Well, I'm still in the enemy camp, having bought another 7.3l IDI F350 about 5 months ago. It's a '91 XLT Lariat 2WD 5-speed with 3.55 LSD, supposedly with only 115K when I bought it. The odo is only 5 digits so I'll never know for sure, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of miles on it. It's just BEGGING for chrome Outlaws!




I bought it because one glorious afternoon last August I killed the engine in my Jeep while mud-bogging.



It overheated due to mud packing the radiator, and the nylon covering on the cam sprocket started coming off which allowed the steel timing chain to grind the aluminum sprocket up and dump the fines in the oil. These ended up taking out all my bearings. So I needed another vehicle, both to use as a daily driver while I worked on the Jeep (still not finished) and to tow a broken Jeep home when necessary. My previous F350 had went to the great scrapyard in the sky with something like 475K on it.



The cab floor was badly rotted out, and I'd found a rust-free stripped cab in Arizona for $1400 shipped. I was setting the money aside, and starting the truck every few weeks or so to keep things lubed, batteries charged, etc. Well, one day it gave a partial crank, a huge lurch, and then nothing. Crawled underneath with a breaker bar and couldn't roll it a full turn. I had a bad feeling so I pulled the oil drain plug out, and about 2 gallons of clean water came out before any oil. I'm guessing water ran off the back of the hood onto the top of the air cleaner, and seeped around the holddown bolt into the cylinder with an open intake valve. I didn't want to do the cab AND the engine so off to the scrapyard she went after I stripped a few parts off her.

As much as I like the GM diesels, I have to say IH made a better engine with the 6.9l & 7.3l IDI. Gear-to-gear timing, gear drive oil pump, oil sprays, and the injectors & glow plugs are at the TOP of the heads for MUCH easier access. You can even pull the IP without removing the intake manifold first. Downsides? The oil cooler is mounted to the block and the oil filter header is part of 1 end cap, so eliminating it for one at the radiator would be very difficult. I don't like the fuel return line setup, it has plastic caps & O-rings that go on the injectors and hoses to connect them together. 2 O-rings & 2 barbs mean there are 2 more places for fuel to leak from than with the GMs. I'm battling air intrusion right now, from one of the caps I just replaced last weekend. But all in all I still like the 7.3l better - though a 6.2l Blazer or Suburban would be nice! My friend Mike is putting a built DB2 6.5l in his '67 Kaiser M715, along with a lift, Dana 60 & FF 14-bolt, power steering, etc. Look up Mike Moriarty in Windsor NH on Facebook and he has pics. Looks like it'll be a real monster.