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Old 01-26-2020, 10:17 PM   #1
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Maintaining an older camper tow vehicle (pic heavy)

This post may help some folks on what to expect and deal with as your camper tow vehicle gets older. In my case, our tow vehicle is a Ford 2005 F350 crew cab short bed, 4 x 4 truck with the 6.8 liter V10 gas engine with 120,000 miles on it. The truck is now over 15 years old and it had to live through at least 2 years with winter driving in the rust belt state of Ohio. We bought the truck in 2007; it had approx. 26,000 miles on it then. The body on the truck currently is in perfect shape with very little rust. The frame under the truck is at the point the rust needs to be addressed if you want to keep this truck a good while longer.

Our travel and truck plans at this point are to keep the truck for approx. 5 more years while hauling the camper cross country, hopefully, several times before we upgrade trucks. This truck had done us well over the years. We have now reached the point I need to deal with frame rust and maintenance on a vehicle with 120K miles that is dependable in my eyes and not deal with significant issues while on the road. Compared to the price of a new identical replacement truck, the money and time spent now are very little compared to the cost of a new vehicle or even a good used one that will need something done to it.

Below is the project which I will do mainly in pictures. If anyone wants more details, ask away.

This project started the middle of last year, a new exhaust system from the connection to the Y pipe at the engine area back to the tailpipe needed replacement. I could hear the truck tone had changed and it was time to change this before it let go while on the road.

The rotted through stainless muffler


New next to old.


Next, also last summer was dealing with the rusting rear differential cover. I had been trying to tame the rust down from growing by scraping and painting the cover with high heat paint, but the heat from towing in the differential just kept the corrosion reaction going. So I upgraded the Ford super duty aluminum finned cover before a leak happened while out camping.


Close up


The new cover on and primed with high temp paint. Later painted with high temp flat black paint.


I changed to a Lubelocker gasket in place of the silicone seal. I change rear axle fluid as required and I can reuse the gasket.


Now fast forward to last week (1/20/20) I started into the large part of the project. Here is the truck before I started taking it apart.


I started taking the bed liner out and ran into rusted, frozen bolts from the start. Frozen bolts are part of the deal when doing this kind of work. You need to deal with it. Getting the liner out was a mini project in itself. The cargo tie-downs that hold it in were frozen and 2 bolts snapped off in place. The 7 wire cable in bed plug for a gooseneck hitch was frozen in place, had to drill it out. The gooseneck hitch safety chains loops were frozen in place. The B & W hitch came with the truck, I have never used it. I finally got the bed liner beast out.




The bed liner out with straw still in there from the rancher who traded it back in to the dealer when their lease was up. I never put straw in this truck bed. That is 13-year-old straw in the picture…


The bed washed before the truck becomes unmovable under power.


Then to deal with rusted in bed bolts. There are 8 of them. Three came out peacefully; the rest not so nice. I broke 3, T50 torx bits and gave up trying to unscrew them.


Grinding the heads off worked, but the bolt head being in deep from the top of the bed ribs, created bed damage from the grinding. The grinding method was aborted. Looking under the bed, there is no room to get the cut off grinder under the bed not to mention the gas tank and sparks concern.


I resorted to drilling the heads off. Use progressive drill sizes up to a 5/8” bit, lots of lube, grunt and off the heads come. No bed damage, just it takes longer.


Next to get the bed off. I borrowed my son's engine hoist, and combined with mine, I could take the bed off by myself. It came off without much issue once I was past getting all the rusted fasteners out.


I had one snafu, I did not leave enough strap height behind the cab hoist. I had to let the bed down and reset the strap as the hoist arm hit the truck bed rail before I could get it high enough.


Once past the strap reset, the bed went high enough to clear the truck frame and pulled it to the side. Then drove the truck out from under it.








More in the next post.
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Old 01-27-2020, 04:50 PM   #2
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Phew! Nice work so far! I really enjoy reading you posts when you are tearing into something.

