Newest Ford a person would be able to do that with would be the 2010 with the 6.4L Powerstroke. I had a 2009 and it was nothing short of stupidly dependable. One exhaust gas sensor and a RH side exhaust manifold were the only repairs I had to make in around 170k miles over 14 years. Ford put a couple of radiator hoses on it under warranty early on, but other than that it was just tires and brakes.
I kept mine stock and didn't use it to pull a 30 ft trackhoe, just boats, pontoons, campers, and cattle. Absolutely no complaints other than the DPF really killed fuel economy. Last time I looked it averaged a regen cycle every ~400 miles, and would take about 25 minutes to regen at highway speeds. So, for 370 miles it was getting about 18 mpg empty, and then it would get 6.7 mpg during the roughly 20-30 miles of regen. Altogether it tended to average right in that 14.5-15 mpg range.
Biggest complaints I heard about the 6.4 was its tendency to burn a hole in the #8 piston. Ostensibly due to the regen cycle. I'm not a big enough motorhead anymore to really know much about their weaknesses, just turn the key and go for me.
I can't see how a person would really come out ahead on this if they really wanted to do a complete rebuild. You know, starting with a new engine and drivetrain. Isn't the price of a new 6.4 right around $18-30k (??). Remember, if you don't replace EVERYTHING, you are only doing a partial rebuild and will have expensive parts of the vehicle with hundreds of thousands of miles on them (axles, differentials, transfer case, radiator, etc, etc). Seems to me it would be cheaper to buy a low mileage, newer truck. A person can probably get away with a used windshield washer fluid tank, but a rebuild to me guts the whole vehicle.
