2011 F550 back on the road

[Big4x4ride]

My Dad has a 2011 F550, 6.7L 4x4 crewcab with 11' flatbed on it. He never needed the truck to begin with, but bought it used in 2015 or so. Truck had 50K on it roughly, he put maybe 3000 miles on it from the time he bought it until August 2020 when the body mounts gave out. Since then, it has set parked in his backyard (grass/sand area). Was started every couple months for a couple years, and that stopped probably 2 years ago. Fast forward to now, I want to get it road worthy again so I can tow multiple rigs. Truck is pulled straight in right now, and would suck ass to work on in the yard where it is so here's my plan.

1. Verify Coolant/Oil levels are good
2. Replace batteries (they are dead, reason truck hasn't started in a couple years)
3. Pull the under hood filter, force the fuel pump and try to drain the tank (flush with some new diesel as well)
4. Replace both fuel filters

After that, hope it will fire off and move where I can get it up to the driveway to:

1. Check the brakes (Expecting to replace calipers/pads at a minimum.
2. Replace all 6 tires (we actually have 6 new tires for it already)
3. Oil Change
4. Coolant flush
5. Flush out the DEF system (drop tank if needed)
6. Thoroughly inspect truck front to back

That should make it roadworthy again where I can get it up to a buddies shop to get the bed pulled off of it (bed is is desperate need of paint, and the underside has some rust that needs attention). Flip the bed over to repair any of the damaged crossmembers and removed the chickenshit rusted out under bed boxes off of it. Send bed off for blast/prime/paInt and call it good.

Long term plan would be to put some form of living quarters on the back of it, but for now the priority is get it up and going again, get a 30-32' trailer, and load up and go wheeling.

Anything I should be concerned with that I am missing??

 

[Big4x4ride]

Thanks for all the great feedback .

Finally got to mess with this thing last week, slapped 2 new batteries in, verified fluid levels, and cleaned the air filter/box up. Tank showed 1/2 full , 20 gallons or so. Pumped out about 4 gallons and let it sit for about an hour, no separation, no water, no trash, so we called it good. Truck fired right off and didn't miss a tick. Let it run for 45 min or so, all appeared well except A/C not working and battery indicator (14.4V at batteries). Moved the truck around and surprisingly no break issues. Turned it off, and restarted about 30 min later and now have a CEL.

Jumping back on it tomorrow to diagnose the CEL, and start getting the flatbed ready to pull. Beds getting scrapped as its pretty crusty underneath and crossmembers are build from rectangle, so they have rusted to shit. It could be fixed, but not worth the hours and hassle IMO. As far as the battery light, appears there is a common issue with the charge indicator wire to the PCM so ill dig into that as well. So far things are moving in the right direction. Ill tinker with it the next few months and plan to use it to haul 2 JKU's to Moab this Spring, after that hopefully start building the living quarters on the back of it.

 

[Burns]

Why aren't "Body Mounts" on your to do list...if thats the reason it was parked

 

[Levigarrett76]

Were batteries corroded much?

No rat damage?

We need pics damnit

 

[Crashhawk]

We need pics damnit

This

 

[Big4x4ride]

Why aren't "Body Mounts" on your to do list...if thats the reason it was parked

Fuck them body mounts.. LoL, I was more focused on the mechanical side of things making my list and the mounts were a given since we have the new ones on hand already.

 

[Big4x4ride]

Were batteries corroded much?

No rat damage?

We need pics damnit

Batteries were not corroded at all actually, they were slightly swollen. Batteries were put in in 2018, tender was on them for a bit once parked, but at some point it was pulled and never hooked back up. No rat damage that I have found luckily. There were some leaves and crap around the driver battery, and some down by the radiator, but all that cleaned out ok and nothing looks damaged. Looks like a bullet was dodged there. I havent gotten any complete pics of it, but did snap a couple the other day after pulling the bed off it. The rear wheels are rusted pretty bad, found a set of 19.5 Alcoa's I'm gonna grab next weekend for it. Planning to go ahead and strip everything behind the cab in order to clean and coat real well. I've seen much worse rust wise, but I'd like to get it stopped before it gets too bad.

 

[06h3]

Glad it started and ran fine. I’d be nervous with that old of fuel and would have probably drained all of it but if you didn’t have to, great!

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Batteries were not corroded at all actually, they were slightly swollen. Batteries were put in in 2018, tender was on them for a bit once parked, but at some point it was pulled and never hooked back up. No rat damage that I have found luckily. There were some leaves and crap around the driver battery, and some down by the radiator, but all that cleaned out ok and nothing looks damaged. Looks like a bullet was dodged there. I havent gotten any complete pics of it, but did snap a couple the other day after pulling the bed off it. The rear wheels are rusted pretty bad, found a set of 19.5 Alcoa's I'm gonna grab next weekend for it. Planning to go ahead and strip everything behind the cab in order to clean and coat real well. I've seen much worse rust wise, but I'd like to get it stopped before it gets too bad.

