Spots: I didn't want to come off sounding like I completely disliked them. I for sure wouldn't mind to have one of the early 6.9/7.3L engines; I know they're reliable. It's just think that once F#RD started messing around with the engine they started screwing up.

4x4

 

[quote author=BIGCUMMINZ link=board=8;threadid=20899;start=15#msg198738 date=1066619998]
ummm didnt 6.9's have aot of problems with there heads, if it wasnt the heads it was something else many people had problems with. i heard from a good mechanic 6.9's were junk
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This is true. we have two 7.3 and one 6.9 that were used in my uncles construction businesss and all of them either lost one or both head gaskets or a few warped a head. ran good but we had a fe injection problems the 7.3 turbo diesel was my fav. Ferd engine. manualk pump and a turbl..
DM01

 

6.9 and 7.3 had cavitation problems. (early ones) Ferd addressed this with an additive. Usually head gasket probs were the result of poor maintence. (I was a Ford tech for years) People'd buy 'em and never think of the coolant. Diesels were sorta new to pickups. Fleets that dropped the coolant every 16 to 24 months did not have problems. This is documented by Ford. They worked closely with us on the fleets. I think that is why they are so successful with their fleet trucks today.
Injector problems were ususally due to fuel quality or some people putting too much additive in the fuel.
Saw the odd valve cover leak, they ate glow plugs for lunch, oil pans would rust like crazy, but all in all we serviced a ton of them and usually not too many problems. The early automatics (E40D) were pure garbage. We had a fleet of 125 one ton busses that had a 100% failure rate on the E4OD before the first year was up. These were severe duty vehicles. (1990) Ford shipped new trannys off the line. We had 2 or 3 in parts at any given time. We gave this fleet top priorty, sometimes 3 guys under it changing the trans. They were in and out in a couple of hours. Next time around (1995) they bought Ferds again. This was the first year of the powerstrokes. They worked pretty good.