V10 to 7.3L Excursion

I'm getting ready to start this project so I thought I'd start a nice build thread.
Overview:
Early 99 F350 7.3L ZF6, 2wd. This guy will be donating the powerplant, wiring, fuel system, etc


2000 Excursion 6.8L 4r100 4wd. Picked it up for less than half what a decent diesel Ex would have cost me


I sold off the ZF and bought a 4r100 to rebuild. I figured swapping gas to diesel would be enough fun without switching to manual as well. I got a racer x X6TC converter and clutch kit as well to do a rebuild on the trans myself.
So that brings eveyone up to speed. The plan is to start rebuilding the trans over the next few months and freshen up the 7.3L. This spring I'm school and work full time so updates might be infrequent.

The first bit of advice I have is to get the ATSG book on the 4r100 if you're rebuilding it yourself, it really looks like it will break it down and not be too bad. I also got the update manual and it is useless. It's mostly about the updates that were done to the E4OD to make it a 4r100. So dont get it.

More to come as I tear into the 4r100.

I was in this same situation six months ago. Still have most of the parts and the skeleton in the back yard from the donor.

I was advised if going to the trouble to do a gas to diesel do the 12v.

My v-10 Ex only has 115k and runs great and dependable. I have seen guys around here do 300k on these things. So I am sittin tight and waitin out the v-10. It dont have to work thats what my truck is for, its the wifes grocery gitter and gettin the kids to and from in the snow. Banks exhaust , Mike @ FiveStar and she does good.

Good luck and I will be watching this one , like I said I still got everything needed to do it except my donor is a late 99.

4duggan said:

I was in this same situation six months ago. Still have most of the parts and the skeleton in the back yard from the donor.

I was advised if going to the trouble to do a gas to diesel do the 12v.

My v-10 Ex only has 115k and runs great and dependable. I have seen guys around here do 300k on these things. So I am sittin tight and waitin out the v-10. It dont have to work thats what my truck is for, its the wifes grocery gitter and gettin the kids to and from in the snow. Banks exhaust , Mike @ FiveStar and she does good.

Good luck and I will be watching this one , like I said I still got everything needed to do it except my donor is a late 99.

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I looked into the 12v/24v's. Besides the 1500 for the adapters/trans control module those motors are big bucks. That might have been true 5 10 years ago, but the word is out on those motors and they're wanting thousands for them. Total conversion price would have been minimum $4000 more IF I found a reasonable cheap 12v.

I also have 20,000 miles on the 6.8L and it has a long life ahead of it. I should be able to get some money out of it and not have too much trouble selling it.

And lastly I'm not big on their sound compared to my 7.3

Should have kept the ZF. 6 speed 7.3 excursion would be NASTY.

good luck with the wiring nightmare, from what i figured out you are going to need a complete dash harness from an excursion 7.3 to make all the other features work as well

DieselFreak92 said:

Should have kept the ZF. 6 speed 7.3 excursion would be NASTY.

Click to expand...

In the truck the 6 speed is tops, but this is a family wagon for me. And there's the stuff that runs where the stick would need to come through the floor.

Moremph said:

good luck with the wiring nightmare, from what i figured out you are going to need a complete dash harness from an excursion 7.3 to make all the other features work as well

Click to expand...

There are a few things mounted in the cab that will need wired, and the gauges but I'm comfortable with wiring and wiring diagrams so it shouldnt be too bad <-famous last words there

I have the pickup truck tore down now. All told I made over 3 grand parting out a rusty, no option truck and I still have the frame, the motor, and everything to make it run. Not bad considering tghat when I was trying to sell it whole I was getting offers for 4000. And I still have a V10 and its trans to sell. So far this is looking good. Total disassembly time is around 12 hours, maybe 16.
I also checked with the ohio emissions teting people and they told me its perfectly legal to swap the diesel in there as its an offered powerplant. Since I'm running a 2000 model year PMT1 pcm they will be happy to think its a 2000 m/y motor (cant swap in an older motor legally).
I was originally thinking to swap out the entire harness and that would have made the swap a breeze, but the truck harness has almost no power options. I'll post up some details but I think I'm going to integrate the 2 harnesses so I can keep all the power stuff working without issues.

