What is necessary in "bulletproofing"

I'd start with getting a torque pro application for your smart phone and blue tooth adapter (cheap and easy) way to read your Engine oil and coolant temps. (big time importance) in determining a near by oil cooler failure and exhaust gas cooler necessary replacement or an egr delete with new oil cooler.

Not to mention the app lets you check and monitor lots of other stuff

If not doing a lot of heavy towing or no plans to hot tune, I'd say head studs and external oil cooler not necessary. A lot of shops will want to do a cab off head studs, think LOTS of $70.00 per hour labor

That said, if EOT and ECT deltas are showing time for replacing the oil cooler ( first thing that fails) I'd do that and egr delete or a bulletproofdiesel EGR replacement with a bulletproofdiesel oil cooler relocation device. (that is what I plan unless I decide to upgrade to front mounted cooler)

Take a look at and clean the EGR valve, before that trip, if deltas are showing ok other than that and checking belts and hoses if it runs good on a daily basis I'd not jump into a EGR delete until needed per deltas showing a need for oil cooler/egr replacement.

If first owner kept up with oil and filter changes, there is a strong possibility you may be good for a while.

My 07, just went over 90k, never been opened, bone stock engine and deltas are fine, but when they show necessary I'm gonna do the bulletproofdiesel stuff.
IMHO

My suggestion would be to spend the money to do it right. I have an '05 that I ordered from Ford. At 220,000 last summer I had the hot start issue. Other than an EGR delete truck was 100% stock.
Decided to go in deep:
Full BPD system
Head studs
Valve job
Water pump
Fan clutch
OEM Injectors
Y Pipes
Intake
All of the belts hoses and such
If you have the ability to remove the cab, the work is not difficult.
I could absolutely not be happier with the outcome.
My goal was reliability with whatever performance upgrades came without sacrificing reliability.
From my perspective, I only wanted to do this ONCE!

I like to think of "bullet proofing" like stage 1 and stage 2. Stage one is the bare minimum and not necessarily a fix all. Do an egr delete, while you are there I recommend and oil cooler and coolant filter. Prior to work so a good coolant system flush several times and switch over to a cat ec1 rated coolant. It's also a good idea to replace it upgrade the Degas bottle to an aluminum one if money allows, because they tend to crack and you don't want to have pressure leaking out of your coolant system. Stage 2 would be head studs. I prefer shops that pull the cab. When you do this I think you should replace Exhaust manifolds with gaskets a new y pipe is also recommended, I have become a fan of aftermarket heads as well. Like kill devil diesel. I also think the o rings are great added security and a lot of shops by me won't do studs on these trucks except with o rings. Also while you are there I recommend replacing lifters. If you are in for more the after market cams are nice in my opinion but not necessary.

Parts alone for a FULL bulletproofing (loosely used term....don't want to get sued :rofl is right around 7-10k depending on how far you want to take it. Now I am talking FULL BPD everything (air to oil cooler, water pump, 7.3 fan setup, aluminum radiator), upgraded alternator (many companies), headstuds with o-ringed heads (and all associated gaskets), lifters (if you're in there that far already), ELC swap, upgraded FICM (BPD or FICMrepair.com) and injectors if you need them but they last if you keep your FICM/charging system happy. Upgraded parts are larger turbo and larger injectors (nice to haves).

I could be off on the price for parts but I did a lot of it over the years then I yanked the engine out to really get to the problems I developed.

Do you need to do all of what I mentioned? Absolutely not, but if you love your truck as much as I do and plan to keep it, then the answer is up to you.

If you can do the work then the savings is huge but the job is as well. To pay a shop would definitely put you into the 12-15k mark with all I mentioned.....but again it all depends on how far you want to take the repairs

Good Luck

What is necessary in "bulletproofing"

This helps a lot. I always thought with this stuff it would be better to get started before anything fails, but what most of you are saying is wait till I see issues. And as far as I can tell everything is great right now. Original owner changed the oil about every 6k and took immaculate care of it.
I have the edge insight monitor to keep an eye on temperatures. I saw a decrease in EGTs when I cut the cad which was great. My EOT and ECT run around 180/90’s and if it’s a hot day the EOT will maybe get up to about 210. They always stay about 10 degrees of each other, unless I’m WOT pulling a hill or something and the EOT might spike closer to 15-18. But it comes back to about 10 degrees difference for most driving. I don’t have degas pressure yet (next on the list), and then the trans stays steady around 150, 160’s tops.