>>2792545Last cont. of me shitting up the thread with my autism
>>2792516>Any hintsBesides normal pre-inspection that youd do for any older vehicle, like checking out ujoints, ball joints, bushings. there isnt a lot extra to look out for. They will continue to run even when pretty fucked up, but to run well the most important thing is to have the fuel system in good shape. I'd plan on replacing all the return lines and return caps and o-rings no matter what. Its an easy job and a rebuild kit is $40 off rock auto. Its normal for them to smoke white for a little right out the gate when cold, but if she continues to smoke white under load or at hot idle youve got some kind of fuel delivery problem. Most likely air intrusion from a sacked out rubber line somewhere, but potentially a timing issue, leaky injectors, or a sacked out injection pump. Easiest way to test the injection pump is get the engine nice and hot and shut it off. Then start it again. A hot injection pump that is sacked out will crank a long time or won't fire at all when hot. Getting that rebuilt is one of the more expensive parts of the engine, ~$400.
>>>nb4 cavitationHard to go anywhere and read about 7.3IDIs without hearing about cavitation. I've owned and driven dozens of these and wrenched on way more and never seen it myself. I think its way less common than people think. That being said it doesn't help to throw new coolant in there with some SCA/fleet charge which is actually cheaper than most coolant anyways.
>finding themthey either sell cheap or the seller "knows what they got." I usually buy them dirt cheap non-running/with issues. Most of them ive spent under a grand on. Usually crank/no start is just a combination of old batteries and sitting and needing the fuel system primed. Ive scored a lot of them from farmers fields for a few hundred and just primed and cranked on them until they sputtered to life. You can find running/driving examples for under $4k relatively easy though.
