This is a 2002-2003 (I’d estimate) Ford F-150 King Ranch Super Crew pickup truck in Estate Green clearcoat. That translates into Ford’s half ton full sized pickup with top of the line trim and a four-door passenger compartment. F-150’s have been fantastic sellers for Ford over the past decades, and whether buyers want a simple fleet spec stripped down model to use for work or a decked out luxury 4x4, Ford has made strides to accommodate all wants and desires when it comes to their truck buyers. For King Ranch buyers, that meant a truck with all the trimmings, including contrasting gold/tan body cladding, exclusive brown saddle leather interior, power mirrors, seats, windows, locks, and adjustable pedals, turn signals integrated in the side view mirrors, and exclusive King Ranch wheels and badges. Just about the only other 4x4 Ford and its subsidiaries had to offer that surpassed the goodies on this truck at the time was a little known and now increasingly obscure (and also increasingly collectable -mark my words on that) Lincoln Blackwood pickup truck. But, that’s for another post and will have to wait until I can spot one and get decent pictures to show you.
These are not bad looking trucks, and in fact, I sold a few that looked very much like this one during my time in the car biz. F-150’s, 250’s and 350’s were my bread and butter back then. Though, I was more familiar and made more money selling the generation of trucks following this one, and I find the 2004 on up generations of F-150’s to be better looking trucks, too.
Brand new back in 2002 or 2003, this truck probably had an MSRP of between $35,000-$38,000. A King Ranch F-150 gave you two engine options: a 4.6L V8 that was good for 231 HP and 293 lb-ft of torque, or a 5.4L V8 with 260 HP and 350 lb ft of torque. On other trim levels, there was a V6 option, but on the King ranch, that was off the table. Besides, the V6 was underpowered for a half ton truck. In fact, the 4.6 L V8 didn’t do so hot either.
What I found when I was selling these things is that people who bought the 4.6L V8 equipped trucks disregarded the towing and hauling limitations and treated the trucks as if they had the more powerful 5.4L under the hood. This was awfully hard on these trucks, as they tended to get overworked and overloaded, which would strain and wear on the engine and eventually cause problems. As a result, they tended to get a bad reputation that wasn’t entirely deserved. I’m not sure what’s under the hood of this King Ranch, but whatever it is, it sounded like it was running ok, so that’s not the problem area. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that our signature North Minneapolis crumbling infrastructure pot hole/craters had a little something to do with what’s ailing this truck.. It’s the same thing that wrecked the suspension on my last Mustang.
Right about now, it would seem these guys are probably wishing Ford had included tougher tie rods on this truck. I’ve highlighted the area I want you to focus on in this next photo. Note how the front wheels are facing away from each other all duck-footed? Just FYI, it’s not supposed to be like that. I’m pretty sure what they’ll be fixing on this truck is a broken tie rod, and probably some residual damage from trying to drive the truck in this state. In fact, what I walked out on my driveway to behold was the guy who is closest to the truck squatting down and using his hands and feet to try to push the driver’s side wheel straight to align with the passenger side wheel as the driver of the truck was attempting to operate the vehicle. It was the type of situation that had all the potential in the world to end in a freakish accident and death or maiming. I stood there cringing and watching for a moment, anticipating something truly Darwinian. Finally, I just had to try to stop the madness. I offered the guys a pry bar to try to pry the wheel back into position if they would stop rolling the truck backwards and forwards while nearly squashing the guy at the front fender, but they insisted they had the situation in hand.
Should these guys have the truck towed somewhere to be worked on, they’ll probably end up with a bill for between $500-750 to get the truck in passable roadworthy shape depending on where they take it. If it’s done right, the shop will replace the tie rods and ball joints on both sides of the truck and probably follow up with a wheel alignment. I say while they’re at it with taking apart the front end, they might as well replace the wheel bearings, because if the tie rods are snapping and failing, it’s probably only a matter of time before the bearings start to cause grief. This is the type of thing that could snowball into replacing control arms and even more stuff… and while we’re at it with fixing up the front end, I bet the shock absorbers could stand to be replaced. Having somebody else do all this stuff is probably going to add up to around or over $1,000. But, let’s say you’re a do it yourselfer and this is your truck. Here’s what you’d do.
Pick up a repair manual if you’re not familiar with working on your vehicle. These can be had at auto parts stores for around $25 each.
Buy the parts you need. Let’s avoid junk yard parts here, because there’s no way to be sure we won’t be buying somebody else’s soon to fail part.
Parts needed:
*Tie rod ends. -I found a place online that will sell a pair of tie rod ends for $35.20
*Ball Joints -Online price of $14.25/each for the cheapest ones I could find. Otherwise around $35 apiece.
*Wheel Bearings -online prices including Ebay buy it now prices average out to around $30 apiece.
*Front shocks -on the low end price wise, these run about $40/apiece.
*Control arms -Ebay has some listed with a buy it now price of about $30 each. Though there are some listings with buy it now prices that include the control arms for both sides along with ball joints as a kit for just under $100. That’s a much better deal.
So, add it all up (rounded off):
$25 For the repair manual (though if you can find one used on Ebay, you may be able to cut that number in half.
$100 For the kit that includes control arms with ball joints for both sides of the truck
$35 Tie rod ends
$60 Wheel bearings
$40 Shocks
$260 total, and the good news is, you get to keep the book so you can fix whatever else breaks on the truck. Of course, you won’t get paid for the time that you spend crawling around under the truck fixing stuff, but if you’ve got more time than money, this is a good, cheap way to give your truck’s underpinnings a new front end.
Seeing how my neighbors were going about treating their truck ,and the fact that they were trying to drive it in that condition in the first place tells me that they will probably do the absolute cheapest, lick-em-stick-em repair job possible. There’s a good chance they’ll only replace the one broken tie rod to get it up and running again, but in the long run, it will end up costing them both in time and money if they don’t just suck it up and do a good and thorough job on the front end. It’ll be a shame if they do, because this truck is outwardly in nice shape body wise, and sounds like it’s still running strong. The parts that failed are wear and tear parts that were probably way overdue for replacement anyway, so I don’t really fault this 10 year old truck for needing some attention and repair. It’s a nice older truck that just needs some TLC to be a great truck again.
No comments:
Post a Comment