Replacing all sensors

I am going to have my appendix removed. As long as I am there, I want to have a heart transplant, lung transplant, and get two new kidneys. You might think that does not make sense.

I have a 1993 Dodge Dynasty with less than 5,000 miles, and an 1980 Plymouth Volare with 45,000 miles. It is pretty obvious those cars are stored most of the time, yet when I do drive them, the gas is over five years old, and they run just fine. All I do is stuff in a good battery, and check the tire pressures.

I can understand replacing old vacuum hoses, just on principle, but to replace the fuel pump does not make sense unless you have some reason to suspect is has been causing a problem. All new parts have a certain percentage of failures. That is why they come with a warranty. A new fuel pump has a better chance of failing than one that has been providing good service for years. The same is true of sensors.

My recommendation is to drive the truck for a good ten to twenty miles to be sure everything is working, then change the oil and do a drain and fill on the cooling system. Additives in the antifreeze wear out in about two years. That includes water pump lubricant, corrosion preventers, and seal conditioners.

If it becomes necessary to replace fuel lines, we drop the gas tank for that. Our customers would scream if we went through the time and wasted money to lift the box. Where there might be an advantage to removing the box is if the rear shock absorbers are leaking and must be replaced. The engineers at Ford had a habit of using top mounting bolts that could be almost impossible to remove when they got rusty. You can get better access to those bolts on some models when the box is already out of the way.

I am not a body expert, but I have helped a friend in his body shop when he extended a Dodge truck and turned it into a dually. If you have to fight with rusty box bolts, I would want there to be a reason you need to go through that much work. From what I can remember, I think lowering the tank and replacing any of those rusty bolts would be easier.

Drilling bolts is a job I do not enjoy. If they are hardened, that does not go real deep. They should drill pretty easily once you get through the first 1/16". It depends too on what they go into. If it is a loose nut, can you get in there with a torch to melt the nuts off the bolts? If the bolt heads are real crusty, perhaps you can pound on a slightly smaller six point socket, then twist the bolts off. Once the bed is raised up, there will be less to drill through, or the nuts may just slip out. They often sit in a sheet metal pocket that holds them from spinning on the assembly line. If the bolt breaks off close enough, the old nut can just slide out and be discarded. Sometimes the nuts are spot-welded in the pocket, and they break loose and spin when the bolt is rusted to it. Those can be hard to remove without a torch, but I do not recall ever seeing that design on a box.

You might consider spraying the nuts with penetrating oil first. I use "Rust Penetrant" from the Chrysler dealer's parts department. Other dealers probably have the same stuff with their own name on the can, but this is the one I am familiar with. From working on really old cast iron TV antenna tripods on house roofs, I can tell you Rust Penetrant does in twenty minutes what WD-40 does in a weekend. I have also heard good things about "PB Blaster", but I have not used it very much.

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Cheers, Ken