'02 Crew Cab F-350 Tow Pig Overhual/Build

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
You are knocking all this out on dirt under an ezup and I was too lazy to swap a CV axle on concrete in my garage this weekend. Maybe next weekend.

Yeah Boyd is the crazy one, I'm only half crazy lol

That's me and my Tacoma. I can see how you could easily confuse two DBz from NJ though lol

Knocked out a little more tonight.

Old and new valve cover gaskets and harnesses. The new harness has an extra tab on the connector under the valve cover to keep the connector from backing out which is a known issue on the design. So I won't need to do the "50 cent" mod on the new valve cover harness.
full


Old valve cover and gasket removed
full


Here's the old glow plugs. 3 of the 4 tested bad on the passenger side, and 2 of the 4 were "open circuit" due to the valve cover harness backing out. So essentially I only had 3 working glow plugs, should make winter starts alot better now :)
full


New gasket and harness re-installed, while I was in there I checked the torque on the rocker arm pedestal bolts and injector hold down bolts, several had worked their way loose which was expected for a truck with this many miles.
full


Also got the oil galley end rail plugs replaced, they were not leaking but they do tend to leak over time and to get to the ones in the back while the engine is in is a bear, so I figured for $20, why not save a future headache
Driver side
full

Passenger
full


Here's one of the old ones; the seal didn't look too bad but like I said, cheap insurance
full


Here is one of the reasons I pulled the engine, trying to get this bolt out of the manifold was damn near impossible, so rusted and welded in from years of road grime and heat cycles.
full


I've been coating the exhaust manifold bolts all week with Kroil in hopes they will pop off with the impact, but from what I've read I'll probably end up having to cut them off and weld a nut to the stud to remove them.

Tomorrow I'm going to do the oil pan seal, the engine has to sit overnight so that no oil contaminates the new RTV seal before it's cured. Small progress but every step gets me a little closer to driving it again :)
 

Oswego

n00b
I had pretty good luck with the new WD penitrent for rust bolt removal (not the normal stuff). Seemed to do a much better job than PB Blaster and Ive been a fan of that stuff for years.
 

Taco Loco

Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’
50/50 mix of acetone and ATF is the best penetrate oil you can make.
 

Anathollo

Armorall is my choice of lube
Staff member
 

Taco Loco

Tired and Lazy, married to ‘The Laundry Fairy’

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the input, I had some left over ATF sitting in the garage so I went to wally world and got some acetone and made a spray bottle today and soaked them down. Going to try to break them loose tomorrow and hope for the best.

Today I flipped the engine around and got the old oil pan off and the block cleaned up to prep for the new pan install.

full


Ford design on this pan sucks, there are no bolts on the short sides or all the way on the corners. I guess I can't complain too much if it lasted for 15 years, just sucks you have to pull the engine to replace. Glad I decided to replace with new, this pan was pretty rusty on the front side.
full


I found out why it was leaking out of the oil dipstick, someone had tightened down on it before probably because the oring was shot, and they bent the adapter out so it would basically never seal again. Unfortunately that means I have to get another one of these before I put the new pan on, hoping my ford dealer has one in stock.

OEM-NEW-Inner-Dipstick-Tube_57.jpg
 

achirdo

2WD FTW
After your rebuild is finished up you really should budget for an anti theft device. 7.3s and 6.0s are notorious for being EXTREMELY easy to break into and hot wire. They are usually the #1 stolen truck in the country. From parked and locked they can usually be in it, started and gone in under a minute. I personally know of 2 people that have had theirs stolen this year. I'm gonna get one of these kill switches for my work truck. I'd highly suggest you do the same for this truck. You'll never get the insurance money back out of it.

Ravelco Anti Theft Device

They claim 5 million sold and ZERO stolen with it installed.
 

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
After your rebuild is finished up you really should budget for an anti theft device. 7.3s and 6.0s are notorious for being EXTREMELY easy to break into and hot wire. They are usually the #1 stolen truck in the country. From parked and locked they can usually be in it, started and gone in under a minute. I personally know of 2 people that have had theirs stolen this year. I'm gonna get one of these kill switches for my work truck. I'd highly suggest you do the same for this truck. You'll never get the insurance money back out of it.

Ravelco Anti Theft Device

They claim 5 million sold and ZERO stolen with it installed.

Thanks, I did think of upgrading the security in it at some point. Normally it sits in my garage locked up and the garage has an alarm system so I haven't given it too much looking yet, but now that I'll be driving it more it's probably a good idea.

