beat the snot out of it the whole way.  His was a Super Duty but there really isn’t THAT much difference in them.  You’ll have smaller injectors, no intercooler, and I think the fuel system might be slightly different.  Same basic animal though.

https://youtu.be/RI6zAsF5X-8

Reverse it and park without pulling forward to see how bad pivot bushings and ball joints are.  If it has an obvious amount of negative camber jack up the front and pull on a wheel.  Replacing the D50 TTB seals, bearings, ball joints, spindles etc will put you back several hundred bucks.  

I’ve only ever had good experiences with the 7.3 powerstroke, and 230k really isn’t much. Diesels are expensive no matter what, but the 7.3 is relatively budget friendly. Injectors for my LB7 cost over $3000 for parts alone.

I love OBS Fords. In my opinion, they’re among the best looking trucks ever 

Was writing a long post and the browser ate it. I hate that "reliable" Internet software sometimes.

Short version, glow plugs last about 100k, change the harness and relay as well while you're at it. These are robust trucks as long as people maintained them.

Diesel maintenance and repair is going to cost more than the equivalent gas engine maintenance, and you have to find a shop that works on them and has the tools. Not all shops work on Diesels.  Also, remember those large (2.5 gal, IIRC) cans of Rotella T6 at Walmart? You need two of those and another gallon for an oil change on the 7.3.

Mine has 311k on it right now, PO has the transmission rebuilt once, it's still on the original turbo (no play) and HPOP (needed a sensor and pressure control valve, and the block oil pump recently, though). There are fixes for most of the well known problems, and they're generally not that expensive either.

Re the injectors, make sure that the fuel filter has been changed very regularly - they're so dead simple to change that there is really no excuse to not to.

Mine currently wants a new pedal assembly - I've got either a bad TPS or an intermittenly sticky idle switch and it seems it's the latter, which is not available as a separate part. So that was another $280 I didn't really want to spend, but the original one lasted for quite a while.

I've owned three 7.3L and I miss them hardcore.  They are darn near bulletproof.  215 hp isn't anything to write home about, but you can tow 12,000 lbs and still top any mountain at whatever speed you want.  The 20mpg is nice too.

Problem areas:

GPR.  The relay likes to go bad every 60k or so.  $50 and it's two screws right on top of the engine

Fuel filter bowl likes to corrode and get a hole in the bottom.  Not a bad job to replace... also right on top of the engine

CPS.  Cam position sensor is a problem on some.  Not an bad fix.

valve cover gaskets.  The gasket has an electrical connector to pass power to the glow plugs and sometimes the conductors break.  Again, super simple fix.

Only thing I ever had to do to was GPR on one.

My FIL has a OBS 7.3 and its his favorite truck over his newer 6.0 Power Stroke etc

In reply to Curtis :

CPS is like a 15 minute job, 10 of which will be spent digging through the oily crust on the front of the engine.

In reply to BoxheadTim :

My 911 basically takes two of the large, 2.5 gallon containers of Rotella T6 too and its not a huge diesel truck!

In reply to docwyte :

Oddly enough my a/c 911 does that, too!

I was the previous owner of Grover's previous diesel.  Truck had 239k on it when I got it and it was stock as a box of rocks. It had been worked pretty hard but was rust free and solid.  Rebuilt the front end, did the rear wheel bearings, replaced a CPS. Oh, and I changed the air pump not long before Grover bought it, so it's interesting that the new one didn't last long. It was a reman though. 

It was a good truck. It rode like a buckboard wagon when empty. It was clunky, a littel awkward around town, and felt every inch of Heavy Duty. Felt like it would run down the interstate at 65mph and 1500RPM until the sun died and went cold. Not an ounce of finesse or grace about it but if you like a large, blunt weapon, there's non better.  It wasn't a slow truck, it was a fast tractor.

I'll agree that a tune changes them.  I went with a Tune in my "new" one and it's a completely different beast.  Much less smashing of the pedal to keep up with traffic and it will flat run when pushed.  

There's way more enabling going on here than I anticipated.

I'm no stranger to diesel maintenance or voluminous oil changes, just a stranger to the "little" IH V8 Ford used for a while.

I forgot that the TTB D50 was a thing, I was hoping for a solid D60.  Bummer.

So even with original injectors, I shouldn't worry about replacing them (or having them rebuilt) while I have the valve covers off to replace the glow plugs?

I must say I'm slightly more confident with this idea than I was.  They're asking slightly less than $5K.  Here's some photos.

5k for that isn't stupid cheap, so poke all you want!  It looks fairly good, though. 

When I was a glazier we had three F350 glass trucks. All three 7.3 power strokes, all of them duallies with a 12 ft glass rack, steel not aluminum, two with a stick and one automatic. They were slow. Painfully slow.

No matter what we tried, the sumbitches wouldn't die.

They were very beat and really needed to be replaced but they wouldn't budge.

I wouldn't replace injectors as a maintenance item.  I might change the o-rings if I was in there already but not the injectors.  While there are exceptions they often go over 300k  miles on un-modified engines.

ultraclyde said:

It wasn't a slow truck, it was a fast tractor.

 

Best thing I've ever read on GRM

I’ll trade dash pads with ya! 

Thats an ok deal. I wouldn’t call it a steal. Cool truck though. 

I've found the nearly the same truck, a year newer, XLT, way fewer dents, with slightly more miles, for about the same money, but a whole lot closer to me.

It has my attention now.

I like that one a lot more. How do both of these have uncracked dash pads??!!

You'll like the XLT trim a lot more. The power windows and such are solid, reliable units and make it a little more modern feeling. Nice to be able to roll the passenger window down without laying down too. Looks to be in MUCH better condition, and the Alcoa aluminum wheels are a real plus.