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Originally Posted by SoCal79
Papa Rick not trying to hijack your thread but it seems to apply to your situation, Truckdobe can you elaborate? I am looking to go from a 79 to a 95 no bunk local dump truck work. I have never driven anything newer than an 86 (pete 359) so I am nervous that I will make a mistake and not like the 95. My reasoning other than driver comfort is here in the communist state of CA they are pushing to get older (1990 and down) trucks off the road,they offer these crazy programs to pay 80% of a new 2007 truck but there are mileage guidelines that I don't meet plus they want to put a tracking device that records speed/miles/emissions,no thanks. They do want every diesel truck registered in the L.A. basin to be retrofitted with emissions equipment so either way I can't escape it. Any way is it your opinion that an overhauled 359 beats a late model? I love & hate my truck so I am on the fence but I think cheaper is better.
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What CA does affects me some b/c, although I live in SC, I'm based out of San Diego and have to run there a lot. I've turned down a few newer engines in the past few weeks. There was some question of replacing the 425b while the truck is disassembled... I'm hanging on until it's illegal to run. :wink:
Engines:
A '95 wouldn't be so new that you'd have all of the problems associated with a new truck. Our '96 was a good one, our only real issue with it was heat. I thought the 'E' model ran stupidly hot; can't figure what good it does to have 600hp and still can't pull a hill b/c of temp beepers going off all of the time. We cleaned the ATA, radiator and coolers (broke them apart) yearly and replaced the thermostats every year; never mattered, it always got hot. ...had to drop 2-3 gears to keep it from beeping out west on hills that we could've and should've been pulling at the posted limit.
Then came the ACERT which ran even hotter than the 'E'. Of course, it's designed to do that so the beepers are set to go off at a higher temp, but I just can't stand looking at a heat gauge over 200 degrees for long. Heat is NOT good, I don't care what they say, it shortens the life of anything.
My 460b is doing just as good a job, I'm still dropping the same amount of gears, but to pull the hill not to keep the truck cool. :wink:
Transmissions:
The '07 had the new 'low inertia' 18 spd that is lighter and supposedly requires less hp to turn. We only put a 100k on it, so I don't know how long it would've held up, but do know that it didn't seem as tough as the '96. We had a million miles on the '96 and the new transmission was not a bit tighter or quieter from day 1; not encouraging to me at all.
The cooler on the '07 was back by the transmission instead of up front, causing it to run hotter as well.
It did shift nicely, but then, so did the old one.
Trucks:
I think the largest disappointment is in this area. My '96 was almost as well built as my '87, '90, '92 & '93;
almost. I had no squeaks and only a small rattle in the passenger door that I was in the process of tracking down; not bad for 1 mil miles. The '07 was a plastic piece of crap. KW warranties squeaks/rattles for only 25k miles, after that they are yours. That thing sounded like we had 7 styrofoam coolers riding up front with us for the first week. I drove down the road stuffing paper everywhere for a month....
When we went in at 20k miles and they wanted to know where it was squeaking, I pointed to the 1 light that wasn't squeaking.... When they popped the dash off, (yes popped, it's all plastic with snap clips; that'll really hold up, NOT) it looked like a ticker tape parade in the truck from all of the pcs of paper I had stuffed in it. The entire lower dash on the passenger side was loose from the factory and the dealer couldn't make it snap in either, it caught on 1 clip out of 3 always, the others never even made contact. After that, it still squeaked and I still had paper folded and stuffed in it.
Both doors rattled on almost every bridge seam. The headliner was cheap, the roof so flimsy that it moved when you opened and closed the sun roof; no way to get up there to service the lights/horns or transition to the sleeper roof to service those lights.
The plastic dash is HUGE and in the way, the tilt only tilts the head of the steering wheel, not the column, so it's useless and uncomfortable. They got really STUPID and changed to a floating throttle that was completely useless, if you simply rested your foot on it, you'd be going 100; so we had to literally hold back pressure on our right leg all day... VERY uncomfortable and eventually led to 3 wks off and multiple visits to the chiropractor from muscles spasms, hip and low back pain.... you can't hold your leg up for 8-10 hrs a day for months on end.
The relatively inexpensive signal starter is no longer inexpensive and easy to change. Now instead of only controling signals and 4-ways, it's a 62 function, signal, headlight, windshield wiper, plastic pc of junk integrated to the steering wheel like a cheap car.... flimsey, complicated and expensive.
My '96 and '07 were supposed to be the same trucks, they looked so much alike that my neighbors never realized that we bought new. There was NOTHING better about the '07 except the paint and I could've painted the '96 for a few thousand bucks, there were many things that were much worse. I'd have paid twice what we sold our '96 for to get it back, just to have a truck worth driving.
Altogether a
terrible experience. The '92 I'm in right now is a much better truck and gets better fuel mileage.
Again, moving to a '95 wouldn't create nearly as many issues.
For me, when the time comes, I'll just put a crate motor in the 359 and deal with engine problems... It certainly won't be in a crappy, plastic POS.
The '07 rode good, so I bought new suspension for the '87. The wide-trac axle was nice and improved turn radius, so I bought one for the '87. The A/C blower worked better, so I'm upgrading that as well.... anything new worth having, you can add to the old truck.
I also have a choice in titling, I can keep it an '87 or make it an '08 'Special project'.... the jury is still out on that...
