Hate to say it, but drove a Ford today.

[Grizzly]

I have to respectfully disagree with Cumminz on his point of cab removal not being an issue because he doesn't turn bolts. The point to consider is if you did have to have major work done its going to be extremely expensive. Up here the diesel rate at a dealer is at least 135/hour. Flat rate on a duramax head gasket or 6. 0 is around 34-38 hours. Cummins is about 9 ish. Add in the extra parts (2 head gaskets instead of 1, reusable headbolts on a Cummins, not a Ford etc) and the costs become huge. After warranty costs are a significant influence in a purchase, especially if it were to be be my retirement truck.

That's what I love and appreciate about Dodge with a Cummins inline six cylinder. Plus they're reliable.

 

[Gonzo 1066]

Lets see, I give Ford $60,000 so I can be a TEST DRIVER!!!! How is this a good idea? There was the same hype when they brought out the 6. 0 and look where that got the Ford faithful. Some lucked out and got the lemon law to work for them, some wernt that lucky and had a rig repossesed and still owed LOTS on the loan. All of the owners ALL OF THE OWNERS of these rigs are seeing a loss of money in trade in value. Resale is poor on them to say the least. I would wait for maybe a mininum of 6 years to see if this latest PowerStroke is the answer to all of our Diesel wishes.

 

[Bill Stockard]

I have to agree with Harvey, When I ran a shop for Kraft Foods in Champaign, IL many moons ago we had two IH 4070 Transtars with 903 V8 Cummins in them. They were complete disasters. Had so many problems we finally just used them as yard tractors. Wouldn't compare with the 350 Cummins.

You were forunate you didn't have an I-H V-800... another V-8 diesel failure in a heavy duty highway tractor.



Bill

 

[MLee]

Been wondering with all the huge build up of how good the new Fords are, and new developments in tech stuff, Why weren't they the chosen one for the Truck of the year award? by Motor Trend. They didn't add up????????

 

[rscurtis]

Their DV550 wasn't a stellar performer either. I was friendly with the local IH dealer in the mid seventies, I remember the first load of those sold to the local township in garbage trucks. Within 2 weeks they were all back with broken crankshafts. That was an awful lot of iron for a measely 150-170 HP. They also idled on 4 cylinders- if you ever hear one, you can pick that up right away.



This engine went on to become the 9-litre diesel, which I suppose was OK in its latest iterations, but it was noisy- you could hear them from blocks away. I doubt too many kids missed the bus in those days, as it was a popular school bus engine in its day.



In the late seventies, I was at a Ditch Witch factory school in Perry, OK. for two weeks, the sound of the V800 was common at the time running up and down I-35.

 

[RustyJC]

Been wondering with all the huge build up of how good the new Fords are, and new developments in tech stuff, Why weren't they the chosen one for the Truck of the year award? by Motor Trend. They didn't add up????????

Ummmm..... maybe they figured it was GM's turn this year just to keep the advertising dollars rolling in??? :-laf



Rusty

 

[Bill Stockard]

Ummmm..... maybe they figured it was GM's turn this year just to keep the advertising dollars rolling in??? :-laf



Rusty

Rusty,



You just let the cat out of the bag!! :-laf



Bill

 

[Bill Stockard]

Their DV550 wasn't a stellar performer either. I was friendly with the local IH dealer in the mid seventies, I remember the first load of those sold to the local township in garbage trucks. Within 2 weeks they were all back with broken crankshafts. That was an awful lot of iron for a measely 150-170 HP. They also idled on 4 cylinders- if you ever hear one, you can pick that up right away.



This engine went on to become the 9-litre diesel, which I suppose was OK in its latest iterations, but it was noisy- you could hear them from blocks away. I doubt too many kids missed the bus in those days, as it was a popular school bus engine in its day.



In the late seventies, I was at a Ditch Witch factory school in Perry, OK. for two weeks, the sound of the V800 was common at the time running up and down I-35.

At least the 9-liter idled on 8 instead of 4 like the DV-550. I don't know who the idiot engineer who came up with the idea of idling on 4. The 9-liter was I-H's answer to the CAT 3208... both were about as noisy. I think the 3208 smoked worse.



Steiger tried the I-H V-800 in the red Steigers after I-H bought Steiger. It ate crankshafts. They changed back to Cummins, but the damage was done.



Don't forget the GM/Detroit Diesel "Fuel Pincher" V-8 Diesels in medium duty GM and Ford trucks... . what a disaster! That fiasco helped me sell more I-H DT466s inline 6-cylinder diesels than anything.



Bill

 

[JMetzger]

You know what is odd is most stationary Gen sets are all V configurations & they do rather well. I know they run a constant RPM where as trucks are up & down in RPM.

 

[RustyJC]

A lot of the large stationary diesel and dual-fuel engines utilized in power generation applications are indeed Vee-configuration, but as stated these engines run at constant (synchronous) speed and variable load and may run thousands of hours between shutdowns. Here's an example of these engines as built by my employer - these LSVB engines were available in V-12, V-16 and V-20 configurations but also had inline 6 and 8 cylinder LSB variants as well.



Rusty

 

[rscurtis]

I think the 4-cylinder idle was for emission purposes. The combustion chamber was a deep bowl in the piston, with the injector coming in from the top of the engine at a 45* angle- just like the spark plugs in the 549 gas engine. Apparently, this system would not stay hot enough at very light load, hence the 4-cylinder idle.



The engine was also equipped with "swirl destroyers", which were a butterfly in the intake port designed to reduce turbulence on a cold engine. It was operated by a knob in the cab.



One thing can be said for the design, it was quiet- when it was running, of course.



I remember the Fuel Pincher when I worked for a heavy equipment distributor who sold Mobil street sweepers. At the time, it was the propulsion engine. When started from cold, they would only run on several cylinders until the engine warmed up, accompanied by great clouds of white smoke. Seems GM divisions never talked to each other too much, as several years later, Caddy tried the free-standing cylinder routine with their HT 4100, we all know how that one worked out.

 

[JMDancoe]

I will never buy or even consider a Ford!

Why? Because I have an 86 / 92 Retrofitted Dodge D-250 that I fully expect will outlast me, so why even look at a Ford. I hope you sanitized yourself after being in a Ford. Your Dodge may not love you any more. :-laf

 

[TFucili]

This engine went on to become the 9-litre diesel, which I suppose was OK in its latest iterations, but it was noisy- you could hear them from blocks away. I doubt too many kids missed the bus in those days, as it was a popular school bus engine in its day.

Every customer and supplier we had at the time who owned a 9 liter, had a nightmare on their hands. The down-time was unreal. Intrashnational was coined for a reason.