Let's put a school bus engine in my truck

[lxpeery]

This will be somewhat repetitive for the people in the chat, but let's get it all down in one place. Fair warning, I'm about to write a novel.

Backstory: I bought a 1999 F250 with the 7.3 Powerstroke from Manheim Fredericksburg a couple weeks ago. Did all the usual checks that can be done in an auction environment. Oil looked good, coolant looked good, blowby was acceptable, truck ran like a bat out of hell. Had a noticeable bit of rust in the bed support rails, but I bought this with the intention of driving it for a few months so I could sell the ragged out F150 I drive right now, then sell the truck at a profit and roll all the money into a newer truck. Plus, my job requires that I tow A LOT, so I've been wanting to give the diesel lifestyle a go. 



Auction day rolled around, I won the bid. $6545 out the door, almost exactly what Manheim stated this truck should sell for. I go to pick it up, slap the tag from the F150 on the back, and head on home. For all of about 20 miles, when it overheats. Checking the oil looks like a chocolate milkshake. Pulling the oil cap looks like the vape clouds at a Subaru meet. Drank the three gallons in the radiator into the oil and then overheated. At this point, I'm thinking head gaskets. Tow the truck home, and then drive it to the local diesel shop the next day. I know nothing about diesel at this point, so if I can cut someone a check and be done with it, I'll be happy. Cuts into the profit margin, but that's OK. Still a solid deal on the truck and now I know that's been addressed. Auction buys are a roll of the dice, but I've bought dozens of cars there and never had any issue bigger than an AC compressor. The truck I drive now came from there and has been flawless, all things considered.




Shop calls and insists it's the oil cooler. Charges an obscene amount of money to replace that, but whatever. It's done. They call me when it's done, mention that it had a cheap chinese cooler that looked new installed, but they still replaced it. Not sketchy at all, especially to the tune of $1500. Seems like someone already tried fixing the problem. But they insist it runs, and it's fixed!

Not.

Apparently as soon as they pulled out of the parking lot, it died. Like for good. They thought it needed a new $800 IDM. I thought they could shove it where the sun don't shine. Bought a reman unit off eBay for $100, installed it in their parking lot, and limped it home. Leaked 3 gallons of coolant in 5 miles from where they forgot to snug the water pump adapter back down. Really feeling like I got my money's worth on that one. Oh, and the tire truck backed into it when they were delivering tires to the shop. Lit. Owned it for less than a week and I've blown a motor and it's been in an accident.



So on the lift it goes. Crack the drain plug on the pan and a half gallon of coolant comes out.  At this point, it can be one of three things. Cavitated front cover, cracked block, or warped heads / head gasket. Front cover is fine, looked at it when the shop pulled it for the oil cooler. Now I'm looking into engine swaps, because I'm not dealing with pulling the heads just to find out the previous owner ran it at 50 PSI and split the block. Turns out the International T444E is the exact same block, and with a few minor changes, drops right into the 7.3 Superduty. Plus, they're readily available in the 100K mile range for $1500, which is half the price of a comparable PSD. Got mine with 114K miles, so should be good for a while longer.


So I get one from the local junkyard, and get ready to swap the oil pan, front cover, and turbo. Figure I'll take a long weekend, and knock it out. Check out that compressor for the air brakes.



Again, not. 

Motor comes out ok, a day of delay when the turbo wants to fight but nothing terrible. However, no one bothered to tell me that to pull the front cover, literally EVERYTHING ELSE has to come off the block. And of course, everything that can go wrong does. The kits I rent at advance don't have the right tools for anything this big. The epoxy International uses for everything could have saved the Titanic. It dumps quarts of oil from places that should not have oil. Diesel coolant additives really hurt your eyes. The list goes on, and the sign in my office becomes more and more relevant. On the bright side, I've learned a lot about how to look at these trucks for presale. Bonus picture of valve cover. Hella sludge, no?







