Maintaining an older camper tow vehicle (pic heavy)

[jim44646]

Just noticed your using your scaffolding as roll around storage. Good idea.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by jim44646

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.

Hi Jim, Yes trapped road salt wherever it is, is bad news. The side rocker panels are notorious for this. Some liners/brands may be worse than others.

GM on some trucks put a styrofoam backer on the fender inside at the wheel wells. That band of foam board has been know to create salt rot. I'm
not sure if Ford does it.

I looked at 2010 F350 a month ago on a dealers lot for sale. I was actually looking at the tranny lines, but I noticed the rear fender well rot ring like you mentioned. Strangely the frame in the back looked really good. The coating from the factory was still intact, yet there was a band of holes around the wheel well. And the rest of the body was good. But there was air holes at the 2 rear fenders.

My 2005 F350 has bad frame rust, but almost no body rust. The front has wheel liners, the rear does not. I'm not sure if Ford did something different on mine to help the issue versus the 2010 model. At this point, I'm going to have to look closer in this area. I do have the gold fender trim pieces. Now that I think about it, that "may" help stop some of the salt slop from getting up there. OR, I'm going to be real surprised badly that behind that gold is rust rot. H'mm, I'll check and report back.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by jim44646

Just noticed your using your scaffolding as roll around storage. Good idea.

Yes, with the T1950 all apart in the next bay over, the F350 all apart and the T310SR stored in the front barn, that and 2 tractors, floor space is a premium. So the roll around scaffolds are used for "stuff" storage. In this case, truck parts

[JohnB]

I moved up front into the engine compartment. There is good quantity of work to do here, both from dealing with corroded parts to maintenance work. I’ll let the pics do the telling.

All new cooling hoses are on the preventive maintenance to-do list. After 15 years and 120K miles, the rubber gets brittle from heat and age, then they can crack. When you are towing hard, it is the worst time to have a cooling system failure. So a coolant change, flush, thermostat and new hoses are in the works. Also included is a new serpentine belt, idler and belt tensioner. These tasks by themselves do not need much of the truck taken apart. BUT…I have the start of leaking valve covers and now is the time to deal with the leaks. According to the Ford shop manual, you are to lift the engine to get the right side valve cover off. The engine lift adds a new level of parts removal to do that.

Start with the fan clutch and the fan shroud coming off, which is part of the engine lift.

A top shot with the serpentine belt off.


Then the fan clutch and shroud.


A start on the radiator hoses, and with the fan out, it opens up the area a lot to get to other parts.


You can see the rusted power steering fluid lines to the right in the pic that are to be changed out. Easier to get to now with the fan out.


The power steering pressure and cooler line off and draining fluid. You can see the rusted tubing better now. Road salt slop got em.


Next up was unhooking the lower radiator hoses. This engine has an oil cooler, and Ford has a hose routing issue where the oil cooler hoses rub the truck frame and in time chaff a hole in the cooler hose. Mine was partway through. See here. Other Super Duty owners of this vintage had them almost all the way through.


The transmission lines, all of them, are in rough shaper in spots from road salt, which are on the list to be replaced. With the main cooling radiator off, you can get to the transmission cooler and the lines from it. Then the main radiator and lower hoses come out.


Looking down at the transmission cooler, the transmission lines to the main radiator are draining fluid into a bucket.


I had changed the left side exhaust studs in December of 2011. That was at 75,000 miles on the truck. I had ticking noise about 5K miles before that, so at 70K miles, I had the start of an exhaust manifold leak which aligned with around late 2010 or close to 50K miles ago. I am debating, do I change the left side studs and gaskets now while the truck is all apart? H’ mm, I came to the conclusion I needed a clean start and reset on this Ford exhaust stud issue so I started removing the left side exhaust manifold. The first nut I touched with the wrench, the weight of the wrench broke the stud off in the head. Errr…. This is not good. It is cylinder 10, the top stud. See far right in the pic.


I drilled and EZ out’ ed the cracked off stud in cylinder 10. It was nice enough to break where I could get my small drill in to do the job. Other than sweating a few bullets, I did not break the EZ out in the hole, the stud came out relatively OK.




