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2000 7.3 diesel build

4K views 24 replies 6 participants last post by  Orin250 
#1 ·
Hello everyone! I wanted to take some time and tell everyone about my build. I have a 7.3 F250 with 5" exhaust, pho hydra chip, sinister coolant filter and an 08 dash swap. I have replaced the oil cooler seals, installed an adrenaline hpop with upgraded lines, rebuilt the turbo with the 360 bearings and a billet wheel. I did the 6637 air intake and the air heater delete with a cts2. I plan on doing a bts valve body an 08 front clip, larger trans pan, regulated return with filters and injectors at some point. I also have flushed the coolant and went with the elc coolant. I want to do the boost fooler, and go with a better turbo like the KC as I have heard good things about them. In the next two weeks I am pulling the bed and welding in new wheel wells as well as new supports and under coating the bed and frame before reinstalling the bed as well as the hutch and harpoon mod. Basically I want to restore everything I can along the way. I was able to pick up an 08 dash with the cluster and wheel for 200 along with the complete wire harness to include the upfitter wiring-minus the upfitters. Today I wired everything for the upfitters and in the next couple of days the switches will be in and that will be complete. I have had my truck for 12 years and now that I am out of the military I am able to give my truck a little love. I have 286k miles on the truck and I am the second owner. The engine is great with no blow by. I'm not sure if the truck came with the upgraded turbo as both the housing and turbine are the 1.0 and last week I did the ebpv delete. When I did the hpop I rebuilt the ipr and changed the icp as they were also leaking. Now I have all the leaks taken care of its time for everything else. My question is what do you guys thing should be next on my list? I have so many things I want to do and I have to say I have learned a ton from everyone on here so thank you for all the input and great information. I will start posting pictures soon --- as soon as I figure that out as I just figured out how to post and not just read for hours on end. Again I want to thank everyone for all the great advice!
 
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#3 ·
Some quick pictures of what I have done so far. 5 inch straight pipe with four inch down pipe, 6637 mod and the dash swap to this point. I still have to wire the headlight switch but I am having a problem finding wiring diagrams for both the 2000 and 2007 switches
 

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#9 ·

I like how you put the 08 Dash in but left the original instrument cluster, makes it more unique. Plus you don't have to deal with all that rewiring of the cluster lol. Looks Good!
 
#5 ·
Changed the rear differential fluid today. I bought the new 08 cover but not the longer bolts..I know stupid...and I could not find any local and I have to go to work in the morning so I picked up a new cover. Not what I wanted to do but the fluid is changed as the old cover plate was rusted pretty bad. I orders some bolts from fastneal and they will be here in a couple days. I will be using the new bolts for the front when I change it.
 

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#6 ·
I also order the marineco plug for the block heater since my other one came off. Thais way I can do away with the plug hanging in the future and I think it looks much better with the marineco plug anyway. I have you guys to thank for that as I saw this mod here!
 
#8 ·
Thank you. I'm sure trying too. I hope to have the bed pulled and the wheel wells and supports taken care of in the next month. While the bed is off I am going to clean the rust from the frame and reseal it. I'm looking forward to getting that done. I have a lot of work to do but I like doing it. I'm sure I could have bought another truck instead of fixing this one but my 16 year old daughter loves this truck and so do I! I have learned a lot from everyone on here and I can't say thank everyone enough.
 
#10 ·
The dash was really not hard. Two things need some thought but that is really it. You need to figure out how you want to run you duct work and how you want to wire the headlights. The duct work is easy to figure out if you place the metal framing for the 08 dash in your truck with the duct work. You can then see what needs to be done. I know there are kits out there that do this but I did not want to spend the money. And really you don't need too. The headlight wiring I am still trying to figure out. I have not had time to work on it much yet but I will figure it out with a little luck. I'm still hoping to get an 08 cluster for my truck but I agree the old cluster does not look bad either! The dash itself makes a huge difference in looks and I really like it. Thanks for noticing the work too! There is a lot more I need/want to do. I am going to be making a power relay box and putting in rocker switches to replace the upfitters. I ordered the stuff I need today and I hope to do this over the weekend. That way I can put more switches in for the things I want to put in such as a light bar and bed lights along with my Cree backup lights and fog lights.
 
