Sold the S&S and Red

[mountainkowboy]

My son in Oregon has been bugging me for a few years now to buy the whole setup..........so I sold it to him, lock, stock, and barrel.

We will be moving into an RV park in between our Moms houses since we seem to be going there more and more now. At 100 miles one way.....the gas is getting expensive, so we need to move closer to them. We've found a nice park pretty close to the middle of them and will be living in our Alpenlite 5th wheel there.....well.....to there end. We wont be moving till next May due to the lease that we are in. So I have a little time to get the 5er in "full-time" shape and redesigned the way we want it.

I just picked up an 88 F250 Super-Cab diesel for dirt cheap. She needs a little love, but her bones are good and the drivetrain is solid. We do plan on finding another TC for the 250 in the near future. Not sure of what we'll get but it needs to be 1,000 lighter.........lol, maybe a 9' or a pop-up..........who knows.

[Scott16]

mountainkowboy wrote:
Red and the S&S are in good hands and being used.

Very nice.
Scott

[mountainkowboy]

Red and the S&S are in good hands and being used.

[dakonthemountai]

Well, I'm sorry we never were able to meet up while you were on the mountain or in the desert! But the beauty is that with RVs you can meet folks anywhere! Best of luck and safe travels to you and yours and perhaps we'll meet on the road someday!

🙂
Dak

[Scott16]

Thanks for the update. Will be a sad days as said. But will have a good owner to carry on the Tradition in the S&S Red.

[mountainkowboy]

We are doing our final packing and getting ready to leave for Oregon for our last outing in the S&S. It will be delivered to its new owner by Sunday......sniff, sniff. It has been a good unit and has served us well over the years.

[2BLAZERS]

Life matches on and changes things on us.

[mountainkowboy]

I should have said that I have an ATS kit sitting in the garage for the 88. I'm working on fabbing an intercooler setup for it for a little more power. I wanted to stay away from the PSD and the electronics involved, there are ways to get the IDI up to and over the 460's numbers and still be rock reliable.

[SoCalDesertRid1]

mountainkowboy wrote:
Yeah.....ive never seen one either, just heard about them.

My 90 460/ZF5 is a great puller with 4.10's and will run 65 mph at 2500 or thee abouts. I would love to find a ZF5 for blue, but I think I would need the whole truck for all the donor parts for the change over. I would REALLY like to transplant the 7.3 into my 90 dually....but since I sold it with the S&S that's not going to happen.

The 460 in those years was a far more powerful puller than the IDI non-turbo diesel. Unfortunately, the factory turbo IDI ('93-'94) really wasn't much more powerful than the non-turbo. The Powerstroke was the big improvement in diesel power for Ford. The 460 and Powerstroke are more comparable in power, though the Powerstroke does it with much better fuel mileage.

I have a neighbor that's selling an F350 SRW crew cab long box 4wd with the 460, for $3500. I think he said it's a '93 with an E4OD. That might provide you a better platform to build on.

[mountainkowboy]

Yeah.....ive never seen one either, just heard about them.

My 90 460/ZF5 is a great puller with 4.10's and will run 65 mph at 2500 or thee abouts. I would love to find a ZF5 for blue, but I think I would need the whole truck for all the donor parts for the change over. I would REALLY like to transplant the 7.3 into my 90 dually....but since I sold it with the S&S that's not going to happen.

[SoCalDesertRid1]

Forgot to say-

If you do put in an overdrive gear tranny, or add a Gear Vendors, I would definitely swap out the wimpy 3.55 axle gears, for at least 4.10. A rear locking differential would be a good idea at the same time too.

My dually has 4.10 gears, stock 235 size tires, and the more powerful Powerstroke turbo engine and I have been intending to swap to 4.56 gears, like I did with my other truck. My diesel needs more grunt than the 4.10's are providing. It can still cruise at 65 mph with 4.56's, with the overdrive tranny. F-Superduty trucks of these years came with 4.63 gears, stock, with 5.13's optional, with the same engine, tranny and tire size as my dually. I'm not afraid of going to 4.56. Just lack the money to do it right now.

I also really miss the Lock Right rear differential I put in my other SRW F350. Highway tread duals with an open carrier rear really suck in mud and sand! My next set of rear tires for the dually will likely be Toyo M55's, if I can afford them when the time comes.

What I really need for this truck is a Dana 80 with disc brakes, from an '01/'02 Dodge dually. Rear drum brakes with a 13,000-lb truck really sucks!

[SoCalDesertRid1]

Did not know that about the C6/PSD. Never seen one. Thanks.