Yeh, it’s out


I was able to get eight other studs out without too much issue. But I had another frozen stud on cylinder 6 and it was not cooperative. I first tried penetration oil and vise grips on the stud. No luck, it did not want to budge. It just striped on the vise grips.


Fiddled some more with it, and 1/2" of stud light snapped off. Oh great.

Now I’m at one last chance to not snap it off up in the head. This location has a diameter of cast metal next to it, making it even harder to get to the area. And drilling it out, I would for sure need to buy a short right angle drill motor to get in there. Thought on it and went old school. I have a few small pipe wrenches, and I found the one with the sharpest teeth to not slip and pushed it flush to the head. I pulled on it, sweat a few more bullets, is this thing going to snap off? I felt the stud barely move, but it did move. And by then, I was out of wrench rotation before I hit the valve cover.


I went to the small vise grips, and it started to unscrew 1/4 turn at a time, but it came out. I lucked out.




Ford has a real issue with these manifold studs. I paid the big bucks to stick with OEM ones back in 2011 as I do not trust the cheap aftermarket ones either. The studs are just plain small. Too small. I will switch to Fel Pro gaskets in place of the all-steel OEM gaskets. The surface is not as pristine for a metal gasket as when the truck was new.

Moving on, I went to get the heater hoses off as they are on the change out list. These have the hardest to compress snap clips on the hose ends buried up against the firewall. I managed to get one off without too much issue. The second one was a bugger. Here are the 2 hoses.


Here is the problem child one. I gave up on it the first day and came back to it.


Finally ended up making a 90-degree bend in a pair of long-handled needle nose pliers and after much fiddling and BenB’s help who just stopped over, I got it off.

I did luck out and did not have to lift the engine to take the right side valve cover off like the Ford shop manual states. It may have been since I had so much of the right side of the truck apart, I was able to get to all the screws and lift up the cover off the engine head.


The PCV valve is in the center of the cover.


In order to change the PCV valve, you have to buy the whole cover. The new ones are a plastic cover. The metal ones are scarce to find new replacements. Here is the old next to the new one.




New spark plugs and ignition coils (COP) are also on the list to be changed. And looking at the spark plugs, it was time. The good news, the first five came out without breaking. The high temp nickel anti-seize I used on the last plug change and not letting the mileage get too high, appears to have paid off. On the prior plug change, 7 of the 10 plugs cracked off in the head. I have , the break the plugs issue of the Ford V10 engine evolution. In 2008, Ford did the 3rd fix to the problem and changed the head and plugs again to cure the problem. A new plug is next to the cylinder 1 plug. They are worn.




I have made it to the about the 98% mark on removing all parts that are going to come off, are off. Yeh!!! Here is a pic of most all the hoses that needed to be changed. All power steering lines, all radiator cooling lines, all transmission lines. I also decided to change the water pump as odds are high; it will not last another 5 years, which is not shown in this pic.


And…. I made to installing new parts! A milestone in itself. Here is the right side bank with a new valve cover with gasket, new spark plugs and new ignition coils. One side is done.


Here is the left side of the engine as it stands today. The valve cover and plugs etc. need to come off yet, but those are the last parts for a while. A new transmission pan and filter will come later on in the restoration effort.


These pics are now up to date with the truck progress. More to come next week.

Thanks for looking

John

[apackoftwo]

Wow!!!

[JohnB]

I made it to installing more new parts. Yeh! At least up in the engine area. Here are some highlights since the last update.

With the engine oil dipstick tube severely corroded and the truck being this far apart, now was the time to deal with it. Many have had a terrible time with this tube rotting off right where it goes into the block, leaving part of the tube stuck deep in the block. I was lucky, mine was not that bad, but it was bad enough. After a bunch of researching this, here is the outcome.

Here is a pic of the old tube located in an inaccessible place to get to the pressed in part out of the block. I did not want to lift the motor out to make it easier and take apart the oil cooler. Had to find a better way.