I got some more work knocked out today, getting closer to engine heading back in the truck :)

The flex lines that connect the fuel supply/return to the hard lines up to the fuel bowl are notorious for seizing up at the front connections, and mine were no different. So there goes another $175 for OEM lines, but at least they'll be good for a long while. Thinking of packing the front connections with grease to prevent this from happening again.
full


Old hydro-boost lines were removed today, I only did the high pressure ones, I figure the low pressure one if they leak it will be slow enough where it won't cause me to break down and they should last alot longer since they don't see much pressure
full

New lines
full

Here's where the one line that is notorious for rubbing a hole from the shock tower is, it's the high pressure feed to the steering box
full

My solution to slow it down and I'll just keep an eye on it when I do oil changes, cut a 1" coolant hose and sleeved around it then zip tied it. It's pretty secure so it should do the trick
full


New flex lines and new hydro-boost lines in
full


Here you can see the condition of the old pan, definitely didn't have too much life left in it
full


Here's the dipstick tube holder that sits on the inside of the pan that's bent from the previous owner over tightening it. I ordered a new one from my ford dealership and it should be here tomorrow morning.
full


Old manifolds, you can see they weren't in the best of condition either
full


full


I was lucky with getting the bolts off. After soaking them, I heated them up with map gas and I got 14 out of the 16 off with the impact gun. There was one on each side which I had to cut the stud to get the manifold off. The stud came out of the block pretty easy once I welded up a 3/4" nut on it and zipped it off with the impact
full


full


Tomorrow I'm going to clean up the engine a bit, install the new manifolds, install the new oil pan and let the sealant cure, then hopefully saturday or sunday drop the engine back in and begin putting her back together :)
 
Last edited:

tx_shooter

You ever try to roughie a bear?
Staff member
You are making it look easy. But I agree with a better security system. The old 7.3s are a hot item and easy to drive off. Sadly it seems one gets stolen weekly around here.
 

achirdo

2WD FTW
You are making it look easy. But I agree with a better security system. The old 7.3s are a hot item and easy to drive off. Sadly it seems one gets stolen weekly around here.

Good thing about the ravelco units is that unless they have a tow truck that vehicle isn't going anywhere. They have never had a single one defeated. It's not just a little security system, it's a complete immobilizer. They put them in a lot of heavy equipment and 18 wheelers also
 

Silverback

Lima Gulf Bravo Foxtrot Juliet Bravo
I had a friend buy a new IROC Z (MULLET!! :headbang:) back in like 88 and he had the Ravelco installed in it. We lived about 90 miles from the border of Mexico at the time and cars got taken a lot. Never had an issue with it.
 

balakay

BabyMax
Yep, we have those in all the CAT loaders, excavators, and dump trucks at work. They're great.
 

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
I checked the site and its hard to tell where the nearest installer is it online gives a name and email so maybe I'll shoot him a message and see where he's located.

Some more progress yesterday, Here's the new oil pan
full


New hardware for the dipstick tube
full


New oil pickup tube gasket
full


full


New dipstick tube adapter installed. You can see it's now flat against the pan so it should seal much better than the old one
full


Pan sealed and installed
full



New ceramic coated manifolds, I think they turned out nice. Should hold up better than just bare cast like they come.
full


Passenger side installed, I used the international gasket kit. The 7.3s come from ford without a gasket for some reason. Should help to prevent any exhaust leaks.
full


Drivers side
full


Going to drop the engine in this afternoon :)
 

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
Got everything done today in the engine with exception of the turbo and CAC piping. Might be able to knock that out tomorrow depending how much energy I have when I get home from work.

Got the intercooler and radiator cleaned off, amazing how much crap came out of them.
full

Starting to go back together
full

Added the power steering filter right before the inlet to the cooler, seemed to be the best spot to mount and it's tucked behind the bumper.
full


When I left the shop today everything was hooked up, filled up the radiator and degas bottle, then cleaned up the shop a little. It's nice to have a little floor space back :)
full
 

Silverback

Lima Gulf Bravo Foxtrot Juliet Bravo
Ok, now that you are almost done with it. Let me take that thing off your hands. Its obviously a lot of work. ;)
 

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
Ok, now that you are almost done with it. Let me take that thing off your hands. Its obviously a lot of work. ;)

At least let me break in the new clutch, I've been leaving my shop every day looking like a coal miner. I think I deserve a couple hundred miles :banana:
 

Silverback

Lima Gulf Bravo Foxtrot Juliet Bravo
Well... ok. :D
 

PSU Taco85

Well-Known Member
Well... ok. :D

Thanks, you are far too kind :)

Got a few more items knocked off the list:

Installed EBPV delete turbo pedestal with new o-rings
full


GTP38r with the high flow outlet and turbomaster wastegate controller is in place and torqued down
full


New ceramic coated international bellowed up-pipes installed
full


full


Reconnected the EGT probe
full


Here's where those rear oil galley plugs sit once the engine is in, barely enough room to see them let alone get a socket in there, this is between the rear of the engine and firewall
full


full


Then last but not least, the south bend dual disc organic clutch, fully assembled this fucker weighs in around 110 lbs!
full


Took it apart to see how all the plates and discs sit in there, I will work on installing this tomorrow and then hopefully getting the trans re-mounted.
full
 
Top