I traded off my 04 S-crew at the beginning of September for a 14 Eco Crew. Love the truck. A couple of weeks ago I wound up picking up a 99 150 XLT 2wd for $500. The truck is a one owner truck that used to be a municipal truck. I know they over maintain their vehicles in that dept for a fact. I Was initially just going to flip it. After repairing a few items on it and driving it, I decided to plate it and will be driving that for awhile to keep the 14 from being in the salt and crap weather. Is there anything the 4.2 is notorious for? I have heard they have some intake issues but other than that I haven't heard too many complaints about them. Any insight?

 

Good little engines. As long as the gaskets are good and its running smooth I wouldnt worry about a thing. How do the vac lines look?

 

Here in a nutshell is the problem in pictures and words. Go to: http://nicholasfluhart.com/2012/10/0...ifold-gaskets/.

 

Every truck is different, you can't judge it by what others have gone thru. My '99 f150 4.2 was a former service truck that i picked up from my brothers shop where he worked. Got it seven years ago for $800 and it had the **** driven out if it. Well it now has 356000 km (220000 miles) and still going. Check your PCV valve and it's vacuum lines for leaks. There's a rubber elbow under the throttle body that can go and also a u shaped line on the back side of the intake plenum that is prone to rotting out and leaking.

 

Thanks for the input guys. This truck has sat for at least 2 if not 3 years. I figured there would be some teething issues with putting her back on the road. So far not a single problem. I have about 200 miles on it so far since she has been put back to work. The only issue I have is a slight vibration but that is in the tires. I just found a pair of diggers on craigslist I am going to go after for her. So far I am pretty impressed with the bomb. It will be a nice spare to have around for odd jobs and I wont have to worry about messing up my new rig for awhile. The bad thing is I don't have much respect for my "bomb" vehicles and tend to beat on them. This truck does pretty good smoke shows and has ripped a few off already. LOL. My last "Bomb" I had was a Olds Silhouette Van I picked up for $500. That thing went thru used tires like nobody"s business. She finally gave up the ghost in the carquest parking lot performing a R to D maneuver. Trans was about to barf anyway so I sent her out with a bang.

 

I've got a 99 4.2 2wd with 250,000 miles on it all original except new alternator. Good one engine as long as it's token good care of

 

I bought a truck that was an old service truck also, and had some minor issues. I did the upper gasket replacement - pretty easy, if I had owned an inch-lbs tool it would have been done in one day after work. It turned out that my problem was not the gasket, but the little EGR openings in the intakes - three of them were clogged shut.

I think it was only the '97 and '98 4.2's that had a problem with the lower intake gasket, and at the mileage of a truck that old it would have probably manifested itself already.