To continue with the bad purchasing decision trend after the Panterra 125CC, I bought a 17 year old truck with insane blow by issues in 2023. I understand this is the first post in about 6 years and that there are 7 other posts in draft state that never were completed. Those 7 will probably never be completed either. So about that 7,000 lb. truck…
Quick note, it does in fact run. It just does so on 5 of 8 cylinders having compression and smokes like the state of Colorado in 2012. Outside of the smoking like the state of Colorado, I did not know about only 5 of 8 cylinders having compression at this time. This truck was an abandoned vehicle. It was found on Craigslist while I was searching for a 4 wheel drive truck under $3k to become a project truck that could be used for hauling parts and supplies for other projects while also allowing me to make poor decisions 4 wheeling offroad. All the other trucks that showed up under my search terms where broken old F-150s, broken GM brands of 1500 trucks, and all the garbage under the RAM brand not including the Cummins powered ones. Talking about their newer stuff, as a 2018 Chrysler Pacifica owner I feel I have the right to complain, but I digress. The truck is a Texas registered vehicle that was in AZ for some reason and broke down and went to a dealership in AZ. The customer left it at the dealership probably due to insane repair costs and it was acquired by a local towing company who then held it for 2 years. The owner never came back so it was then listed on Craigslist for some poor sap to buy. Enter me, the poor sap. Upon first view on Craigslist at a listing of $3900, I had to have it. I drove 45 miles to go see it at the tow yard. The truck was running upon arrival (note to others, this is a bad sign with diesels and should be used as a haggling technique that I did not know at the time). It was blowing some nice white smoke out the tail pipe, but at no point sounded like it would die (also note to others this is most likely due to a lot of unburned diesel fuel being dumped out the exhaust, not to be confused with inefficient combustion which will burn black due to over fueling, the white could also be coolant getting into combustion chamber). I took it for a test drive up and down the road and it drove just fine while blowing its smoke up and down the road. I was still ecstatic when it arrived on the tow truck and then got to see the tow truck drivers face when I started the vehicle and repositioned it after he dropped it off.
After getting a few quotes to tow the 7,000 lb. vehicle 45 miles, I said I would pay their asking price if they also towed it to my house. They agreed and I happily overpaid for this project to be delivered to my house. Because it was running and didn’t seem to have any power issues I assumed it was all issues with the head gaskets and the heads which are known issues with these 6.0 engines. Did I mention I am a computer engineer? Welcome to my expensive lesson with diesel engines. This post is starting almost 2 years after purchasing the vehicle and with a lot of lessons learned and work having already been done.