Thread: 2000 Ford Excursion Cummins Conversion

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Glad to hear someone's making progress, especially in this cold weather. Your comment about your wife seeing how nice it will be to have the extra room reminded me of a little ceramic plaque, made by my wife's Mom many moons ago, that hangs in our hallway:

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That's the truth isn't it? Let me tell a little story regarding my wife and this vehicle......

I have a friend who wants an excursion again and he has been all over me every time he sees me asking when his Excursion is going to be ready. I always told him go buy one. Well 2 weeks ago he stopped by the shop and was drewling over it and he kept calling it his. I finally told him it would take at least $20k for me to sell it. He was like well let me know. I told him to beat it. Fast forward to 2 days ago. I get a call from my wife asking why Travis is outside crawling under the Excursion, and why he's looking in it. I said he was a stalker. Haha Well I text him to quit beeing a creeper and he told me he'd give me $18k for it. I said nope. My wife happened to call me because that weasel told her what he said and she was like, Sell it! I'm like really? Seriously? We've been riding around in a chit box Kia with 3 kids being crammed like sardines in processing. I finally get the thing close to done, done, and you want me to sell it. She's like well we can buy a nice car and save the rest for a house. I can't argue that but I mean, where's the love there man?

And Travis the punk doesn't have the money but claims he's going to the bank. I told him he was a tire kicker and a pud whacker and if he comes back he best have $500 more than the $18k for wasting my time and getting my wife's hopes up.

I wouldn't sell it until you get it done done and you've had the family in it a few times, and your wife has seen how nice it rides and how reliable it is. Just me....

Originally Posted by rspears

I wouldn't sell it until you get it done done and you've had the family in it a few times, and your wife has seen how nice it rides and how reliable it is. Just me....

My thoughts exaxctly.

Well I drove it to work last Friday and it went from a good day to f me real quick. Anyone else feel like you just can't win sometimes? Anyway, the oil drain plug fell out and ran low on oil. I was driving down the freeway and heard something hit the bottom of the floor but I didn't see any rocks or debris on the road. So I kept watching the gauges and didn't see or hear anything weird. Oil pressure never went down nor did the dummy light come on. Then I heard a weird noise and felt it loose power. I pulled over when I heard a shuttering noise. Started it up and didn't hear anything. Got out and looked under it and SOB! Yep, oil plug was gone and oil was coming out. Oh great. I had my brother bring a drain plug and my dad brought oil. We put the plug in and put in new oil. Started it up and it made no noises. Drove it to work, everything ok. (Besides the overdrive in the trans is whining) Parked it outside the shop at work. Went out 2hrs later to bring it inside and when I started it I heard the inevitable........... Bad rod or main bearing. So now I'm rebuilding an engine for it. I just rechecked all kinds of stuff on this before we pulled it out of the shop. But I didn't check the dang engine oil drain plug. I even stared right at it as I was looking for an oil leak that must have been from spilled oil when filling it up as the oil was still clean and not dirty. But anyway, when I was under the oil pan the drain plug wasn't even wet. Bad deal for sure.

Be glad you did not sell it and the plug fell out on the way home to the buyer's house. If you think the possible buyer was a bit of a pain before, he would have been a huge ulcer on your butt then.
I hope it is not as bad as your first impression and easy to fix. Your wife needs to see what a nice ride you have built. Perfect for young family by the way. Keep in there plugging on, I am cheering for you.

Thanks Scooting. Luckily, I have 2 other engines sitting that I can use to rebuild. My plan is to rebuild one and make a run stand, because I've wanted one for years now, run the engine on it and then remove the old engine and set this one in in a weekend. I dug out my tore apart long block from storage today. I will peel the head off tonight and put it on an engine stand and find out how nice it is inside. Sure makes a guy rethink what could be overlooked after a deal like this.

A friend of mine once put his engine together on a stand. put the Oil pan on but the rear gasket must have fallen off while putting the pan on. Same thing through rod in garage while running in the cam.

The engine in this had 312k on it so I guess this works out better. I just baught a rebuild kit to build a better engine for my 72 chevy. Not now. But the excursion will have a rebuilt engine and trans and should last a long time.

Oh jeez
I am sorry to hear about that.
criminy!

Thanks Billy. I'm slowly working on the new engine. My brother started pulling the engine last weekend. Hopefully I can get the engine finished before the weekend.

So much getting the engine finished the weekend from the post above. I did get the engine finished and I just set it back in this morning. Now I'm switching the braking from vacuum assist to hydraboost, and I'm installing a better trans cooler. We tore the over drive housing off the transmission because the truck made a weird howling noise. Our suspicions were correct. A couple of the torrington bearings are bad and the steels in the OD clutch look to have been reused as they are burnt. This was a Phoenix reman trans, I thought they did better work than that. I may tear the rest of the trans down just in case. Fluid is expensive.

Wow, can't catch a break there Ryan..

You sure have enough projects going on. Sounds like here you don't know what to work on next.

Originally Posted by 34_40

Wow, can't catch a break there Ryan..

I guess it's better to find it now than in a few months.