Preemptive maintenance for extended towing

[pacem]

89 F250, 7.5L, 85,000 miles.

I am going on a vacation this spring, the round trip is 4,000 miles. I want to get the best performance out of it. I also don't want any emergencies and having to mess with it on the side of the highway at night.

I have done a complete tune up - plugs, wires, dist. rotor and cap, all filters, new oil, coolant flush, installing new differential oil and a few minor repairs. Tranny has been serviced 2 years ago, so have the brakes (and not much mileage since then). It runs good without any problems and the old 7.5L gets the usual 10-11mpg running empty and between 6-8 towing, which is as good as it gets, I hear.

Nevertheless, I am thinking of:

• Replacing the O2 sensor (Is it too early at 85,000?)
• Cleaning EGR valve
• changing the oil to fully synth. (The good dino in there now has 500 miles, still clear - I can drain it and use it in others cars, not throw it out.)
• Changing the radiator hoses, both lower and upper to new ones, just in case, because they are also maintainance items as far as I understand. They are not leaking, but they are 15 years old.

I cannot think of anything else to do to it. Would any of these help out with anything or I am just overreacting? I would also clean the throttle body but I don't know how to do that (I am afraid once I take it apart, I won't be able to put it back together, and I don't really want to mess with gaskets). I know that highway only driving is easier on it than other types of driving, so a lazy O2 sensor might not be an issue as like in the city.

And, I also tried to pull the EEC-IV codes (for about 3 hours), following instructions which made it so easy, but I wasn't able to get anything to flash. I think I will try again to just be sure I don't get a nightmarish list of codes. Though nothing seems to manifest itself.

 

[Drew]

I wouldn't mess w/ the O2 sensor, if you've got no check engine lights or codes, you should be ok. My vehicle has 94k on the sensor and it passes emissions with flying colors.

Cleaning EGR valve wouldn't hurt.

Be careful with the synthetic oil. It is possible for oil consumption to increase initially with the synthetic. This has been known to occur and people who don't check their oil level frequently often incur engine damage. If you do go with a synthetic, go with a thicker one and check oil level each gas fillup.

Changing 15 yr old radiator hoses is a very smart thing to do and you might of well change the thermostat. Make sure you use OEM thermostat, the aftermarket ones do not open as much or have as high flow rate as OEM.

Did you replace your fuel filter???

How fresh if your brake fluid? I flush and replace my brake fluid every 2 years. You can do this yourself or cheaply at a shop (avoid justbrakes like the plague....rippoff)

If you are towing a heavy load, do you have an tranny cooler?? Don't forget to add 1 bottle of red lubeguard to your transmission fluid (www.lubeguard.com)

Don't worry about cleaning the throttle body. Just dump a bottle of BG44k in the fuel tank, one tank before your oil change. This will clean out the fuel injectors. Best to do this before you change your oil.

Don't forget to check your spare tires and make sure they are properly inflated-assuming you don't carry a tire plug kit like I do.

Couple of hints of things to carry w/ you on your trip: (if you own a cell phone some may not be necessary)

Carry a small tuffbox with the following items:
1 gallon of distilled water (can be used for drinking or for coolant)
Couple quarts of oil
Keep all of your old belts and hoses that you replaced. They can serve as spares in case of a failure of your new parts.
Small fire extinguisher
Flashlight
Emergency blanket and other cold wx items if driving through cold wx areas
Portable jump starter-my alternator failed on way back from a 2000 mile trip and if I had one of these I could have limped to a gas station. I got stranded 40 miles from closest one when battery finally gave up-no alternator idiot light ever came one.
Jumper cables if you don't have a portable jumper battery kit.
Cheap set of tools/toolkit available from Walmart (less than 20 bucks)
Flat tire plug/repair kit and a tire pump or bottled air. I rather plug a tire and pump it back up than pull out the spare from under all of the travel stuff in the trunk.

That's all I can think of now. Good luck on your trip and drive safely.

 

[pacem]

EGR - I hear the way to clean it is to spray brake cleaner into it. Not carb. cleaner or it will damage it.

I am aware of synthetic oil. 7.5 has a tendency to burn oil at higher rpms. Low mileage, high mileage, it burns oil. Not an age issue, just an engine feature. I don't have an OD, which means 3,000 rpms are normal at highway speeds. I noticed that high rpms contribute to oil-burning in other engines, too. My only reason for synth. is its ability to deal with higher heat when towing.

Changing 15 yr old radiator hoses -

I will get them then. I've never had them fail before on anything, even leak. But, it is just age. and most of the time, the truck has been sitting parked, with me and the last owner, too. I think that rubber products like that degrade with time, not really usage.

Don't know about tranny cooler, but it has a factory towing package so I think it comes with it. It is supposed to be on the radiator. I would change the tranny oil to synth. but it has few miles on the last change, and doesn't really warrant it. In about 10,000 miles, I do plan to go fully synth. with the tranny oil.

The rest are good ideas, fire extinguisher sounds like a necessity.

[ January 19, 2004, 02:16 AM: Message edited by: pacem ]

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
don't forget to replace all front of engine drive belts - you can carry the old ones for spares if they are OK

Regards

 

[White 03]

How about the heater hoses? Or did I miss that somewhere?

Might want to visually check the vacume hoses also.

 

[Bio-T]

pacem,
Your tranny cooler is part of the towing package, but it is very questionable at best. Nothing wrong with running dino trans fluid, but I would add a stacked plate design cooler, such as Tru-Cool or Hayden 679. That is what I did on my F-250 and never any temp problems, I do have a trans temp guage.
Also on your engine oil, you are correct this engine loves a drink of oil. I would recommend that you use a 15W40 or 5W40/10W40 if you are going to be in low temps.
Have a good trip, and air your tires to the max pressure for towing.

 

[XS650]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doug Hillary:
Hi,
don't forget to replace all front of engine drive belts - you can carry the old ones for spares if they are OK
Regards

---

My experiance carrying old belts as spares is that they are better than nothing, but not much. They seem to continue cracking and drying out faster off the engine than on it. Maybe if they were sealed in plastic bags?

The odds of a new belt breaking before the old one has turned to a useless piece of dried out rubber seem rather slim.

 

[theguru]

Check/ replace the rubber hoses, if any from the tranny to the oil cooler in the radiator. These tend to get forgotten. Oh, and carry some spare globes and fuses.