Looking from the bottom up


Where the tube goes into the block


This pic is of the bottom of the new tube out I the open. An O ring seal along with a long stem to protrude down into the oil pan.


I soaked the old tube up good with PB Blaster and let it sit overnight. The next day I added some Kano Kroil deep penetrating oil I had and forgot I had it. Kroil can creep deeper than the PB Blaster.

Then how to pull it out. I could not find anything online on how others pulled the tube out. The tubes I could find online were rotted off at the block. My tube was semi-intact, and grabbing it by hand to pull or twist the tube did nothing. There are not many areas available to tap in an upward direction or how to get a good hold on the tube to try and move it. Twisting from up high, I felt like I would bend or break the tube. I came up with putting 2 small vise grips on the tube down low as I could and then twist the tube to try and break it free. That worked, at least to get it to rotate, but I still could not pull it out by hand.


I put my slide hammer puller onto the 2, vise grips and gave it a few hard slide hammer hits, and it started to move upwards. And out it came, all in one piece. Yeh! I was sweating a few bullets on getting this tube out in one piece. I did not want to have to go in and dig out the stuck piece in the block unless it was a last resort.
.



The new tube, I treated it with KBS Rust Seal before installing it to help protect it from rusting out again. I also put high temp wheel bearing grease on the new stem inserted into the block to help stop it from rusting in place.

Here is the best pic I could get with a mirror of the hole in the block with the tube out.


Anyone with an F250 or F350 and this setup, if your oil dipstick tube is still in the stock condition, what comes from Ford, do something now to help ward off the rust. The paint on these when new is thin and cannot handle much if any road salt slush.

Once past the oil tube endeavor, I started into changing out the LH side valve cover with a new valve cover, gasket, and PCV valve that is part of the valve cover.


New cover next to old




New cover installed with the new dipstick tube.


I then went on to change the radiator hoses that feed the PCV valve heater. On this vintage engine, the PCV system gets its heat from running water from the engine cooling system through a small heater. The heater is installed in the side of the intake manifold downstream of the throttle body, where the return vapors from the crankcase get injected back into the engine to burn. Those two hoses are not in a very accessible place. Getting the spring clamps off is a project in itself. One hose runs behind the engine between the firewall and the engine up high. If I did not have the Y pipe and the exhaust manifolds off, I’m not sure one could change out these hoses due to lack of access.

Here are some pics of the adventure. This pic is the supply water to the PCV system heater. There is a small 1/2” OD hose that starts from the cooling system crossover/under pipe on the right truck side of the alternator. The new PCV heater supply hose is already installed in this pic and runs from the left side of the truck back to the firewall area. This supply hose was not that bad to change. You can see the new black hose with lettering on it, weaving in and out across the top of the intake manifold.


Next was the return water hose from the PCV heater to join the cab heater coil return into the block water jacket. This hose is behind the engine. Here is the old hose next to the new one. This hose change was a challenge. Getting the spring clips off the hoses buried in that location was the challenge. I got them off, but they did not go back on with the new hose. I used stainless worm drive hose clamps instead that I can reach and get a nut driver on.


The PCV heater itself with the return hose off at this point. The tube pointing down is the hose barb for the hose behind the engine.


The hole in the intake manifold the heater mounts in


The heater itself out in the open




The heater all back together with all the hoses attached to it. The hose you see on top with the spring clamp is the vacuum line for the brake booster.


Next, I changed out all the spark plugs, put new in, and did not break any. YEH! (this broken plug issue is common to this vintage Ford V10. Installed all new ignition coils, plug boots, and tidied up the left side of the engine wiring harness to get is all back in place.

Then I moved to the right side, installed both new heater hoses and fixed 3 ignition coil connectors with a broken locking snap clip. This broken clip problem is a typical Ford issue. And I buttoned up the right side of the top of the engine, installing the wire harness. Here are 2 pics of where the engine sits as of this note.

Right side top pic of the engine all back together. The bag is off the throttle body for the pic.

The left side top all back together.


That brings us up to date on the pics and the progress.

