Hello greasyshirt,
I have an International 4700, 1999. It's getting tired & so I'm looking for a replacement. I run cabinets & counters from Rochester NY locally & about a 400 mile radius. I need 33k gvw for the loads. I'm looking at an 07 338 with 170,000 miles, air brakes, leaf springs, standard tranny, 411 in the rear end, & 24' box. Truck was a Penske rental, seems to have no alarming stuff in their mx records. Also looked at an 06 Sterling and an 05 Pete, both with <200,000 on C-7 engines. I am favorably impressed with the 338. Advice on what to look for when I personally inspect it? Also, any idea what engine rpm at 70mph would be? Any feedback on the Rochester NY dealer? (been there & they seem to be with the program) You may also want to know that only put 50,000/year on it.
I have read through all the posts on this string and as others have also said, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.
thanks
jeff
Hi Jeff.
I know diddly about spec-ing a truck. I just fix 'em. As far as cruise rpm is concerned, no idea. I'd test drive it.
I despise the C7. No removable cylinder liners, the HEUI system likes to grenade and send metal through the injectors, weird things happen with the valves, and they like to shove them halfway under the cab, making them impossible to work on.
On the 338: check the right rear corner of the cylinder head, if they're run hot it may leak both oil and coolant there. The oil coolers leak both oil and coolant after a while. This was improved on later trucks, but that's not gonna help you any.
Have the dealer run an "scv test", and have them explain the results. This gives a picture of injector, injection pump, and scv (aka suction control valve aka fuel pressure regulator) health. The 05-07 trucks give a little less clear picture with this testing, but you're looking for an injection quantity of 7 or greater (not as big a deal with these older trucks, especially with manual transmissions), and "FCCB" numbers close to zero. Plus or minus 3 or 4 is where you start seeing weird idling, and they run real crappy at 5 or -5. 10 is baaaaad.
Make them cycle the VNT controller while you watch, and the EGR valves, too. Deviation should not exceed 5%.
Play with the blower motor switch. The blower motors get fouled up over time, and they manifest that problem by frying the switch and melting the connector on the back of it. Anything short of replacing the blower motor, the switch, and the connector body (plus fried contacts) is a waste of time. The blower motor resistor is the only thing that doesn't react to this, generally speaking.
The hoods like to crack. A LOT. Right at the hinges. You'll see it if it's happening. The dealer has a procedure for fixing this. A replacement hood is hella expensive, but if the current hood is about ready to fall off of the truck, it might be the better option.
Some of these suffered from rust from road salt. Slide under there with a creeper. If they painted over everything, call them out on it. Things like the power steering hard lines will actually rust through, so eyeball that stuff carefully.
If you manage to get there early so you can cold start it before they warm it up, that would be great. Sometimes injector problems manifest themselves with a loud cackling when first cold-started. The engine might lope. After a few minutes, it may go away entirely.
I'm sure I'll think of something later, but I've been getting 4 hours of sleep every night this week, so I'm gonna turn in early (at 11pm).