Have you looked in the classifieds on this site? And there are other sites with more trucks. Plenty of 2nd gens that are not too bad and some with the right price. Use the money saved on an older model to refurbish it. The engine will make a lot of miles but the truck tends to fall apart around it. Make a hobby of bringing it back!

 

The shape of the body depends on where it has lived its life. You can find cars from the 50s, maybe older, with little rust in them if you are looking in the South-West area of the U.S. for them. A truck that's a year old on the northern areas will likely be rusting already.

Chris

 

I can't remember who it is now, but someone else cracked a block in the same fashion on here. He has a 275ISB now in the truck.

Anyways, after a lengthy discussion people had come to the consensus that it wasn't necessarily the torque of the engine, but the rapid temperature changes. Seems as though a lot of people have cracked their blocks pulling a load in a warm area, heading up to the mountains where the temperature drops like a rock, while still keeping the engine warm (read: heavy load).

Might just be coincidental, but wanted to throw that out anyways.

 

I just painted my 94. It looks like a new truck. I have about 180,000 on it. It is not for sale and never will be. I would not want a newer one. So if you go for a 12 valve and have to put a few bucks into body and paint. You have a well almost new truck.

 

well not to sway you any direction but I'm a proud 24v owner and yes the have their problems. but so do 12vers. If i was to do it again i would go again with a 24v. just simply cause in my opinion everything is easy to work on and i get better gas mileage then i got with my 12v. yes everyones scared of the vp44. but i don't know why you can have a tranny go out, or a rearend and it'll prob cost about the same as the vp... 1000.00 ordeal big whoop! i can make that with the truck in a weekend. fuel pressure is a big thing with the 24v and as long as you keep a steady 12-14 psi on it you have warned most of the gremlins away. If you buy one first thing i would do is stay 2000 up they have onboard diagnostics and you can simply check it by turning the key off and on 3 times if p0216 comes up its gonna need a vp-44. 53 block is concerning but i have two of them in my family a 98 and a 99 both are doing great and both are original motors. another thing that tends to go around 200k is the bellcrank(electric throttle control)which has finally been researched enough that there is a replacement kit on this site. my truck is driven 700 miles a week on the norm and has 214,000 and going strong! It even has the original auto tranny. don't get me wrong i'm a fan of 12v. I just hate hearing everyone dog on a 24v. But if you go 24v first mod on first night in the driveway is either a low press fuel warning device or a guage. (which should already be there if the previous owner was a cummins enthusiast)

 

I remember reading somewhere from Cummins that the Service Life for these engines are 650,000 miles.

200-300k miles is nothing for these engines. As many have said before, the engines will out live the rest of the truck.

 

Yeah, when I was looking at getting my 2001 I found the 400K number on the Cummins website for ISB engines. 400K or 650K ain't bad, either way.... What's cool about these trucks is, if I could have ANY vehicle I wanted I would pick a brand new 2001.5 CTD. I'd even get it in white.... again....