I was personally on the just fix it band wagon, until you said it had almost 400K on it and you don't need the people carrying capacity anymore. All that said, I would get out of it, unless you want to pay for an engine rebuild, and whatever else it takes to fix the steering. Those old 7.3's will go along time, but they wear out just like everything else. Get a crew cab pickup. I know diesel in Cali sucks to buy, but the GM half ton diesel would pull what you need and you would get killer MPG when not towing.