Good tips, my dad did the transmission fluid (new) on the 2001 parts truck when we first got it going. Haven't changed the fuel filter on my truck yet, but when it's replaced that's the plan too.
I don't have a thermostat readout for my scangauge, but the engine oil temp showed 203F while driving 60mph, peak of about 214F while towing up a large hill.
I'm still fixing things slowly, parts are slow to come and the work area has been tied up with other vehicles quite a bit lately. I have to truck at my house atm, just fixed the marker lights (1 busted, 1 burnt bulb). I also have a front market light that has the lens with a small hole in it.
I found suggested shift points for the diesel in the owner's manual (diesel supplement), wow I was really over reving it according to their figures. I was shifting into 5th at around 50mph, all the other shifts were based on rpm @2k. I'll have to see what kind of rpm the shifts are at. Same book also suggests idling for 5-7 mins after a long trip to cool the engine, but only 15 seconds after starting a cold engine before taking off. It basically says to wait for oil pressure to rise to normal range. The book doesn't say what year it's for, but clearly it's for a 99+ truck. Looked at the axle ratios in the book, it doesn't even list a 3.55 as an option. I guess I got the highest gearing possible for a factory f250 with the diesel.
Sadly the owner's manual has no wire diagram info. I personally believe service data (wire diagrams etc) should be available free for anyone that owns a given product. If I can't find a solid source for the data, I can buy limited access to the wire diagrams ford dealers use. I read there were a couple sites that hosted pdf files of the cd and dvd's but haven't found a source for them yet.
The 92 my dad just bought doesn't display mileage on the odometer, it was sold as a 130k mile truck, but it would be nice to validate it. I'm guessing it's a power source problem or similar. I'd hate to poke around it blindly with out knowing the pin out for the connectors.
Anyway, kind of funny the TDI site is suggested, I was just telling my dad a day or two ago that we effectively have TDI's, just the engines weren't marketed that way. Similar to how our car's are DOHC but never were marketed that way.
Since I have a way to monitor engine temps somewhat well (oil temp), I can block off the grill more until I either see temp rises, or it's completely blocked off. In cold weather I'm pretty sure it's just fine being blocked off, just not sure about summer time driving.
I'm thinking about toying around with the tuner stuff, but figured it would be best to get some base line figures before jumping into that can of worms. My current 23.66mpg figure is only one tank and includes 2/3 being used in one day. My normal usage will be a lot more shorter trips, atleast while I'm driving the truck more often to get used to it and such.
EDIT:
Took the truck for a quick drive (still warm from doing some work on it and keeping the batteries topped off). Every gear shift suggested in the manual for best mpg is around 1500rpm, 2nd into 3rd is around 1900rpm (bigger jump in gearing). I'll have to target the 1500rpm shift and ~2000 rpm shift for 2nd into 3rd to see if I get good results. The truck seems fairly happy with those shift points, I think when I was testing before the shift I watched the most was 2nd into 3rd which is the big jump and 1500 is too low for that shift.