Next up is a 4r100 rebuild. Could take a while but I'll post good pics, promise.

Definitely interested to see this! And I agree 100% V10's sound chitty, 6.8L isnt much displacement for 10 cylinders..lil baby cylinders that thing has LOL.

Started the teardown of the trans. I'm following the ATSG for it and it's going smoothly.



see that big clutchpack there... those clutches are burned down to metal and warped to boot. The guy I traded it from reported that he lost upper gears followed by all forward movement in any gear. I expect to find more burt up stuff as I get into it further


This is were I stopped. I have to make a tool to compress this clutch pack so I can pull out the clip

I'm doing some preliminary work on the wiring and it looks like I may make a stand-alone harness for the 7.3L. My options are:
1. replace the whole vehicle harness with an exact match 7.3l excursion harness (difficult and time consuming)
2. re-pin my engine harness at the 3 main firewall connections (time consuming)
3. make the harness a stand alone engine harness and leave all the non engine related wiring alone and intact on the Ex.

If I go route #3 I need to make a nice way to run wires into the cab for the go pedal and such, but I think I could get this done in an afternoon. This is also essentially what the cummins swap people are doing.
Any thoughts?

I got it all pulled apart without any special tools, but I'll definitely need those to compress things going back together.
Here's the gutted case, it looks great in the with barely any wear:


and the rest of the parts:


Now the intimidating part- look at all these damn seals:


Lots of these seals are really close in size. I started to put it back together and ran into a snag putting the low bearing in. I have to get some threaded rod to compress those springs correctly.

any great advice? now's the time, lol

Been busy with work/school/family/rebuilding the bathroom, but I finished up the trans. I'd bet it will shift fine, but I wouldn't bet a whole lot lol. I pulled the v10 (let me know if you need one) and started on the engine and wiring. I have lots of pics but the memory card I have crashed so none now.

On the motor side I replaced the injector cups and glow plugs, I bought 40 bucks worth of Ford exhaust hardware to redo the up pipes, I replaced the O rings on the dipstick tube, and I did the 50 cent mod. Much more to be done there.

On the truck I started the wiring. I'm aiming for fully functional integration of the 7.3L harness and the V10 harness. I spent one whole day just getting the cruise hooked up to the 7.3 PCM. It will be a process, that's for sure. The a/c systems are different wiring wise for the v10 and 7.3 so I have to figure out why and which way will work best. I'm leaning towards wiring the clutch compressor old school... run the power through the a/c pressure switches, then to the clutch. I'll lose WOT cut-out but I don't think there will be any other problems.

Pics soon

Awsome build, looks like fun thats for sure, but if I were doing this, my old lady would be learning to grab gears.. haha

Sweet biuld...

I had 2 straight days off weds and thurs so I got a lot done.

I pulled the engine compartment harness out of the excursion and put it on the bench next to the f250 harness. Set up a fan, a cooler, and some music and rocked out integrating the 2 harnesses into one. It took about 6 hours on weds and it was done and installed. We'll see if I got all those pins in the right place later, haha. I kept it as original as possible and used all the correct fuse and relay locations. I even got the a/c wired up as its supposed to be. It's about what you would have to do to get a 24v cummins installed cleanly except everything lines up, electrically speaking.

Thursday I got the hydro brakes installed, all the gas pedal stuff ran, the old transmission and t-case pulled out, the fuel lines installed and the tank mods done. I had to do a little customizing in the tank to get the fuel level arm to drop in the right place but nothing major. The frame mounted fuel pump bolted right up to where the gas filter was, and the lines behind that are the same diameter so I compression fitted them together.

I cut off the ebpv acuator on the pedestal to be welded later. I got the ebp sensor tube replaced which was completely crudded up. The exhaust manifold had to have the crud drilled out too, and I assume the sensor will need to be replaced. I pulled the oil cooler off and disassembled that.

That's where I called it a night at 10p and went and jumped in the pool.

Sub'd

Jeez man. Great work. Following this fo sho

Very interesting. I will mostly likely be doing a similar project like this in the near future so Def watching your progress.

Remiond me next week and i'll get up all the pics I took. I'm doing 3 straight 12's so I wont get much opportunity this weekend

http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1145579-4r100-rebuild-project.html

Thought I'd post a link to the 4r100 rebuild