Well I wrote a long post this morning and when sending it I had lost connection thus I lost the post.

I have been asking lots of questions here for a week or so about the 4X4's. I got one yesterday to replace my old 4X4 and I'm excited. I just want to share my excitement and maybe you can share your truck story with us in return.

This thread is not to start any debate over different engines vs. other engines or different trucks vs. other trucks. There are pluses and minuses to all the models and engines and we are all usually proud of whatever truck we have.

First, my old truck. It is a '78 F150, 4X4, part time with 400. It was the first new vehicle that my wife and I bought together in November of 1977. It has now come to be worth almost as much as we paid for it, but the wife doesn't want to see it go. So I guess it will go out to pasture, literally. I will use it onlyaround the place to feed, fix fence and stuff.

Now my "new" truck. I knew that I wanted four wheel drive so I can use it only around the place, for hunting and for my relatively frequent trips to Kansas City (I got stuck there in the terrible ice storm a few weeks ago.) So, that narrowed my choice to four wheel drives.

I am a manual transmission maniac, so that narrowed my choice further. In learning on another thread that the V6 is the same one that was in my Wifes Windstar a few years back, I did not want another one. For details of my reasons, I talk about the head gasket hell on that engine in another thread called "Is the 4.2 V6 any good?" For that reason my choice was narrowed even further. When I learned on this forum that there are indeed V8's in manual 4X4's, I knew that's what I wanted. I'm sure the 4.2's serve many of you well, but I just don't want one again.

SOOoooo.... My choice was limited to a manual transmission, regular cab, 4.6, 4X4. I started looking on autotrader, cars.com and everywhere I could find for one within a 300 mile radius. There were no new ones, so that was out. I found 4 and with some calling found that two of them were already sold.

Of the two that were left was a '98 with 138k, supposedly, highway miles and an '00 with 59K miles. I was leaving from my Dad's house, so the '98 was about 150 miles away and the '00 was about 280 miles away.

My Dad and I got to the '98 at about 9:45 Saturday morning. It had looked really slick in the pictures and did not look real bad, but there were some places on the body and it looked suspect of light crash damage. It started well, had no blowby, and sounded really good. We got in and started down the road and at about 200 yards the check engine light came on, then we started hearing some pretty terrible gear whine. I think it was the rear axle. Also the oil looked like axle grease.

My Dad is 83 and had a pacemaker about 6 months ago, so I was a little concerned that he was up to all this, but he's a trooper. I asked him if he wanted to go on to Houston and he said "Let's go."

The one In Houston was a different story. It was at a Ford dealer and had been gone over quite well. It had lots of accessories, all that I liked except for the 305/70-16 monster tires. The truck looked, sounded and drove excellent. We wrapped it up and headed through Houston freeway construction.

Once I got North of Houston with the traffic thinning a little, I stopped and filled it up. We then took off North on the freeway and ran 70 and over with a few stops for my Dad. I experienced only light traffic going through Dallas and filled it up in Plano. It got about 16.5 mpg if compensating for the big tires. The truck drives, sounds (dual glasspacks) and feels amazing.

I am extremely pleased.

I hope everyone excuses my long post, but when you get a "new" Ford truck only every 27 years it's kind of a big deal.

So how about your buying experience. Has the internet worked for you in finding vehicles or has it been a catastrophe?

If anyone is interested, I'll try to get some pictures and post them while it's still clean and shiny.

Have a great day,
Doc

 

Congratulations on your truck purchase. I was searching for a manual trans F150 Heritage a few months ago, but even using the internet, couldn't find anything. Glad to read that you had good luck with your new '00. Sounds like you have one sweet ride.

Do you plan on changing out those monster tires, or are they OK for your needs?

 

Congrats on the new truck I know exactly what you mean. My parents got their first new car two years ago, only 25 years. But it is definatly a big deal. When it was time for me to get a car I looked on the net for local Ford dealers, I found a good dealer down in New Jersey. Valley Ford. I was there when we bought the 02 Expy and my 00 150, and i must say that if the dealer treats you right it makes the buying experience much more enjoyable.

Ken

 

The monster tires are not what I want, but I'm not one to throw things away. Once their worn out, I'll put the size that came on it or maybe one size larger, not six sizes larger.

The wheels, according to the Summit catalog are Weld Racing Super Single II and cost $228 a piece in an old catalog. The fancy lug nut covers are extra, so there is about $1000 in wheels alone. If they were cheap wheels, I would get some other wheels with standard size tires to run most of the time and then use these monsters during the Duck season when I go around in the river bottom.

ORrr... now that I'm thinking about it, I could put standard size tires on the expensive wheels if I could find some cheap wheels that I could put the big tires on for Duck Hunting.

Also now that I think about it, I will be using my old truck on this place alot without getting it on the road very much, and there are some muddy places at times. I have some old monster tires mounted on wheels for it. It might be time for the monsters to go back on the old truck and just use it for my "mudder."