Couldn't be bothered to not mess up the headache rack?

 

[arse_sidewards]

Couldn't be bothered to not mess up the headache rack?

He scrapped it because listing it for 2x that and letting someone else haul it was too hard.

 

[Big4x4ride]

Couldn't be bothered to not mess up the headache rack?

He scrapped it because listing it for 2x that and letting someone else haul it was too hard.

The structure was built from 2x3 rectangle and rusted to shit from inside out. Wasn't worth fixing, and wasn't worth listing for a few hundred bucks and having to deal with 400 tire kickers with no intention of buying it. Loaded up with our trackhoe, hauled to scrap 2 hours later and gone, got to work around my schedule and not someone elses. No headache and got a whole crisp Franklin for it, and now I can move onto other things.

 

[AKnate]

Where do you see rust? All i see is barely surface rust and a nice bed getting wasted.

 

[arse_sidewards]

Where do you see rust? All i see is barely surface rust and a nice bed getting wasted.

60% chance he's your typical ignorant southerner who thinks shit is structurally compromised at the first flake.

40% chance it spent too much time by the ocean and got a little salty and it was all over from there.

Seems like most of the places that make truck bodies and shit don't do fuck all to plan for and prevent rust from the inside out.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

The structure was built from 2x3 rectangle and rusted to shit from inside out. Wasn't worth fixing, and wasn't worth listing for a few hundred bucks and having to deal with 400 tire kickers with no intention of buying it. Loaded up with our trackhoe, hauled to scrap 2 hours later and gone, got to work around my schedule and not someone elses. No headache and got a whole crisp Franklin for it, and now I can move onto other things.

did you save the winch?

 

[Big4x4ride]

Where do you see rust? All i see is barely surface rust and a nice bed getting wasted.

I didnt take numerous pictures of the bed, just snapped this one as it was going bye bye, but the entire bottom side of the bed structure was complete shit, all but 2 of the crossmembers had rusted through at the ends, the back of the bed actually had a hole rusted though it as well, and the diamond plate had significant rust all on the bottom side(especially around the wheel area). Could it have been fixed, sure it could have except I don't have a good area to work on something like this, and don't have the guaranteed free time to be able to stay on the bed repairs continiuosly start to finish. Had it not been build with rectangular tube crossmembers, chances are it would have not been so bad and the other repairs would have made sense to fix, Trying to replace almost every crossmember, or portion of, just wasnt worth it to me. Over the years I've learned that my time is worth something lol.

60% chance he's your typical ignorant southerner who thinks shit is structurally compromised at the first flake.

40% chance it spent too much time by the ocean and got a little salty and it was all over from there.

Seems like most of the places that make truck bodies and shit don't do fuck all to plan for and prevent rust from the inside out.

The 40% chance is the issue. As I mentioned, this was my Dad's truck. First of all, he never needed a 550, he just went to extremes. The only use this truck ever has was hauling his boat to the boat ramp. The truck was parked after Hurricane Hanna had hit us and we were in the process of repairing out fishing cabin that had been damaged in the storm. For multiple weekends, and multiple times each weekend this truck was backed into the saltwater (one of the most hyper-saline bays in the world) a few feet. That water spraying around, all over the under side and the truck never being washed was surely a factor. Add to that being parked on our sandy soil for multiple years, we're lucky things aren't in worse shape. On that note, the rear of the truck is in much worse shape than the front of the truck luckily. As mentioned above, the rectangular tubing on things is a killer down here, any moisture gets inside it and it is destroyed from the inside out.

did you save the winch?

We made an effort to, but didn't have much luck. it was a 12500 Pierce Arrow that was clearly an afterthought on the bed. We got it all unbolted, but the way they fabbed the mount around the winch it was going to involve some significant cutting of the bed to get it removed, not to mention the freespool mechanism was frozen solid on it. Having no personal need for the winch, we decided to just leave it. If it was pulled, it was just gonna get tossed on Marketplace for a couple hundred bucks and like everything else become a headache due to tirekickers.

 

[Big4x4ride]

No updates on work, haven’t had time the past few weeks. Planning to strip the rear frame in a couple weeks to clean up everything and coat the frame, as well as clean up the springs and the rear axle. Will end up doing all the brakes, new wheel bearings, brake lines/hoses, shocks, etc. couple of parts in the pics will probably get removed and not reinstalled as well. I did snap a few pics while over at the parents house the other day. Luckily the body is in great shape, the rust is mostly centered around the rear axle area from the dunking in saltwater and tire spray afterward.

 

[Betarocker]

I'd suggest s and s disaster prevention kit to protect the CP4 pump and related fuel components