I just got bitten by the bus bug and picked up a 87 ford f700 72 pass bus.
It has the detroit diesel 8.2. It has 150,000 km on it. It starts,runs and drives well.
The guy who I got it from mentioned that the "other bus" (same year and model, same milage) blew a head gasket and now the engine was toast...which brings me to the questions:
Do these engines eat head gaskets?
If you blow the head gasket is the engine toast?
I don't want to wreck the engine since I am investing time and $$ converting the interior to a rv. I plan to use it about a month a year (in bits and pieces).
I have learned that doing the head gasket on these is extra complex and requires rare special tools is this true?
My local DD dealer ballparked $3500 to replace (labour only)
The 8.2, or mostly referred as the "Hate point 2", has a bad rep for popping head gaskets and cracking the heads. No, the engine wont be toast. Call around, find another truck shop to get a price quote.
Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between the 8.2L DD (ours is supposed to be a turbo) and the 8.2L marine DD? The boat people seem to like them, so is there a difference?
as far as i can tell they are the same engin the only differnts is that the mairne version cools the engin with water pulled in form out side so as far as i can tell if you can keep it cool and dont over heat it you should be ok but that is just what i can fuger out so i am going to in stall a water mister on the frount of the readator to help keep it cool and find other wase to keep it cool but i could be rong