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Old 05-19-2010, 12:03 PM   #1
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7.8 brazillian

Hello.....total nube here.

I was hoping to get some opinions about the 7.8 Brazillian engine. I'm looking at a '92 Ford Wayne 36 passenger bus. The original engine was recently replaced with the 7.8 . One person I asked said those engines are great if you want to spend 2,000 bucks to replace the fuel pump every few thousand miles. Sorry I don't have the model number with me right now, but I could post it later if that's helpful.

Any thoughts on this engine would be much appreciated.

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Old 05-19-2010, 03:18 PM   #2
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Re: 7.8 brazillian

same fuel pump as the dt series international motors and they will run for a million miles.

7.8 is the big brother to the 6.6 liter Ford engine. Both are tractor engines that were re-designed for highway use. I don't know too much about the 7.8 specifically, but i had a 6.6 liter that had around 300K miles on it when i sold it, and it was still running even after 1K gallons of wvo.

They run forever, but parts are a bit scarce. the 6.6 is not very powerful, but i think the 7.8 is supposed to be a huge improvement in this category.

I would not be afraid to buy a bus with a 7.8 Ford Brazilian motor in it.
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Old 05-19-2010, 06:23 PM   #3
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Re: 7.8 brazillian

Hey Lapeer,

Thanks very much for your post. I'm also waiting to hear back from a guy in my hometown who did all the school bus repairs there for 20 years or so. I will condense his response and post it here as well. Thanks a lot.
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Old 05-19-2010, 08:17 PM   #4
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Re: 7.8 brazillian

forgot to mention that the 6.6 liter is reasonably fuel efficient. The 7.8 is essentially the same motor....i think they even have the same block, just bigger cylinders on the 7.8.

With a diesel, you generally only have to pay for the fuel you use. So having an extra 100hp engine won't necessarily cost you more money in fuel if you keep your foot off the skinny pedal. Some engines are more efficient than others. The cummins 5.9 is one of the only common skoolie motors that is more fuel miserly then the 6.6 ford motor.
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Old 05-21-2010, 09:53 PM   #5
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Re: 7.8 brazillian

I work for a Ford Heavy Truck dealer in the parts dept, and you can take the following information to the bank. You DO NOT want to buy anything with the Brazilian motor in it... Parts are nearly impossible to get, and extremely difficult to look them up, the normal rules don't apply when buying parts for those things. We run into this constantly, though lately we've got less and less calls on those motors. Much of the parts are now listed by Ford as obsolete.

You should also be aware that Ford no longer makes Heavy Trucks, biggest thing they make these days is the Medium Duty F750... They sold their heavy truck line to Frieghtliner 10 years ago, who retagged the line as "Sterling Trucks" and as of last year, stopped making Sterlings and shut down all the plants. While Sterling/Frieghtliner still supports parts for their line of trucks, and the old Ford Louisville series trucks, a lot of the parts are now coming up as obsolete also. And Sterling (the major supplier of older Ford HD Truck parts) does NOT support the Brazilian motor at all...
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Old 05-22-2010, 12:06 AM   #6
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Re: 7.8 brazillian

Interesting input. What parts are you finding to be impossible to get? I have looked up every part on my bus that I could think of as being a common replacement part from the water pump to the injectors and nothing is very difficult for me to get. I would imagine that if I melted a piston or threw a rod I'd be SOL, but if I did that with ANY motor other than MAYBE a GM or Ford gasser I'd be looking for a different bus anyway.

At any rate, I have no complaints about my 6.6. I will warn you that it's a non-wastegated turbo which means that the hot side has a fairly large housing so it spools slowly. You have to get the engine spinning some RPMs to get power out of it. On the flip side, wastegated turbos are more complex and more expensive. All of the B-series Cummins engines I've seen have been wastegated, but I'm not sure about any other makes.

My local Ford dealership has all the exploded diagrams on microfiche for my motor still.\

*edit* New Holland tractor dealers are also a source of parts. The guy I talked to at the one local to me was very familiar with the engines. The only people still running them are the hobby farmers because the big commercial farmers have stepped up to ever larger and more advanced tractors, but they do still exist out there.
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Old 05-23-2010, 09:22 PM   #7
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Re: 7.8 brazillian

You Ford dealer must have deeper pockets than the Ford truck dealer I work for, the new Microfiche cost about $5,000 (per set) and our dealership won't put out for it. So if it is not on our old outdated Fiche, or can't be found on the FMC Dealer website or on CPD we simply don't have a way to look it up.

Then again, it's likely our parts sales staff don't want to be bothered with it either. Since Freightliner shut down the Sterling line, we no longer sell anything larger than a F-750, so they are trying to divest themselves from the old Heavy truck stuff and push forward with the SuperDuty & Medium Duty truck parts...
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