02 Ford F350 - The "last" truck?

For what it's worth the 7.3 pulled the mountains fine. Guessing a couple thousand pounds in the bed and several in the trailer. The long, steep pull into Boone had us down in 2nd gear, rolling strong at 45mph or so. As Joe said..."full on tractor mode"
 
For what it's worth the 7.3 pulled the mountains fine. Guessing a couple thousand pounds in the bed and several in the trailer. The long, steep pull into Boone had us down in 2nd gear, rolling strong at 45mph or so. As Joe said..."full on tractor mode"

This reminded me of the times we'd pull our travel trailer and climb up the hill outside of Franklin NC headed toward Dillsboro and Cherokee. With my 5.4l powered F150 the process was get in the far right lane, put your foot to the floor and climb the hill at roughly 45 mph in "tractor mode". When we upgraded to an Ecoboost powered F150 I was amazed to run the same hill with the truck accelerating while pulling the trailer.
 
Just saw this thread and figured I’d say hey and congrats before things likely go dark here. I’ve got an 02 7.3 with 296k miles on it now and it’s been an amazing truck. We generally just need to keep up with the maintenance and these will last a hell of a long time.

Mine saw its first 15 years as a dedicated forestry rig seeing hard work. As the dedicated adventure rig it’s seen a lot as well.

One issue with that Gen Superduty can be the transmission, in particular the cooler, it’s undersized. I cooked one transmission hauling heavy trailers and equipment. With the replacement (Ford commercial 4R100) I swapped in the transmission cooler from the 06 model year and solved the cooling risk. Trans temps haven’t exceeded 180 since.

I’ve been doing most of the work as needed on the rig myself these days as the shop rates are nuts and finding good shops is harder and harder. Besides, knowing how to fix things if they ever do fail on the trail (and there have been a few instances) is priceless. I broke the steering sector shaft off in Death Valley 18 miles from the nearest anything and over 100 miles to the parts store. Thank god we weren’t traveling alone so after that long trip for parts we had it back together the same day.

Anyway, great find and love to see another 7.3 out there. If I can ever be a sounding board or whatever do reach out. Since this may go dark you can find me on Instagram as @go2xplr

Happy Trails
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