Maintenance Time,100k miles!

[[REMOVE]] truck deets, how many were ours, how we found it, maintenance needed, how long it should run for…

If you haven’t seen the video yet, check this out. We got to watch the odometer turn over 100,000 miles! It was AWESOME! OK, I’ll back it down a bit.

Our truck is a 2019 Ford F250, 6.7L Power Stroke. Crew cab (4 doors!) Short bed 🙁 6 foot something. Nothing fits in the back of this thing. With a tow package and the puck system for 5th wheel hitch or a goose neck ball. Our hitch stays in the back unless there is a need to remove it.

We tripped over what we deemed a good deal on this truck. We are the second owners, and it was being traded in with a 5th wheel camper at a dealership we were doing business with. She was pretty, had a blue exterior, WeatherTech floor mats, leather interior and of course, the best color out there…blue (Blue Jeans Metallic). Thankfully we did not need to do much work to the truck to get it ready for our planned adventures.

Knowing that MAINTENANCE is VERY important to keep vehicles running we try to keep to the recommended schedule from the manufacturer. In the back of your manual, it should give a maintenance schedule.

Around the time of the roll over comes the need for a bit of not normal checks. Easy stuff like, look at the belt and check your brakes. But our book calls for a couple other things. It is time for changing the coolant. Of course, the computer is telling time for an oil change also. Oops, don’t forget to rotate the tires.

The maintenance list for today is: Coolant, Oil, and Rotate Tires.

Parts run, Part 1:

Coolant…I read the book, and it said 14 gallons of prediluted Yellow anti-freeze. I priced around and the best deal i could do was actually from the Ford dealership getting concentrated for $20 a gallon. I would have to mix it with distilled water before using. (After an over purchase I returned half of the antifreeze purchased.)

Parts run, Part 2:

We were lucky to find oil at Walmart this trip, we are using (not suggesting, only telling) Rotella T6 5w40. That is the suggested weight of oil for ‘sever duty’ because we move the camper a lot. It takes 13 quarts, meaning we bought 3 gallons even though I had one gallon at home base. No luck on the filter here.
Distilled water was at Walmart also. The best price we found on water was in the baby isle, $1.26/gal.

Parts run, Part 3:

Oil Filter. Phone call to a parts house and a quick in and out. I did not know until that run that Advanced Auto offers a military/veteran discount.

The Work, Oil Change:

Back to home base. Pull out the required tools to start on the oil change. I needed an oil pan large enough for over 3 gallons of oil, oil filter wrench, oil plug wrench, a screw driver, and a handy dandy hammer.

• Make a hole in old filter using hammer and screwdriver, place oil pan under filter.
• Once oil stops, use oil filter wrench to loosen filter, then remove filter.
• Move oil pan under oil plug.
• STOP! get a deflection pan to hold where oil can shoot out the oil plug.
• Loosen the plug.
• Hold deflector, remove oil plug.
• Move deflector out of the way.
• Wait for oil to stop.
• Clean face of oil filter port.
• Fill filter with oil, screw in place.
• Tighten to specs (check book)
• Put oil plug back in place, tighten to specs (check book)
• Fill with oil.

The Work, Coolant:

At this point, I have not started the truck yet, so engine is still cool. Our F250 has 2 cooling systems on it. I hunted for the valves to drop the coolant, and found one on both the drivers side and passenger side of the truck. Driver side valve on the radiator is for the main cooling system. The passenger side valve is for the secondary system.

Both valves were difficult to get to and harder to turn. A miniature set of plyers would be a great tool here, but I had to use standard plyers, long plyers, cooked plyers, channel locks, smaller channel locks…I finally got the valve moving and it takes one and a half rotations to open the valve.

A 1/4″ hose ran into a bucket helps minimize the mess. Use a 5 gallon bucket on the driver’s side, and at least a 2 gallon bucket on the passenger.

Remove the caps from both reservoirs to allow air to flow into the system.

I was not planning on a flush, so when the fluids stopped flowing from the radiators, I measured how much coolant was removed (6.5ish gallons) and went to diluting the purchased coolant. I moved 1/2 gal from a water jug into a pitcher. Then poured concentrated coolant into the water jug. Then from a water jug into the half gallon of coolant, and then half a coolant into the water jug. Once I had more than needed to refill the systems I stopped. This was a total of 8 gallons of diluted antifreeze in a beautiful yellow color.

There is a great tool out to vacuum the air out of a coolant system and then feed the coolant back in. I do not have one of these tools, but they can be found on Amazon and at Harbor Freight.

Make sure you close the valves on the radiators.

Pour the diluted coolant into the reservoirs slow enough to not over run the tops. You may want a funnel but I like to live dangerously and poured it straight from the bottle trying to spill as little as possible. After the coolant levels out OVER the max line, it’s time to bleed the air from the system.

For the 6.7L, the directions I found with the Ford stamp on it said to run the engine for 2 minutes at 2000 RPMs, shut off, refill, and repeat until the fluids stop dropping. If used the vacuum tool, this step would not be necessary.

After a couple trips, I needed to add a total of 1/2 gallon to the systems. Total amount changed, 6.75 gallons of 50/50 diluted antifreeze.

Ford’s price for the concentrated antifreeze was comparable to the best prices found online. When including the cost of the water, it comes to about $11/gal after dilution.

The Work, Tire Rotation:

Rotating tires is just a thing that needs to be in your habits. This extends the life of the tires by keeping a good wear pattern. Check your book on the suggested way to rotate your tires. Mine are move forward and cross the vehicle going to the back. Or is it cross forward and straight back? I can never keep those straight.

CROSS GOING BACK–I checked the book.

After rotating, check your torque specs for the lug nuts. Ours required 165 ft lbs of torque. I had to get an extra bar to get the correct torque. Pro Tip: While the wheels are off, check your brakes too!

Once all the tires are back on the ground, set your tire sensors again. (check your book). Our truck is something like this: Drive for 2 miles or more, turn ignition on, hazards on and off 3 times, (6 total button pushes); it should be in learning mode.

Decrease the air in tires until horn sounds. Start at the driver’s front tire. Then the Pass’ front tire. Move to back pass’ tire, then the back driver’s tire. Turn off the ignition and you should hear a couple horn toots.

Take ‘er out for a test drive. Relax a bit knowing your truck will love you for another 3000 to 5000 miles (or more) before looking at your next oil change.

We are hoping to get over 500,000 miles on this truck. It is not unheard of, and we will keep on the maintenance to keep the wheels rolling!

I know this is a lot of work and an ongoing investment. To save some money while out we use the TDS Open Roads card. If you are driving a diesel, check it out here BLOG LINK TO OPEN ROADS

My old habit is writing my maintenance log in the back of the user manual for the vehicle. I have done this for a long time, but we do have a printable maintenance log here: Maintenance Log