Said to have been bought new in 1997 by a gentleman in Maine who had recently retired, this 1997 Ford F-350 XLT Crew Cab 4×4 Diesel was used for fishing and camping. Since 2012, it has lived with the current owner, who brought it out west, where it’s still located. This big rig is listed here on eBay in Loveland, Colorado, there is no reserve, and the current bid is $15,101.
A pickup with four doors, that’ll never, ever be a big seller! Wait, what? It’s rare to see a single-cab pickup these days. My, how things have changed over the last three decades. It’s rare even today to see a full-sized truck bed on a pickup with four doors, though. The vast majority of them have a short bed today, it seems like.
This truck has lived with snow all of its life and isn’t a low-mile trailer queen. The seller bought it with just 54,000 miles in 2012, and now it’s up to 191,155 miles, very impressive and nice work keeping it so nice looking through all of those miles! In case you were wondering what it looked like inside the place where I’d be sleeping on camping and fishing trips, here’s inside the bed. There are a couple of dings and a tiny spot where rust is bubbling under one of the fender flare trim pieces, but for being almost 30 years old, this truck looks great to me.
The interior looks great, other than that one split on the top of the padded dash top. It almost makes it look like there’s another glove box on top of the dash. The seats appear almost perfect, and the rear seating area will easily fit three adults in comfort. This truck doesn’t have a manual transmission; it’s the optional four-speed automatic. This is a one-ton truck, so everything about it is heavy-duty, including the transmission and transfer case. They mention that this transmission is an “upgraded replacement” transmission.
Speaking of heavy-duty, here’s Ford’s 7.3-liter OHV direct-injection diesel V8, which would have been rated at 215 horsepower and 425 lb-ft of torque, sending power to all four wheels as needed. They say it has a Riffraff air filter setup for better breathing. There is a small drip from the oil pan area, but it has an all-new exhaust. Any thoughts on this one-ton diesel four-door 4×4?
Good write-up Scotty on a good F-350. Excellent ebay ad, lots of historical information and plenty of pics. Even specific pics showing the vehicle’s deficiencies. Interesting how these “OBS” trucks have really come into their own lately. It should provide many years of service to the new owner.
Seems the autoloaders are often the weak spot in these high torque diesels. I’ve never owned one, but seen it in friends trucks. I could be wrong of course I have a very small sample size to speak from. Enjoyed the article SG, and love these trucks. 👍
I’m with you there on that one Stan. The 4 sp. And 5 speed manuals I always thought was a beefier choice. But then, I always said real trucks have 3 pedals…… And I’m not talking about the emergency brake pedal either lol.
Automatics often failed behind a diesel, just because of the extra torque. When GM brought out the 700R4 it worked almost flawlessly behind a 350 gaspot. But behind a 6.2 diesel, it failed, especially in a Suburban. We’d get them in with all forward gears, leaving only a reverse. Put an average of $1500 worth of parts, only to confirm that the case was shot. GM would then send a complete replacement…
It looks like a beautiful, well kept, solid, rust free truck here Scotty. Those rims Ford had are among my all time favorites. The interor looks terrific too. It doesn’t look its age one bit. Great write up up Scotty. I enjoyed it.
Flies on a dead horse out west. F-250s and F-350s everywhere. Ford hit a grand slam when it used the 7.3 Powerstroke; the IDI that preceded it for that matter. Customers chipped these up to stratosphere and they never failed although I saw a few automatics have “young ones.”
Then someone at the EPA saw a wisp of smoke coming out of the tailpipe. An emergency meeting, combined with a bunch of wet and soiled undergarments, shut the door on the muscular 7.3 which led to the anemic 6.0 Liter. People still chipped them, only to see them melt right out of the motor mounts.
Ford combatted that by auditing all major powertrain failures and making a decision IF it would approve the warranty claim. Result: a lot of upset customers.
Of course you cannot blame Ford. The claims for overloaded powertrains were bleeding Ford dry.
Well, enter the all new Ford-designed Powerstroke and Ford was able to reclaim some of its lost sales from Dodge. Unfortunately, there will always the popularity of the Cummins…
We have a small cadre of arrested development adolescent men in our town who love to “roll coal” in their comedically lifted pickups- you know, the ones with a small garbage can welded to the end of their exhaust pipes, especially if they are passing you as a pedestrian on a sidewalk or if you are on a bike riding legally in a bike lane. It must be painful to have to go to such expense and trouble just to draw attention to yourself due to your feelings of being invisible in today’s world. Sad.
Those types made it out west as well. That time period coincided with a shortage of blowup dolls at the novelty shops…
I think you hit the nail on the head there Geomechs. I Remember people ( a lot of younger guys) chipping the 7.3 back when they were new. Reliable as an anvil. And the young bucks “Rolling Coal” as my oldest son used to say. We knew a guy who traded his 7.3 in on a new 6.0. First thing I noticed was how quiet it was. Unfortunately, he
had issues with it. Very early on. He pulled a large camper with it. Never had an issue with the 7.3. The 6.0…… Not so much.
Yeah, the 6.0L was a shadow of what once was. It was my understanding that Navistar would only warrant the 6.0L to 250 hp. Ford needed 300 so it stood the warranty alone. That could have survived if dealers didn’t continue to chip them past meltdown and then had the audacity to give warranty. It hit Ford hard and consequently forced its hand into enforcing major failure audits. I saw trucks with less than 6,000 miles with the warranty voided. And still, customers came to our shop looking for performance chips.
Of course I always told them what would happen with their warranty. I remember one guy asking me about warranty. I took a kitchen match and lit it. As it flared up and died off, I told him: “that’s your warranty.”
“Well, what if I just pull the chip?”
“The auditors can tell how long and how much over the limit the injector pulse width was run; it’s stored in the ECU’s memory.”
Well, it actually slowed the sales of performance chips down a tad but there were still lots of hard feelings, always blaming Ford, International, and independent shops like ours. How could customers be wrong?
Long actual story about the 6.9, 7.3 and the 6.0. The 6.9 and 7.3 International engines were bullet proof. It was the Ford screw ups that caused issues. (Just like Chrysler or what ever their name is this week and Cummins)
Example 1: Ford had to recall 6.9s for oil burning. The problem? Ford installed a 460 style gas air cleaner to keep the noise down. Yep you guessed it, not enough air flow so it was sucking engine oil and burning it. The fix Ford sent dealers 1.5″ hole punches the punch holes in the side of the air cleaner canister/housing. So much for noise abatement!
Example 2: Many technical service bulletins for rewiring the glow plug relays. (The original and 2 more revisions. )
Example 3: Ford decided that they would design their own diesel engine and have International build it for them. And by the way, it was just not Ford polluting the air it was all diesels according to the EPA Nazis.
When International saw the Ford design, they said no way! So Ford took them to court because of a previous agreement. So International built it to Ford specifications. And as everyone knows, it was a disaster. If you drove it hard it just wouldn’t hold up. If you drove it easy, condensation would build up in the turbos when you shut down the engine causing rust that you can guess ended up in the wrong place. (A friend was a district service engineer for Ford and he told me that Ford had no idea as to what to address first of the many issues.) Ford submitted the claims to International who would not pay them. Ford again took International to court and this time the court sided with International. YOUR DESIGN, YOUR PROBLEM!
That was an extremely costly lesson for Ford.
I had a friend with a nice almost new 7.3 Ford (and more money than he new how to spend appropriately). We test drove a new 6.0 and he asked what I thought. I told him too much power from too little cubes, he didn’t buy it and saved wasting money on a piece of junk.
Auction update: this one sold for $17,200!