I sprayed the new truck with fluid film this fall before the first salt. I really didn’t like the look of some of the welds on our tundra when we were ready to sell it at about 8 years old (frame looked great, but a few welds here and there were starting to swell). Figured it couldn’t hurt to spray with fluid film and it was only a couple hours of work and a couple hundred bucks to get geared up (will be free next year). Frame is still covered at this point in the winter.
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Old 01-27-2020, 08:48 PM   #3
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Just an extremely minor footnote in comparison to this project, but it might be helpful to remind everyone driving somewhat elderly vehicles to make sure their spare tire and stowage/retrieval mechanisms are in good shape.

Buddy of mine needed his spare a while back, and the crank-down mechanism was frozen. Ouch.
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Old 01-27-2020, 09:47 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tod Osier View Post
Phew! Nice work so far! I really enjoy reading you posts when you are tearing into something.
Thanks Tod,

Yes, the tear into is still ongoing. I'm a few days behind on the pics. Seems doing the T1950 restoration this winter wasn't enough fun, so I started into the F350. I wanted to get to it last winter, but had too many other camper projects on the go.

I thought about the fluid film route, but in my case at this point, I think I'm too far past trying to get the results I wanted. So, I'll do it the long way and scrape out all the chucks of stuff and use the KBS Coating process on it.
Plus, I still need to fix some stuff before it breaks and it is half apart dealing with that, so may as well do it all at once.

I have not made it yet to stop taking stuff off...

John
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Old 01-27-2020, 09:50 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinstaafl View Post
Just an extremely minor footnote in comparison to this project, but it might be helpful to remind everyone driving somewhat elderly vehicles to make sure their spare tire and stowage/retrieval mechanisms are in good shape.

Buddy of mine needed his spare a while back, and the crank-down mechanism was frozen. Ouch.
Yes, for sure. Thanks for bringing that up and adding to the discussion. The cable systems can rust solid and your stuck, literally. In this case, that is one thing that on this truck which seemed to be OK from the salt issues. That said, the steel rim spare needs help. It has a newish tire on it to match the rest on the truck, but the rim needs rust protection help.
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Old 01-27-2020, 10:51 PM   #6
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Moving on to the front of the truck. At this point, the mobility of the truck under power is going to end. The truck now up on jack stands.


Fender well on the left side out, bumper, and grill off.


With closer inspection, the power steering pressure line from the pump to the steering column and from the steering column to the oil cooler are both heavily rusted. New power steering lines will get on order soon. The can of worms of rotted parts will most likely keep growing until I get it apart enough to see all areas.


Now to the front right side. On this side, I need a new spring/shock tower installed. I knew this and the new one is here. Here is the taking-off process. Take the fender well out, then drop the axle down as far as you can to unload the spring. Then use a spring compressor to collapse the spring enough to get it out of the spring tower.


Spring now out, and you have to get all the frame rivets out.


Start by grinding the heads off the rivets.


I tried punching them out, but the riveting process swedge the rivets dead tight to a have press fit. No, go, so I had to drill them out in size just below the rivet size to not make the hole too big in the frame. Then I could use a punch and hammer and drive them out and off the tower came.




The spring tower rot. I believe road salt slush fly’s up the hole in the middle of the spring, and the slush lays on top and rots it out. The left side has a start to this, but I can clean that side up. On the right side, I had concerns the top of the tower would break out the center plug from the heavy spring force, so it gets a new tower.


The bottom side does not look as bad, but it is in the upper part.


The top


Next is the catalytic converter. I was getting a P0420 code which is a loss of cat 1 efficiency. After doing live data review on the engine, I could see that cat 1 oxygen sensors were showing the pattern where the cat was not working right. Once I had the cat off, I could see inside the pipe the catalyst was cracked. A new cat will be installed along with new O2 sensors. I have them here already.


Inside the bad cat


With the spring tower off and the cat out, I took advantage of the open room to change the studs and gaskets on the right side exhaust manifold. I had changed the left side about 3 years ago that had a big leak. On the right side, I did not hear any sound issues of a leak, but once I got the manifold off, I could see a leak starting on the right side. Perfect time to address this.




