1997 7.3 OBS Project

Daniel@RudysDiesel

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Alright guys, Since everyone else is doing it, I guess I need to share.
So my dad, my brother and myself have talked about restoring a 4 door short bed OBS for years, We finally found a decent truck to start on. We paid 2500.00 for the truck. It was 2WD and the guy used it as a work truck. Long story short my dad and brother went and picked the truck up and drove it home. We have already came along way with it. We plan on just making a very nice and clean truck to drive on the weekends.

As far as the motor and trans goes we already have them motor tore down and it is at the machine shop. We still have a long list to go as well as the full T4 kit with a S366 and we are going to swap a 4R in as well.

So far we have:
Mahle Piston .20 OVER Coated
Smith Brothers Push Rods
Comp Cams 910 valve springs
Irate Diesel Complete OBS Fuel System
ARP Main & Head studs
Colt Stage 2 Cam
FLUIDAMPR PERFORMANCE DIESEL SERIES DAMPER
Adrenaline 7.3 Oil Pump
Swamps 7.3 175/80% Injectors
PHP Hydra Chip

We are painting the truck Blue and Grey like the 6.7 Superdutys. We found a 2006 6.0 that we can use everything to do a coil spring conversion, 4x4 conversion and it will have 8x170 bolt pattern,Also we are planning on having interior out of a KR 6.4 as long as we can find a decent set. I will have more pictures and updates as we go.


The night we picked it up

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Any particular reason you didn't opt for the 366 sxe series instead of the older one, or even a 364.5sxe? Just curious, I feel you would have been happier

06-6.0l, CCLB 4X4, studded, reworked heads, egr gone, cab reroute, blue spring mod, 6.4 banjos, updated dummy plugs, stand pipe, and stc fitting; New oil cooler, New ipr, New icp, atlas 40 FICM, powermax turbo, and Geerhead tunes, 325/65R18
 

emev0l

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Any particular reason you didn't opt for the 366 sxe series instead of the older one, or even a 364.5sxe? Just curious, I feel you would have been happier

06-6.0l, CCLB 4X4, studded, reworked heads, egr gone, cab reroute, blue spring mod, 6.4 banjos, updated dummy plugs, stand pipe, and stc fitting; New oil cooler, New ipr, New icp, atlas 40 FICM, powermax turbo, and Geerhead tunes, 325/65R18

My thoughts exactly, if you haven't already bought the older style s366 the new sxe's are MUCH nicer.

Beautiful build, the frame looks killer
 

97stoker350

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Interesting. A quick look at the cross section of a Ford frame and you can tell there's gonna be serious torsional and axial stress. Even the Chevy trucks have through welded tubular cross members where ford just has pressed and bolted cross members
 

Daniel@RudysDiesel

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Sorry I havent been back on guys but we are doing a SXE charger. I think i just had so much I was trying to get typed I must have missed it. I have a few more pictures since we got the shocks on. Things slowed down alot this past week on the truck. Hopefully this week we will be able to get rolling again.

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Strokersace

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I'm curious about the radius arm bracket spacers? Did you space the buckets out too? So all is straight like the 05+ frame?
 

Daniel@RudysDiesel

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So the OBS frame is narrower then a superduty frame and if you look back at the spacers they are not all the same. We looked at alot of build threads we could find on people doing the conversions to them and everyone is just bolting the brackets straight to the frame. We were going to try to do that but when we had it tight it was pulling very hard on the radius arms. I cant believe out of all the other threads i have looked at no one else made spacers.
 

Strokersace

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So the OBS frame is narrower then a superduty frame and if you look back at the spacers they are not all the same. We looked at alot of build threads we could find on people doing the conversions to them and everyone is just bolting the brackets straight to the frame. We were going to try to do that but when we had it tight it was pulling very hard on the radius arms. I cant believe out of all the other threads i have looked at no one else made spacers.
I get the concept for sure. I was able to get everything bolted up fine without doing that. Did it make that big of a difference on the radius arm bushings?

I highly contemplated building spacers for the coil buckets to get then spaced out properly but didn't. Nice thing about it all being bolt on though is I could later.
If your bracket spacer works well and takes stress off, I may do that when I add the 4-link.
 
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Daniel@RudysDiesel

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For you guys that have done the conversions, How did you mount the rear shocks since the superduty axle has one mount in the front and one in the rear where the OBS frame mounts both shocks at the front?
 

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