Maintenance

So the first thing I do when I get a new vehicle is run through the maintenance.

• Oil and filter change
• Fuel filter change
• Air filter change

This way I know when the last oil change was done and it gives me a chance to find any sketchy repairs that were done by the PO. I did find some work that was not quite sketchy, but not exactly right either.

The 7.3 takes 15 quarts of oil. That’s nearly 4 gallons.

Luckily for me, Amazon comes through with a five gallon pail of oil.

While shopping for my oil & filters, I leaned a handy Amazon tip. Everyone knows about Amazon Wishlists. When you create a new wish list, you have the option to “keep purchased items on your list”. If you check that box, you can make a list of the things you’ll be reordering on a regular basis

Here’s my maintenance list

The air filter and oil & oil filter change went without a hitch. The fuel filter was a different story though. Reading through the procedure on PowerStroke Hub I was supposed to use a screwdriver across the top of the filter canister to unscrew the cap. The cap I was looking at needed a 1″ socket to remove the cap.

Oh well, staring at it wasn’t going to make it become the cap I was expecting. When I removed the cap, I learned that the cap and filter were a one piece assembly (from NAPA), so now I had two choices – 1) put old filter back in while sourcing a new cap or 2) wait until tomorrow with no truck so I could use the wife’s car to get a new cap.

Turns out the nearest cap was at a NAPA store 45 minutes away, but they were willing to hold the cap for me until I could pick it up tomorrow.

Fast forward to tomorrow and the counterman hands me the new cap. Now I see why they had a “fuel filter cap wrench” listed on their website – this cap was different from the Ford part.

The Ford part, which has a reputation for breaking (many voices on the various forums advise one to keep a spare on hand), is opened by laying a large screwdriver in the grooves that are cut across the top and using the screwdriver as a T-handle to open/close the cap.

The NAPA wrench is crenellated (think of the top of a castle, the wrench looks like the jagged top of a tower) to match the holes in the top of this cap. Of course they didn’t have the wrench in stock. That’s OK, I have a 16″ pair of channel locks that will get this cap on nice & snug.

I don’t know whether the NAPA cap is their design, or International’s. I don’t know if it has the same weaknesses as the Ford item. It looks like I have to order another NAPA cap to be safe in addition to the special wrench.

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