Cracked manifold studs seem to be a Ford thing on this vintage engine. I had 2 broken ones taking off the left side 3 years again and I was sweating how many on this side would be broke since it had more run time on it. To my surprise, I only had 1 crack off up in the head. Cylinder 1, the front rightmost exhaust port. I just put the wrench on the nut and the weight of the wrench had the stud fall off. It was already cracked and just barely hanging on. I could see the black soot of it leaking to the right of the broken stud.

See the top hole on cylinder 1 exhaust port with the stud stuck in the cylinder head.


I drilled the stud almost to the tap size for the 8mm thread. You need to be careful when doing this. Start with center punching dead on the center of the stud. I used transfer punches to find center since the stud was inboard the head a little. Then carefully and square to the machined surface, drill the center of the stud with a pilot bit. I had to use a right angle drill attachment to get the bit square to the head as there is no room to get the drill motor in there. It worked.


Then keep the PB blaster up in the hole to work on threads from the backside. I worked an EZ out into the drilled hole, and with some luck, the broken stud came out. These small sizes can snap the EZ out in the head. Then the fun even gets more intense. Glad that did not happen this time.


I also ran a tap through each threaded hole to clean out the threads.

Then onto the getting the driveshaft out. The carrier bearing is dying. The rubber holding the bearing to the housing is deteriorating. I knew this and the new bearing is here already.


All 8 bolts on the U joint flanges came out well after getting soaked with PB blaster overnight. The 4, U joint cap bolts were harder to get out. Split my 8mm socket getting one of them off.


Then to get the nut off the front driveshaft, thank goodness for 3/4" drive tools. And pull the yoke off.


Then the bearing


The carrier bearing. The rubber is shot, holding the bearing in place. I got to this just in time before it let go on the road.




More on the next reply
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Old 01-27-2020, 11:13 PM   #7
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Next was the remove the fuel tank. I bought new tank straps as the old ones were badly rusted.


The fuel pump seems to have a stainless top on it. But the locking ring is carbon steel and in bad shape. I have to get the locking ring replaced and I need to check on the fuel tank. I thought I read something that after 15 years, they need to be replaced. Have to dig into that more.




I also have stainless fuel lines and coated brake lines. This was a pleasant surprise as fuel lines and brake lines can be a common rust rot problem.


Next is to remove the rusted B & W gooseneck hitch. Four 3/4" bolts hold it on and the bolts are really rusted. 3/4” breaker bar and a long pipe and 3 of them came off. The 4th I had to cut off.




Here are 2 pics of the frame. The frame rails under the cab are not as bad as upfront or in the rear wheel area. Lack of road salt slush under the cab I feel is the reason as opposed to the wheel well areas.




And a truck bed of new parts to go on that I knew about before taking the truck apart. The truck bed is on 4, furniture dollies so it is my temporary storage space on wheels.


That brings me up to date on what I have off the truck. More parts yet to take off. Stay tuned for more updates.

John
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Old 01-28-2020, 02:49 AM   #8
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Allot of work but cheaper than a new one. Great you have a super nice place to do a project like that.
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Old 01-28-2020, 05:29 AM   #9
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Double, Triple and Quadruple Phew! Darn it, that is impressive. Looking through your photos, I kept thinking to myself how good the various parts looked in general.

Nice work getting that bolt out and drilling square with the angle drill attachment. I have the same angle attachment and every time I pull it out I'm glad to have it, but also have a negative feeling because if I need it, the job is already ugly.
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Old 01-28-2020, 04:36 PM   #10
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Yeah, those right angle adapters are squirrely under the best of circumstances. Kudos, John.
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Old 01-30-2020, 08:23 AM   #11
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Yeah, those right angle adapters are squirrely under the best of circumstances. Kudos, John.
Ah, yeh. Mine must have bevel gears in it. When you drill with it, the bit vibrates from what I think is the bevel gears mesh. Sort of feels like a hammer drill into concrete, but without the hammer.

I only use it about once or twice a year. Have not "yet" had the need for a motorized right angle drill, but if any of those lower studs broke off, I would have one soon. I just got the right angle adapter in there. Any longer and it would be a no go.
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Old 01-30-2020, 08:27 AM   #12
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Quote:
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Double, Triple and Quadruple Phew! Darn it, that is impressive. Looking through your photos, I kept thinking to myself how good the various parts looked in general.
Thanks Tod, The deeper I dig, the bigger the worm can gets on needing parts. If you don't want to know, don't go looking... Now working up the next parts order.

