I am looking at buying a 97 XLT reg. cab, long bed ,4x2, 4.2 ,, auto tran., w / 81,000 mls. on it, for bout $7,000 . is this a decent price and what should i be carefull about on these trucks?

 

The transmission should be good. Suspension is likely worn. Your greatest concern should be a few of the engine gaskets.

www.leakingfords.com

 

It appears from other parts of this forum that there are some problems with bent rods as a result of a leaky lower intake gasket in some years.

Furthermore, a mechanic nearby told me that the V6 4.2L is known locally as the "Rod bender" because of camshaft syncronizer failures, which cause #4 and #1 to move out of sequence upon start.

The (sort of) good news is to inspect the camshaft syncronizer is not that difficult and could save a lot of damage.

Thought you'd want to know what I've observed....

Does anyone have any place I could look at incident rates for these two problems?

Thanks!
-- C

 

'03 (in-service 11/02/02) with 51200 miles, or around 36K per year.

 

Howdy,

136,000 miles!! Then I over reved it a throw a rod out the side of the block. I've got a late '99 engine now w/ close to 100,000 miles on it.

Paul

 

i ahve a 1998 xlt super cab with 131000 miles on it.

ya ready for this!!

i have made NO major repairs. tires,breaks ,a new muffler, and a few batterys. i tell my wife that if this engine ever blows and i have to drop 4000 grand into another it will still be a good deal lol.

 

I have a 97 4.2 78k on it. Hydrolocked and is now trash. I love the truck and had planned on keeping it forever. It never had a problem until it bent the rod.
Now I am looking at a 03 Screw with the 4.6.

 

our parts truck is an 97 4.2L and ran till 250k with minor stuff, after that they had to replace the engine. 250k isn't bad for a 4.2L daily parts truck.