The next area to start into is installing a new water pump, serpentine belt idler, belt tensioner, and the engine oil cooler hose. After that, the frame rust treating process will begin in the engine area before more parts can go back on.

Thanks for looking.

John

[Sunline Fan]

Wow John, just wow!

[Basser]

Holy cow what a project, think I'll stick with the Florida salty air over the salty roads!!!

[JohnB]

From my last progress post, I have run into a new can of worms. When I posted the last set of pictures, I noticed a black spot on the lower left side of the engine where the power steering pump is. I looked at the pump, which was off the truck, and it’s all dry.

H’mm, the old saying, if you don’t want to know, don’t go looking. I went looking. Here are a few pics.











I have a timing chain cover gasket leak and a potential oil cooler adapter leak. That leak is not going to get any better by itself. And the timing of finding this a week later is not the greatest. I just buttoned up the valve covers up on the top of the engine. They need to come back off to fix this front cover leak. So, new gaskets and seals are on order, and I’m back tracking a little.

I am in the process of doing mid-life engine and truck preventive maintenance along with frame rust restoration to get another 5 dependable years (100,000 miles) before I change trucks. This 15-year-old truck has been used mainly for towing, and the next 5 years will be cross-country towing with our large camper.

I currently have the valve covers off, and soon the front timing chain cover for oil leaks. With the valve covers and the front cover off, the overhead cam valve train is staring me in the face. My engine rebuilding experience is with pushrod and in block valve systems. This 3 valve V10 overhead cam drive is new for me. I have been doing a lot of research on what can happen when higher miles come on this Ford design. My truck being born in Dec. 2004 is right at the start of the 3 valve V10. The 5.4L 3 valve is also in this general era, and the 6.8L and 5.4L share many of the same parts and concepts. There is a lot out there on the 5.4L valve train issues when higher mileage comes. I suspect 5.4’s have more reported problems due to more engines being built. And the 5.4’s have the variable valve timing phaser issues, which thankfully, my 6.8L V10 does not.

The higher mileage weaker areas I have tracked down are

1. Plastic timing chain guide cracks
2. Timing chain hydraulic chain tensioner block seals blowing out losing oil pressure.
3. Valve rocker roller needle bearing failures
4. Oil pump volume issues

While 120,000 miles on the truck may not yet be at the failure area, I’m not that far away from it when odds are higher for it to happen. My goal is to get up to the 220 to 230K mile mark and not deal with valve train issues, or worse, what else broke due to it while being across the country. I have checked on the parts costs to replace all 4 areas using new upgraded latest revision Ford parts except the oil pump, I will go with a Melling. The cost is not that bad now in the big picture of things that I have the truck all apart anyway. And I will check the camshaft journal wear when I get it apart to make sure that is OK. I have come to the conclusion, now is the time to do this and move on. Time is on my side, and the cost is not that bad since I am doing the work. More parts now on order.

In the meantime waiting on parts, I started into the rust repair. The KBS coating system requires a degrease, an acid etch and then 2 coats of their rust seal coating. You really do not want to do this process twice, so I’m going all out following it by the book.

I started with loose parts, they have already gone through the rust scrap and degrease cleaning using KBS Klean degreaser.

Next is the acid etch. They sell KBS Blast which is a phosphoric acid solution you treat the cleaned metal with. It leaves a zinc phosphate coating on the steel and you leave it on wet and keep wetting it for a time period. 1 to 2 hours for heavy rust, 30 minutes for light rust. In my case, most all is heavy rust. I bought some mason mortar mixing tubs at Home Depot to put under the hanging parts to catch the drips. Here is the start of the etching process. You need waterproof gloves, safety glasses, face shield, protective clothing and a respirator using this. I used a squirt bottle and a brush. You do not want to mist it, just wet it. Slow pumps on the squirt bottle.


After the time period you rinse with water, a spray water bottle. Then as the parts dry, a white dusting of zinc can form. This is all normal and will prep the metal for the Rust seal product. Here is what it looks like after the etch. I have the shop at 57F, If it was around 75F the more parts would look more silver in color. I called and talked with them, at 55F the zinc film is still there, just it does not appear totally silver in color.