It's amazing, where the road slush does not hit, the underbody is really good ,where it hits, is really bad . If the rear wheels has a complete wheel well, half the issue would not have happened. But then I guess they would not need to sell as many new trucks

More pics coming shortly.
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Old 01-30-2020, 08:56 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnB View Post
Thanks Tod, The deeper I dig, the bigger the worm can gets on needing parts. If you don't want to know, don't go looking... Now working up the next parts order.

It's amazing, where the road slush does not hit, the underbody is really good ,where it hits, is really bad . If the rear wheels has a complete wheel well, half the issue would not have happened. But then I guess they would not need to sell as many new trucks

More pics coming shortly.
Interesting, I didn't add wheel well liners on the new truck because I thought they would block getting in there and rinsing the salt off, but I can see the converse you describe being true too.
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Old 01-30-2020, 10:58 AM   #14
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Interesting, I didn't add wheel well liners on the new truck because I thought they would block getting in there and rinsing the salt off, but I can see the converse you describe being true too.
H'mm, I did not know Ford offered a wheel well liner option. Also did not know what year they started it.

The front on mine has liners. My gosh without them the engine would be real mess. The slosh still finds its way through, but not like the back does. The front seems to dump all the slop into the front bumper and attack it from the back side. My chrome bumper is pitted pretty good on the back side. I will treat that too.

The back being wide open, that salt mesh flies everywhere. The entire frame, spare tire area is salt ate from the rear of the frame all the way until about 6 to 8" under the rear of the cab. They coated the bottom of the truck bed with something, do not know if aftermarket or Ford direct, but it helped save the bottom of the bed.

If I ever order a new truck, I will for sure be on the lookout for what can be added to help stop the slop from killing the truck. That or move south of the salt belt and that's most likely not going to happen.
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Old 01-30-2020, 04:18 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jim44646 View Post
Allot of work but cheaper than a new one. Great you have a super nice place to do a project like that.
Jim
Thanks Jim,

Yes, having a heated workshop is a blessing, and a once in a lifetime thing for me. Never had one until last year. Would of had to wait until April and later on the unheated workshop.
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Old 01-30-2020, 05:31 PM   #16
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Ah, yeh. Mine must have bevel gears in it. When you drill with it, the bit vibrates from what I think is the bevel gears mesh. Sort of feels like a hammer drill into concrete, but without the hammer.
Far as I know, they all have bevel gears (with varying quality levels), aside from flex shafts, which don't really work in tight quarters.

Not the best for every application, but last year I picked up this DeWalt magnetic adapter, and it turned out to be really robust for its size and $20 price tag. Milwaukee makes a similar one I've had recommended to me also.

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Old 01-30-2020, 06:11 PM   #17
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Liners are available at least back to the 2017 model change. Mine has the fiber liners in the front like yours does, but you can also get plastic front and rear to line the wells (covers the fiber), mostly for appearance from what I can tell.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnB View Post
H'mm, I did not know Ford offered a wheel well liner option. Also did not know what year they started it.

The front on mine has liners. My gosh without them the engine would be real mess. The slosh still finds its way through, but not like the back does. The front seems to dump all the slop into the front bumper and attack it from the back side. My chrome bumper is pitted pretty good on the back side. I will treat that too.

The back being wide open, that salt mesh flies everywhere. The entire frame, spare tire area is salt ate from the rear of the frame all the way until about 6 to 8" under the rear of the cab. They coated the bottom of the truck bed with something, do not know if aftermarket or Ford direct, but it helped save the bottom of the bed.

If I ever order a new truck, I will for sure be on the lookout for what can be added to help stop the slop from killing the truck. That or move south of the salt belt and that's most likely not going to happen.
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Old 01-30-2020, 09:54 PM   #18
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I did some cleanup on parts I had already taken off. First was the fuel tank. I managed to get the rusted-on locking ring off the tank, which was heavily corroded, without breaking anything. A new locking ring is to be installed, and I will clean up and rust treat the male lock tangs on the tank as they are molded into the tank.

