Buying a F-450

[JD3020]

Planning on looking at a truck later this week. Its an 01 F-450, crew cab, 2wd, ZF-6, has a nice steel flatbed with aluminum boxes on both sides, and around 260k miles. Its a XLT with power everything. Overall its a pretty clean truck for its age, seller says theres no rust on the truck anywhere. The truck does have an engine issue right now. He installed new injectors, HPOP, clutch, and some turbo stuff on it this spring. Claims he had an injector nozzle split taking out a piston, so he had a used engine installed by a shop and its still not right. The engine issues don't bug me too much as i have a complete, healthy L99+ engine sitting here on a stand.

What i need help with is the F-450 side of things. Being a high mileage work truck is there anything i need to check on the frame, driveline, and brakes for wear and stress? I know these trucks are built heavy, but i've never been around one with this many miles. I just don't want to buy this thing and end up having to re-build it from the ground up.

Secondly, what is this truck worth in good condition? As in solid running engine, clean interior and exterior, and 05+ front-end or at least new headlights and a chrome bumper I've had a couple guys tell me $9-10k, while others think $12-13k as its an XLT F-450 which isn't a common truck.

 

[Spatel23]

Id agree and say 9-10 since its 2wd
if it was 4wd I could see the 12ish to the right person

 

[JD3020]

Yeah, i know local city sold a SD F-350 DRW, 7.3, 4wd plow truck this year. Plow truck since new so it was pretty rusty. Sold for close to $17k without a plow. People will pay big money for a 7.3.

I think i can get this truck for around $5500.

 

[ghohouston]

It'll probably need the front end rebuilt of its never been done, and steering gearbox is probably quite worn by that point

 

[Buck1]

5500 good deal. I wouldn't want to give much more than that since has motor issues.

 

[JD3020]

That was my thought. I figured $6k is the max this truck is worth in this condition, with the flatbed and aluminum boxes being a good chunk of that. We bought boxes this spring after we built my bed and then traded for a flatbed on our work truck. A nice 6ft steel box ran me $700, and my small aluminum underboxes were roughly $250 a piece. I about fainted once i started pricing boxes, and we went with some of the "cheaper" ones. LOL

 

[Buck1]

Ya, they can get salty quick. I had kittens when I had the bed on my truck built. 1/2 of what I paid for the dang truck.

 

[old96stroker]

Fwiw, my father in law sold his this past summer for 8500.00. Early 99 same option package as the one you are looking at, very good condition with a real nice custom aluminum flatbed, nice simulators, decent rubber with a full airbag suspension in the rear with no leaf springs, 380,000 miles on it with a 40k mile motor in it. I will ask you this, have you ever driven one? His drove like sh1t, if you didn't have 10k lbs on it it was like riding on a hay wagon with 4 flat tires. It was also a 2wd and would get stuck on anything other than a hard surface road. It had 4.56 gears so at 75mph it was wound tighter than a 8 day clock. Hope you NEED that heavy duty of a truck because they are heavy built. His truck was also a 550.

 

[JD3020]

I need something in the 350-450 range, we have 2 Cat skid steers and looking at buying a mini-ex in the 12-13k lb range soon so we are moving equipment pretty often. We also need a crew cab and a large bed so we have room for everything we need on the jobsite and still be able to hook up to a GN. As it is right now if we need a skid steer or mini on-site we have to take 2 trucks, as our main work truck is a 5 speed V10 F-350 with a flatbed/boxes. When fully loaded it is riding low, throw on our bumper pull trailer with a Vermeer LM42(4klb machine) and it becomes miserable to drive. We refuse to put a skid steer behind it. LOL

FWIW we have owned a F-450, back in 07/08 we bought a 6.4 brand new and had it outfitted with an 11ft Knapheide bed. It was an extended cab, 2wd, auto, XL. That truck weighed around 13k. When the housing market tanked around 2010 dad sold the business so it got sold with under 30k miles on it. But it rode very good and actually steered as tight, if not tighter than our 2wd RCLB F-250's. Taking it off-road sucked but it did fine in snow and rain. I didn't have my license or temps at the time but i drove it a decent bit, and i loved it. Of course it may be apples to oranges comparing an 02 7.3 F-450 to an 08 6.4 F-450, other than the obvious engine difference. :shrug:

 

[morepower02]

Totally different trucks.

 

[JD3020]

Honestly i want a dump truck/F-650 with a 30ft trailer so i could haul 2 pieces of equipment, but thats putting the cart ahead of the horse. LOL

Heres some average loads for me. We now have a bigger bumper pull trailer, and will eventually get a heavier GN. Heaviest i've loaded the GN was a Cat 242(7k), Boss 8'6" straight blade with wings(1k), 3 pallets of salt(7500lbs), and some other various snow removal equipment. My truck weighs 7600+, trailer is probably 4k. I was around 27k total, about the max for a 97 F-250. LOL

 

[JD3020]

Totally different trucks.

Aside from engine/trans what was changed in the F-450's from 01-08?

 

[old96stroker]

I think he means f450 to f550. I don't have any knowledge but I believe the f550 is a totally different animal though, I have heard that before. The truck I spoke of the front and rear axles looked like they came out from under a semi truck. It drove the same whether it was empty or had a 40' gooseneck behind it.

 

[UpstateDieselGuy]

If I'm not mistaken, the older ones were leaf sprung front ends where as the newer ones are coil sprung. That alone will make a huge difference in the ride and handling.

Chris

 

[morepower02]

Suspension and engines

 

[B.Warning]

You can haul 2 pieces of equipment with a F350.

LOL


On another note. If the front end and brakes check out good there the same trucks as your used too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[04cr450]

for my company we have an 06 f450 in our fleet. Will haul anything you put behind it or in the bed- no comparison to an f350, but boy does she ride stiff, real stiff thanks to g rated tires. Their work trucks for sure.

 

[04cr450]

Aside from engine/trans what was changed in the F-450's from 01-08?

the 450's have 430 gears in the rear- no limited slip , with a monster rear dana s135. The front has a wider front end dana super 60, 19.5 wheels. Also the rear has no blocks, just springs. I believe that's it, I am speaking for the 2006 my

 

[JD3020]

Brian you load your trucks a little more than i do. LOL Maybe this 450 would handle it fine, if we had a good trailer.

I've done a little reading, and from what i've gathered the front axles on these trucks are the same as a normal D-60 from the spindle in, spindle out its truck specific. So i'm assuming that if i wanted to make it 4wd i'd just have to throw in a D60, hang a t-case on the back, use the stock f-350 front driveshaft, and have the rear shortened. Correct? Or spend some $$$ and get a set of 10 lug axles off a 05+ and go coil springs.

 

[Buck1]

7.3 450s I have messed with I the past, had the same Dana 80 as a 350, but with bigger brakes and bigger 8 bolt pattern hubs. 550s is where I've seen the D135s come into play.

X2 on what everyone says about ride and low gearing.