Here they are the next day all dried out ready to seal.


I didn’t get a picture of the black coating, I’ll get it next time to show you. It is a nice hard total coating.

More as work progresses and parts start arriving.

[mainah]

Be glad you'r not in the NE that one looks pretty good for it's age!

[JohnB]

Yes, I am lucky the frame rust is not as bad as it could be on a 15 year truck. Most of the corrosion started early in the trucks life. It was born in Dec 2004 and a rancher had it until his lease ran out and he traded it in on a new one. Don't know how much he drove it in the winter. We bought it in Nov. 2007 and only used it about 2 years in the winter. The rest of its life it did not drive much in the winter and was garaged all the time we owned it.

Spring time frame sweat during the warm days and frozen cold nights did a lot of the rusting that the few winters started. The frame would drip water in sweat it was so bad being in an unheated barn. Over time, the little factory frame coating blistered and then the rust just kept going.

But at least is is not coming off in sheets of rust.

[mainah]

Cab mounts, rotted doors, no rocker panels left, no bolts on any thing what will come out with out twisting off, rusted /broken frames/rotted manifolds/brake lines and the list goes on, your's isn't bad! NH clears it's roads with salt ME is not quit as bad. I go through a half a gallon of Fluid Film a season on my truck and the wife's car. If there is a spot of rust on my truck frame it get's sand blaster and painted I even remove the spare wheel coat behind the bumper and spray it before putting it back in. So far the frames is still black. Seen some badly rusted stuff as new as 2012. Your tax dollars at work clearing the roads!

[JohnB]

Having lived in NY for much of my life, they use to use sand mixed with salt. Not sure what they use today but it for sure worse then years ago. I have a little black utility trailer that made a trip to NY a few years ago in the winter. I now call it little brown.

Here in OH, it is all salt and now with the brine they put down before the snow/ice even comes. The rot factor is at an all time high.

I am in the middle of "scraping" (needle gun, power wire wheel, scaper, hand wire brush etc.) the rust off now. A very dirty, tedious job with lots yet to go. Will be glad when that part of the project is over.

My memory of doing this rust scraping when I was younger did not seem to be as bad as it is on this truck. And you are right, this one is not as bad as many of them. Maybe a 40 year old memory loses a few things along the way?

jim 44646 said it earlier in the post, get it sandblasted. And now you talk about the sandblasting. After this ordeal, if I ever do another truck frame, I will figure out a way to do this differently. Even if I have to haul the truck with my flatbed to a shop to do it... What a job....

This truck will not see the light of snow after this restoration unless extreme extenuating circumstances present themselves. And if I ever buy another new truck, there will be some form of high end coating on it before it drives very far.

[jim44646]

When I mentioned sandblasting I knew you had a flatbed. What I didn't know was the availability of sandblasting in your area.
Yes the mind has a way of fooling you.
I could do this 40 years ago why am I having problems now and why is it taking longer. Why are my muscles rebelling now.

[jim44646]

. And if I ever buy another new truck, there will be some form of high end coating on it before it drives very far.[/QUOTE]

Problem with applying a rust proofing to a new vehicle often voids manufacturers rust thrugh warranty.

[mainah]

I swear by Fluid Film it was originally used for farm equipment then latter some one said "I'll bet that would work on cars" I use it on my farm equipment and our vehicles my truck frame is still black after 9 years of salty Maine roads I spray everything brake lines springs nuts and bolts backing plate for the rear brakes remove the spare tire spray it's rim do the inside of the bumper. They make a cheap spray device that's air powered works great. It's messy if you have to work on something but well worth the drawbacks.

[jim44646]

Only thing I found with fluid film on highway vehicle is that it has a tendency to wash off over winter.

[mainah]

Never had an issue with that.

[jim44646]

You can work on mine next. Maybe then I'll hit a 1,000,000 miles.

[mainah]

Just reading this thread again, John Ford had issues with the exhaust manifolds and I believe the replacements had larger holes for the studs I think they discovered there was not enough room for expansion and it was breaking studs. I also think the replacement studs were SS.