I did check around, and I cannot find any reference, yet anyway, to needing to change the fuel tank on the mid-ship plastic tanks after 15 years. It seems Ford had some major issues with the chassis cab setup and the steel tanks behind the rear axle. The tank coating would flake off and create great havoc in the fuel system. Thankfully, I do not have that issue.

Here is the top of the tank and the fuel pump inside. I have not yet figured out how to remove the pump off the bottom of the tank. At this time, I do not have to, but it would be good to know how to. The Ford shop manual does not mention the procedure on how to do that, only to remove it.



There is a green o ring seal that is not shown in this pic, to seal the top stainless plate to the tank.


The pump assembly at the bottom of the tank.


I moved onto clean up the drive shaft U joints. The 3 U joints will are to be replaced and this starts with removing them. I want to clean up the shafts, rust treat them and then have them rebalanced before they go back in the truck.

The snap rings and bearing caps were rusted in very well.


Penetrating oil and taping both sides of the snap ring to break the rust loose from the snap ring groove. Then take the ring out with pliers.


Below is how I do the bearing cap removal process in case it helps someone in the future. There are other methods and U-tube has many of them. I use a small 25-ton hydraulic press to apply the force needed to remove the bearing caps. First, I start with 3/4” drive sockets to fit inside the bearing cap yoke and then to fit the outside of the bearing cap, and the boss on the yoke. These allow the bearing cap to be pressed out while supporting the casting.

Socket smaller than the bearing cap.


Socket larger than the bearing cap, but fits the boss on the shaft yoke.



Woodblocks used to level out the driveshaft to be square to the press platens.


Then press the bearing cap out of one side of the yoke. It has to leave the yoke to allow the cap on the opposite side to come off. It took 12 tons of force to have these break free and start moving. More than I thought, they were rusted in well.


Continued in the next reply
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Old 01-30-2020, 09:55 PM   #19
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Then with pliers, rotate and pull the one cap off. If the cap does not rotate, you may not have pushed it far enough to release the press-fit to the yoke. If you look close, you can see the is about 3/16” wide band of relieved material on the inside end of the bearing cup. That slight relief allows no press fit and the bearing to spin and come out when pressed to that location.


Put the shaft back in the press and push the other cap, back into the yoke, and then out of the yoke. The socket is pressing on the U joint cross.


When both caps are off, the cross will come out of the yoke.


I hit one snafu I have not run into before, shaft yoke adapter that bolts to the differential. The way the yoke is cast, it is so thick where the cross goes, the bearing to be pressed out cannot travel enough to release the press fit of the bearing cup before the cross hits the inside of the yoke. It was about 1/8” short in releasing, which is a lot. I tried pressing this cap out twice and the same issue. This is not a problem when you are installing new bearing caps, only when taking them apart.


The only way I could see saving the yoke, was to cut the cross apart. So I did. I’m not aware of this rear yoke needing to be heavier than the other two ahead of it. The 2005 model year was a Super duty redesign year and this was a late 2004 build date truck. I can only suspect that Ford may have made an error and did not realize it. Don’t know for sure.




Drive shafts all ready for the rust cleanup process.


I removed the EVAP canister, the spare tire cable hoist, spare tire holding parts, detached the fuel line and electrical harness, several heat shields and the skid plates for the transfer case and fuel tank. This opened up the main frame behind the cab, so I can easily clean out all the inside frame rust and treat it completely. Here are pics of what it left on the rear frame up to the cab.








The loose parts pile of parts so far to rust treat separate from the frame.


This completes the back end of the truck pre work and the end of today’s progress. Next is to move up front into the engine area.

Thanks for looking. More as the progress continues.

John
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Old 01-31-2020, 06:39 AM   #20
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Problem with liners is where the liners meets the metal traps road grime that holds liquid salt that causes the sheet metal to rust. Ever notice the semi circle rust thru around wheel wells? That's where the grime works against the metal.
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