I'm now on day... 5? of this swap, after anticipating it taking 3. Finally got both blocks stripped down today, swapped the pickup tubes, plenums, pan, and front cover over from the bad motor to the good bus engine. Sealed it all up as good as possible without following International's recommendation of flipping the motor, because I don't have an engine stand that can hold 1200 pounds. Tomorrow all the accessories go back over, starting with the high pressure oil pump that has already ruined one pair of shoes and used a bag of cat litter. Here's where we're at now, and what has to go back on the school bus block.





I'm currently in the hole on this for market value of the truck and 5 full days of hard manual labor. Win some, lose some I suppose. Was hoping to drive it for a few months and send it down the road before the rust got worse, but that may be changing now. Hate to put all this work and a low mileage motor in a truck that should run forever and then immediately sell it, but as soon as that rust becomes cosmetic the value will start dropping. Decisions decisions. 

Last time I posted something, I think someone said it was the shittiest car they'd ever seen. Let's see what we can accomplish this time.

[HAULN-SS]

I own a 7.3, and i can't imagine the nightmare of pulling it. It's heavy as sir, and I've heard about the upside down flip thing before.. sounds miserable. I would have thought if you bought a motor a ship could swap it for 1500.. too bad the other problem screwed you there.

[Deceus]

When you're done you should put the truck motor in a school bus to balance the universe.



Did you ever find out if it was the head or block?

[Jake]

Sucks about the original engine, but hopefully the T44 will treat you right now!

Did you consider just buying the whole school bus and chopping the rear roof off? It would serve the same purpose as a pickup truck, albeit a bit larger.

[ryangreen1]

Sucks about the original engine, but hopefully the T44 will treat you right now!

Did you consider just buying the whole school bus and chopping the rear roof off? It would serve the same purpose as a pickup truck, albeit a bit larger.

People do this in my hometown to haul tobacco all the time. Its so funny to see but it must work pretty well.

[JPolen01]

People do this in my hometown to haul tobacco all the time. Its so funny to see but it must work pretty well.

I've seen that a fair amount for farm use. Watermelons are another one that seems to go well with chopped busses.

[lxpeery]

No clue on head or block, haven't pulled heads to look. Based on the amount of crap in the motor, I'm guessing block. If the heads were that bad, I'd expect to see it in the exhaust and also for it to run like hell.

I doubt my apartment complex would appreciate a chopped bus in the parking garage. Actually, I doubt they're going to appreciate this. I've gotten yelled at for my current truck, and this thing is an easy two feet longer. However, I did consider buying a whole school bus for parts rather than just the engine. You can get up low mileage running bus for like 3 grand, which is probably why they're used in farm work.

[WRXtranceformed]

Bummer man. I feel like the longer you play the cheap vehicle lottery, it's only a matter of time before you lose

[ScottyB]

as someone with a fair share of fixes that became projects that became nightmares, i wish you the best. you're a braver man than i.

hope it works out, and given the blood and sweat i can't blame you for just wanting to punt it down the road when you're done.

[JPolen01]

What's the resale value going to be like with a non-powerstroke motor? Is this swap something most diesel fanatics seem to understand?

[Senor_Taylor]

Yeah, I've never heard of this. Such a wild ride.

What's the resale value going to be like with a non-powerstroke motor? Is this swap something most diesel fanatics seem to understand?

Is the rust something that replacing the bed would fix?

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[lxpeery]

What's the resale value going to be like with a non-powerstroke motor? Is this swap something most diesel fanatics seem to understand?

The T444E is a Powerstroke, or I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the Powerstroke is a T444E. Ford contracted International to supply the 7.3, and it's the same motor minus a few changes to make it fit in the different chassis (like a different oil pan) and a different turbo. After that, it's all tuning. Ford runs them much harder than International, but plug a Ford PCM in and change the turbo and it runs exactly like it would have if it came in the truck. So as far as retail value goes, it is going to come down to how you sell it. Diesel people won't care either way, but tell the average Joe it's a school bus engine, and it probably wouldn't do well. Tell them it's a Powerstroke block straight from an International truck with low mileage that was detuned from the factory and it shouldn't hurt things. 