#11 ·
This weekend I had to change the water pump which was weeping a little. It's not that hard but it takes a little time and of course the standard fan removal tools are no help.....I ended up having to pull the fan attached to the water pump and then take it to a shop right down the road for them to use an impact gun that took it off in 10 seconds...I fought with it in the truck for more than an hour. Then of course I pinched the gasket putting it back in so I had to tear down and get a new gasket. Oh and to top it all off the belt tensioner broke where you put the breaker bar into...so all in all the water pump is in and I have a new belt tensioner installed. The bright side of this is I was also able to put my sinister diesel coolant filtration on. All is good now. I also put in my Cree backup lights and fog lights along with building a power panel and switching out my upfitters with custom switches. They look good!
 

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#22 ·
Ok. That is a snazzy light set up! Kids love the zombie switch. Where did you find it? I'm planning to add bed lights, the light bar that goes on top (forgot the name), upgrading all current to leds, adding a grill bar light and adding led strip in back at the gate to help with visibility and driving at night.

I'm also adding a power port for each seat so the kids can charge their laptops as we are traveling the state's to spread my husband's ashes and honor his memory.

I plan to install an all in one navi system with blutooth, backup camera and radio with usb connection as I HATE having stuff on the dash including phone holders. I don't know if such a thing exists though.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
 
#13 ·
Sorry it's been so long since my last post but my 16 year old daughter got rear ended.....by an f250 of all things and messed up he first car. It's not too bad bet she and I have been working on it. She will not let me work on it without her there to do the work and learn! God bless her. So far we have had to pull the entire back bumper off her 2004 Ford Focus and pull the metal back out, work the trunk lid to get it straight and replace both the trunk lid hinges. Bot rear tail lights have been replaced and the new bumper pieces came in. She and I painted them and she installed it. She was a little grumpy I took a picture of her working it on while she did not have her pretty face on, but I just couldn't resist. I am proud of her and what she is doing. With the insurance money she was able to order new halo headlights, a new front axle that has a broken boot, new tires and of course a furry steering wheel cover
 

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#14 ·
It's been a little bit but I have been busy. I installed the marinco mod to the front of my truck and changed out the charging cord as the old plug melted off. I also painted my rear bumper and installed Cree back up lights as well as a set of Cree front lights. The biggest thing for me was changing the ball joints...the first side took a while but the second side went much quicker. I also changed the inner and outer axle seals as well as the hub seals......the bad news is I will need to go back and change both front hubs. The drivers side outer seal was bad and let water and dirt inside and it looked pretty bad and the passenger side has bad needle bearings so I order two new tinken hubs which should be here soon. I guess the good news is the hubs are not hard to change at all. I have been reading about doing body work as both rear wheel weeks have some rust on them. Nothing that has gone through yet but it will only be time if I don't do something. The sad thing is I took it to a body shop to fix about six months ago but it is coming back so they must not have done a good job. I will take pictures of it before I start and then when I am done for everyone. I am open to any and all suggestions at this point. Yes I thought about having the wheel wells cut out but everyone here wants at least a grand for the job and I need to have my bed rails replaced soon. I don't have a ton of money so I'm am going to give this a shot. I have also looked for a short bed but everyone here wants 1700 or more and they still need the rails replaced
 

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#15 ·
Well I started the wheel wells and found the passenger side too far gone to not cut it out and replace it so I am going to cut both sides out as the drivers side can be salvaged with filler but for how long is the reason so I will just do both sides. I do not know how to weld so that is the first thing I am going to learn and then I am cutting both out and welding new patch panels in. I plan on getting this done in the next two weeks so I can move on to pulling the bed and replacing the bed bracing. I have already ordered to bolts, braces and patch panels so now it's time to get a welder!
 