Overdrive choices would be to swap the C6 for an E4OD or 4R100, or add a Gear Vendors behind the C6, or swap to a ZF 5speed or 6speed manual.

The Gear Vendors would be the easiest swap. Could possibly be done inexpensively, if you find a used one for sale. New, they are pricey. Of course, a built 4R100 or E4OD are very pricey too, especially if you don't already have one in the truck to rebuild!

I hate the E4OD tranny in my 7.3 powerstroke diesel truck, engine all stock. I had my tranny rebuilt, with a lot of modifications for better shifting pattern, higher line pressures, greater engine braking and heavy duty torque converter. It also has extra coolers to keep it safe and cool. I've towed plenty of long hard grades loaded to 18,000-21,000 GCW with the truck. The tranny does the job, but I'm still not that happy with it. It provides very little help braking when descending hills, even with the braking modifications I had done to it. Swapping the E4OD for a built 4R100 would have been a better choice than rebuilding the E4OD, since the 4R100 provides better braking in all gears.

What I really should do is swap it for ZF 6 speed! It would be a more difficult and expensive swap than a 4R100 swap, due to needing to change both driveshafts and swap out the brake pedal and clutch pedal systems, add the slave cylinder, change the floorboard center pan for higher hump shape, etc. I believe the power control module would have to be changed too, along with the tranny wiring harness. I would have to find a good tranny too, from a 4wd, then adapt it to my Borg-Warner 1344 transfer case, since the 4wd ZF 6speed was made to use with New Venture transfer cases. A ZF 5speed swap would be easier, since it came in these old body trucks, stock and a 4wd model would mate to the BW-1344 without issue and the wiring harness would mate up from a stock application.

I think the ZF-6 swap would be worth all the trouble though, to get rid of the auto tranny altogether and go straight manual, with 6 gears. The extra low granny reverse and first gears would be really nice to have. There are some really, really steep driveways in California I have been on that required me to shift to 4 Low with hubs unlocked to make it up without burning the tranny, loaded to 13,000 GVW for truck alone.

The E4OD, 4R100 and both ZF manuals have the same .71 or .72 overdrive ratio and 1:1 direct gear ratios.

There is a modification I have heard about, done with an engine tuner, that can use the turbo wastegate as a sort of exhaust brake, on 7.3 Powerstrokes. I am planning to do that modification at some point, when I can afford to buy a tuner program. I don't know that I will do any engine tuning, but I may try a very low tune to see what it does. The engine could use some more grunt, but I am leary of tuning it, considering how heavy the truck is loaded, all the time.

[mountainkowboy]

Working on a turbo and OD for it.

Actually the C6 was available for the powerstroke up till 97, really rare but there out there, mostly in fleet trucks.

[SoCalDesertRid1]

Speaking of the F600/700...

I think I have pretty much decided that my next welding rig truck will be a '95-'98 Ford L8000, with the 8.3 Cummins ISC. At 26,000 GVWR, with single axle and hydraulic brakes, it can still be driven without a CDL. There are L8000's out there with over 30,000 GVWR and air brakes, but those require a CDL and I don't have a need for that much GVWR anyways.

The L-series trucks appear to have been the replacement for the old F-series 500-800 line. L-series were available in 6000-9000 models. Some had the Ford 7.8 turbo diesel and some had the Cummins 8.3 ISC turbo. The L-series was discontinued by Ford and sold to Sterling/Freightliner and Ford came out with the F650/750 trucks in '99, if I remember the year right.

[SoCalDesertRid1]

mountainkowboy wrote:

SoCalDesertRider wrote:
That should be an interesting engine/tranny combo in the new F250. Don't see many diesels with the C6. What axle gearing does it have?

I thought the 6.9 IDI diesel was still being used in '88? Did someone swap in a 7.3?

87 was the last year for the 6.9 and 88 was the last year for the C6 (I think), either way it has 3.55 gears and cruises the highway at 60 mph doing just under 2500 rpm. Gets 18-19 mpg on the highway empty and 15 around town. Havent towed yet, but I expect 11-12 on the highway with the 10K 5er.

'87, ok. I thought '89 was last year for the 6.9.

My '92 has a C6, with a 351. I think '94 or '95 may have been the last year for the C6 in general, and '94.5 with the 7.3 DIT Powerstroke, since the PSD only came with the E4OD auto or ZF 5 speed manual, through '97.

Without the turbo, I suspect mountain towing performance is going to be rather anemic, due to the 3.55 gearing. The C6 also has higher 1st and 2nd gear ratios than the E4OD, which doesn't help the situation any. Hopefully, the truck does not have oversize tires on it....