is my work truck.
It's pretty good. OK, it's not a hot rod. Ford uses this 6 speed transmission. It will accelerate if you run it up to 4500 rpm. Frankly I don't do that because it sounds like it wants to fly apart.
The door seal attachments are not exactly what I would call Ford-tough. It has little plastic push in things. The front of the passenger bottom door seal came loose. That lets mud and little pebbles from the dirt and gravel roads in there which could damage the seal. So I cleaned it all out. The head on the front push in thingy had broken off. I pulled it out, found a sheet metal screw in my garage with a big head and screwed through the hole in the seal provided and into the hole in the door. Now that sucker might be Ford-tough.
One day I was on 101 just north of Garberville when I realized I forgot my turn-off. So I made a u-turn from a fairly hard slow down going down hill and took the other off-ramp (using my official vehicle exemption of course). I saw a cloud of what I thought was steam in the mirror (it was cool, damp and foggy). When I parked it nearby at the worksite we noticed smoke coming from the engine compartment. That scared me. I opened the hood but no fire. We eventually determined some transmission fluid had pushed up out of the dipstick tube. I checked it following the instructions in the manual and found it full. I didn't think to look at the dipstick to see if it wasn't seated before I pulled it out but I made sure it was seated fully when I was done. The transmission temperature gauge showed about mid-range too (OK). We did our task and when that was done the smoke had stopped. I had our mechanic at Willits look at it and he said there didn't appear to be any leaks so we determined it must've been a one-time event. Strange that was.
I think that's somewhat typical for ferds. They're just oil burners in nature.
Yuk-yuk!
Dave,
I have a 2001 F-250 with the 7.3l Diesel. It has seen a awful lot of off road in is time as still runs great. Several years ago we were working on this massive land slide project in the Cascades. While driving up this long and extremely steep cat trail I hit a good sized rock (skid plates are well worth the price). When I got to the deck, I noticed red hydrolic fluid under the truck. My first thought was I had damaged the transmission which would have been a nightmare. I was 5 or 10 miles off the high and then 15 miles to the nearest town. Luckily there was a tender truck servicing one of the incredible amounts of iron working the slide over. The service guy saw the despairing look in my eyes and let me know that what I was seeing was typical for the that particular transmission. It seems that the climb up through 12" of mud in 4-low causes a build up of pressure in which is blown off along with an amount of fluid. When it cooled we checked the levels and were on our way.
John
I heard a statistic the other day that said 90% of all Fords made since 1980 are still on the road. The other 10% actually made it home.
Of course you know what they say about statistics.
James
Ford Exploders don't impress me. I broke a tie rod on mine - that could kill you.
Also changed the ball joints at 59,000. Something in the front suspension is
still making a clunking noise. And I generally like Fords.....
We had a Ford F 350 Crew Cab once. We let or regulatory group borrow it to tow their 26 foot boat. Boat and trailer weighs 7700 pounds. They pulled it up the hill on the back way into our warehouse, 25% grade for about 1 mile, and it leaked transmission fluid onto the exhaust and set the truck on fire. The fire extinguisher saved the truck.