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#16 ·
My tinken hubs came in today so I changed them out this evening. Not hard at all and the old ones were shot. One was Rustin out due to the outer axle seal being bad and the other side needle bearings were going bad. Now both are new and will last for a long time. I also bought a welder (a cheap one from harbor freight) to start learning how to weld so I can replace my bed wheel wells. My goal is to do them in the next two weeks. The pictures below are of the driver side....I forgot to take any of the passenger side
 

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#17 ·
So it's been a littl while since my last post but I have been busy. I changed out the rear differential cover with the 08 aluminum cover and also changed the front differential fluid and cleaned and painted the cover. I am now working on the frame and bed. I pulled the bed to start working on it to replace the wheel wells and the supports. When I pulled it I felt there was no better time than the present to clean the frame and paint it. I started by pressure washing the frame and then using an air chisel the get as much of the rust off as possible and then used corroseal. I have to say that stuff is great. It is easy and it works really well. Once the frame was done I used rustoleum acrylic enamel paint. All in all it came out pretty well. I am currently working on the front part of the frame now while still working on the truck bed. The wheel wells have Brent cut out and new metal welded in. The lip was bad so they have been replaced also. I bought the patch panels and only used what was needed to replace the bad metal. The wheel wells were not as bad as I thought either. The bed supports are rough but I was already going to replace those. The only other thing is I noticed two holes that were under the bed liner so I will be fixing those as well. All for roughly 500 dollars and some time. I have some pictures below. Yes I know I did not paint the leaf springs as I will be preaching those in the very near future as I have on broken leaf on the drivers side rear.
 

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#18 ·
Some pictures of the bed work. I have to say cutting the bed bolts out was not that bad at all. I have seen where many uses a criss-cross pattern but I used a tic tat toe pattern around the bolt head and they came right out. No problem at all.
 

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#19 ·
So today I did the hutch and harpoon mods while I have my bed off. I have to say having the bed off while doing this made life so much easier. I was not having any problems with the quarter tank issue but I figured it was right there in font of of me so I might as well do it now. The scenes were not any where near as bad as I thought they would be but I only get diesel from pumps with filters so maybe that helped or I was just lucky. Either way I did away with the screens and did the hutch mod. It only cost 22 dollars for the parts for the hutch mod and then while I was in there I figured I would change the pickup screen also which was another 52 dollars. It was not a hard mod at all as many of you know. The only problem I had was working the pickup screen on. I ran a 3/8 drill bit through it several times by hand but it was still a little bit of a pain to get on. All in all I feel better that everything in the tank is good to go now.
 

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#20 ·
Thank you for sharing. I am so glad to see your post as I also have a '00 f250 4wd turbo sd crew cab short bed. I'm learning how to care for ours as my husband was our mechanic, but he passed unexpectedly.

Ben was literally a few days away from working on her. I'm trying to do all that I remember him talking about so this is helpful. Off to read through again. I love the photos and if you have any links over how to I'd appreciate it.

Btw...thank you to you and your family for your service.

~Honey
 
#23 ·
They are great trucks for sure. I plan on putting bed lights on soon too. Right now I have the bed off fixing the rust in the wheel wells and floor and I am also putting new bed supports on. Once that is done I will be adding the bed lights and tail gate lights. If you let me know what you want done I can give you all the information I can. This site is great as there are a lot of people here that are very helpful with whatever you want to do. The rocker switches (zombie lights) I did myself. I made a power panel and then I bought some rocker switches from eBay and wired them up. It was really pretty easy and all told only cost about 75 dollars for everything. With the switches in I can now add more accessories to the truck when I am ready. There are a ton of things you can do to these trucks to make them look great but the best thing you can do is to stay on top of the fluid changes. If you do that they will run forever. I will keep posting pictures as I go through my build with the next set coming when I finish up welding my bed floor. It was not hard at all as I have never done and welding before but it is all coming out really good.
 
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