Sure, there are great storys of 7.3L Fords..... But those days are long gone.
Actually, not necessarily true. All you have to do is be willing to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and "roll your own". In terms of reliability and low cost maintenance, the best platforms - are - after 30 years - still the Ford/International 6.9 and the first generation Dodge Cummins trucks & engines. The early power strokes were also good. But they're a whole other echelon of maintenance & repair complication and expense.
V
To everyone I know who has considered buying a old body style Ford with a 7.3 Powerstroke,
I always tell them they will need to do the following, if it hasn't already been done:
-Camshaft Position sensor needs to be replaced with the updated version to prevent unexpected stalling.
-Air filter housing needs to be replaced with a "Tymar" filter setup to prevent dusting of the engine and free up restriction.
-Rotate the crankcase breather (on the driver's side valve cover) 180deg and run a pipe down underneath the truck. Cap the nipple where the breather used to go into the intake. This will keep the hot crankcase gasses from recirculating through your intake.
-Fuel filter bowl and mech. fuel pump need to be thrown in the trash. Put on an aftermarket fuel filter, an electric fuel pump, and an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator. Make sure you change the fuel inlet fittings on the backs of the heads. They WILL leak otherwise. If you don't do this, you will have a fuel pump go out or leak unexpectedly, the filter bowl will corrode away on the bottom and begin to leak, the fuel heater in the filter bowl will short out, which will blow a fuse and shut your engine down, and/or you will develop a leak in one of the many hoses underneath the filter bowl.
-The exhaust backpressure valve needs to be removed from the turbo, the flap cut out, and the shaft holes welded. When it's time to replace the turbo pedestal O-rings, cut the backpressure valve actuator off the pedestal and weld the valve oil holes shut. The backpressure valve only causes restriction and the actuator valve is an oil leak waiting to happen.
-The factory (restrictive) exhaust down pipe needs to be replaced with an aftermarket downpipe (preferably 4" diameter), remove the catalytic converter, and replace the rest of the exhaust with a minimum 4" mandrel bent, and if you use a muffler, make sure it's a flow-through model (no baffles). When you do this, you ensure that your exhaust gas temperatures aren't getting out of hand, which often happens with the factory exhaust. It also increases efficiency ALOT.
Put a good chip in the truck...the aftermarket programs make more power AND are more efficient.
Don't be afraid to put mildly larger injectors in the truck (such as "Baby Swamps") Your truck will make much more power and won't loose efficiency (so long as you don't use all the power, all the time.)
-Manual transmission trucks need a solid mass flywheel conversion and transmission must be overfilled by 1-2quarts (Synthetic ATF only). Otherwise, they get too hot in overdrive when towing and tend to wear synchros faster.
-Automatic transmission trucks need to have an upgraded tranny cooler and a shift kit put in the valve body (minimum). Ideally, they should have and upgraded torque converter and the tranny torn down and upgraded by Brians Truck Shop or someone similar. The Auto trannys in these trucks can be made to last forever, but they didn't come from the factory that way.
-If you ever think an injector has gone bad, rebuild the injector harness plugs on the inside and outside of the valve cover gasket. They have been known to short out and cause symptoms that even a ford dealer will tell you is a bad injector or four, when in reality, the injectors rarely go bad.
If you get one of those trucks, and do everything listed above, you will probably never have to do anything more than maintenance and replacing normal wear-parts. I have 350,000mi on my '95 which I bought about 14 years ago. I did the above things a long time ago, and have never been left stranded.
To everyone I know who has considered buying anything else....
I tell them to buy an old body style Ford with a 7.3 Powerstroke.
Infact, my wife needed a new truck this past winter. She was looking at mid 6.0 F250s and 350s. After some long discussions about the benefits of the old body style, we found her a pristine '97 Crew Cab F350 4x4 with 140,000mi. It cost me every bit as much as a clean 2006 would have, but that's because the old body style has actually increased in value since I bought mine. The wife couldn't be more happy with her truck...and I will never give up my '95.
Now, as far as mileage goes, you can get around 20mpg in the lighter 2x4 reg and super cabs when unloaded. My crew cab 4x4 dually and the wife's crew cab 4x4 single wheel usually see around 17mpg on the highway. Sometimes down to 14 with a heavy load on them. The dodge cummins trucks tend to get good mileage...sometimes better than the Fords. Why? Because the dodge trucks are lighter and usually geared around 3.55-3.73. I've talked to a number of disappointed people who put a cummins in their Ford, only to find out that they lost their Powerstroke's wide hp/torque band and didn't gain any mileage.
All the diesels get nearly the same mileage (except for the newest ones with the exhaust filters which get very poor mileage due to the diesel-fed filter regeneration cycle).
Each of the available diesels has their own quirks that need to be addressed to get an extremely reliable truck that you don't have to tinker with.
Never take your diesel truck to a shop. No one knows what they are doing. There are plenty of forums to help educate you.
-Phillip