Taylor, the visible rust is just one bed rail. Current plan is to soak it in POR15 and keep a close eye on it. Everything else is fine, though the frame has clearly been painted and may be hiding worse gremlins. Passed the sledgehammer test though, so that's encouraging. If I end up keeping it longer than I'm expecting, I'll probably pull the bed and cab, replace the rails, and take a close look at the frame.

At this point, my biggest concern is the transmission. The B10 life on the Powerstroke is 200K miles, so it's incredibly unlikely that this engine would have failed at 188K. Which means that it was almost certainly tuned all to hell and beaten relentlessly. If it blew the motor, the transmission can't be feeling too great if it's original, and the 4R100 was never known for excessive longevity anyway. I'm going to look for a remanufactured badge when I'm putting the motor back in and hope for the best. Just needs to hold up for a few months until I can sell it. 

On the bright side, none of my trucks are financed, so when I sell them all I should have a nice chunk of cash to roll into something better.

[Jake]

Yeah, the 7.3 PSD is a T44E. That's why Cobetto's truck sounds like a school bus.

Also, Alex, probably best to not share this but I was talking to Chris this weekend and his truck came up in conversation. One owner since new and he's had 4 transmissions in it. Granted, it's towed a massive-ass gooseneck since the early days, and the interior looks like an angry cat lives in it, so I'm sure it's been beaten on worse than many. But yeah, may want to keep an eye on the trans. Fingers crossed for you. If it starts being weird, do a drain & fill with new filter (as I did on the Ranger) and sell it within 48 hours (as I did with the Ranger).

[lxpeery]

Also, Alex, probably best to not share this...

Trust me. I know. Absolutely expecting it to shear reverse backing out of the shop. Wouldn't be the first time a transmission went out on me all at once with no warning. That said, I know a couple people with the same transmission at well over 400k of hard towing. Could go either way, so I'm sure it will go wrong.

Got the engine almost ready to drop back in today. Only missing one water pump bolt, one accessory bracket bolt, has one stripped idler pulley bolt, and all the motor mount bolts on one side mysteriously stop with half an inch of thread left to go. 

Also might have a broken finger, and there's definitely a dent in the wall from a 5 pound sledgehammer hitting it at a high rate of speed. 

So all in all a good day.

[HAULN-SS]

I put the 6.0 trans cooler on my truck to hopefully buy it more life. I think its like 4 times bigger. First time i ever towed with it things wanted to get hot. Ever since i did the swap havent had a bit of problems.

[lxpeery]

Didn't update much last night, mostly because I was trying to figure out how to burn the truck to the ground without it looking like obvious insurance fraud. But yesterday was the day of reattaching accessories, minus one water pump Bolt, one accessory bracket Bolt, and one idler pulley bolt that is definitely wrong but seems like it has at least a 50 percent chance of working. Also, I am 100 percent confident that the fuel line to the driver side head is wrong, because I had to bend the snot out of it to get it into place. Hopefully that works. At this point apathy is setting in.

Had to rent a tap and die set for the motor mount holes on the block, they were so rusted the bolts wouldn't make it more than two or three threads in. Other than that it went pretty smoothly, and Paine will get her heart transplant tomorrow. I was hoping to get it mounted to the frame and get the bellhousing lined up tonight, but the passenger side motor mount is half an inch off and doesn't seem to want to go home. I'll fight with that more tomorrow when I have some energy again.

[lxpeery]

Ok, so for anyone still interested in this, status update. Engine went back into the truck earlier this week and started right up. And immediately puked three quarts of oil out of the flywheel inspection plate in maybe ten seconds of running. Looks like it's coming from the oil pan seal, but there's an oil galley that drains there for anything that leaks up top or between the flywheel and rear cover. I noticed a slow drip leak when filling with oil, which in my mind eliminates anything up top like the turbo pedestal or high pressure oil pump.

So now I need to figure out what could leak a few drips when adding oil and then three quarts in literally ten seconds. Originally thought rear main or oil pan seal, but there's no way in hell that either of those could possibly leak that much. Has to be a hole somewhere, or a gap that is made dramatically worse by pressure.

I really despise this truck.

[Senor_Taylor]

Godspeed, brother.