Hello again all. Been away for awhile. If you don't remember me I was on the hunt for a truck a while ago. I've found a 1994 E-350 school bus, 7.3L/Auto OD with 220,000Km (94,000mi) and basically need the same help again...

25 years experience with gassers. easy and reasonably cheap to rebuild (or replace) a gas V8 and a even a totally dead engine usually won't stop me from buying a cheap vehicle. however at $6000 for this bus there'd be no budget for any major work or overhaul. I'd like to buy this and put it on the road.

One would assume that a school bus recieved proper and regular maintainence and probably wasn't beaten to death too badly.

But in general how did these engines hold up? Is 94,000 mi a lot for these? (by comparison for example this is about half the service life of a typical Mazda 1.6L gas.) What could I expect for typical 7.3 service life?

In general I'm concerned about the long block and looking for any advice or anecdotal replies about these engines in general. Also the tranny - I've done no research yet as to what it even may be (Just found the ad and am going tomorrow to look)

Any help would be appreciated. Would be nice to be in the know before I lay down the bank's money.

...and now to search around here to see what I can learn in the next 3 hours!

thanks. Jim.