the_twig_187

so it took over 5 months but the insurance company (Travlers insurance) finally approved the purchase of a new tool box ($6000 + TAX). I decided to purchase a huge MAC Tools Macimizer box in custom ordered black and green colours and couldnt be more happy. All of us in the industry know that no one pays full retail price for tool boxs. My Snap-on classic 78 box retails for $5,999 + Tax but I only paid $3,500. I got an estimate from snap-on for a replacement of my classic 78 box which states that at full retail price, to replace my burnt box would cost $5,999 + tax so the insurance company approved that number. I then went to Mac tools and said I would like to buy a new Mac box instead of a Snap-on one and what could Mac do to persuade me. The price of the Macimizer "MB1350" retials for $9,999 and was brought down to $6,000 + Tax to fit with my insurance company budget. All and all I had to pay $500 for the deductable on the insurance claim and had to give my burnt snap-on box to the insurance company and I recieved a 10 thousand dollar Mac tool box. Moral of the story...GET INSURANCE FOR YOUR TOOLS (im so glad I did!)

cell-e-brate good times come on!

you can claim the rear brake inspection time which includes time to lubricate/free up and adjust. the time is somewhere around 1 hour so for your rear pad replacement you claim the inspect rear brakes (advisor must make a separate line on the RO stating check for cause of brake noise/pulsation ect...) in order to claim the brake inspection time and then the pad replacement. but you wont get the inspection time if you replace the pads under the FMPP line. has to have a separate line for some sort of brake issue that needs to be "Inspected" to determine the route cause of the concern.

was going to say exactly the same thing. there is a TSB for edges/mkx/explorers that was just released for intermittent wipers comming on. you can view the pid and all by itself it will switch from "off" to "on". the tsb has you replace the multi function switch.

Alex do you just wiggle and pull the hoses off or do you get like a pick in there?

yah next time I will probably do that. I went a little overkill. I tried to loosen the hoses at the "T" fittings but I got nervous and didn't want to break anything so I just routed them by snaking it through everything.

Im sure many of you have seen Econolines with brake fluid leaks from rusted lines. In particular, the section where the 3 brake lines (2 for the front wheels and 1 for the rear wheels) meet in the left front wheel well and then splice into braded steel lines before bending up and going into the ABS hydraulic control unit. In my case the section where the lines met and connected to the braded steel lines was rusted and leaking break fluid causing the customer (retirement home activity bus) to tow it to the shop. Now I don't have a ton of experience with flaring brake fluid lines (have done about 3 brake line repairs in the past) therefore, I don't have my own personal brake flaring tool. I asked another tech to if he had one and if I could borrow it to do the repair. He handed me a Snap-On/Blue Point "TFL20MK" master on car brake flaring tool. This was the slickest, easiest, nicest brake flare tool I have ever use or seen. The best part about it was the price (just over $100 not on sale) I got some 3/16th brake line from pats and some brake line union fittings. I cut the lines at the ABS-HCU and re-used its fitting, individually I flared the line (I remembered to install the nut prior to flaring the line lol) and bent my lines in the same sort of shape as the stock lines back up to the HCU. When it was all done I bleed all four brake calipers and washed down the brake fluid leaks. Road tested and was very pleased with the repair. to conclude I was extremely impressed with the Blue Point master on car brake flaring tool and its ability to get into the tight space of the left wheel well and it flared "Double Flare" the lines beautifully on the first attempt with no issues or leaks.

so I ended up removing both splash shields, draining the primary rad, removing the degas/left battery tray and the windshield washer/right side battery tray. I know this was way overkill of what needed to be removed to complete the job but as this was my first time I did not want to fight the return line and I wanted to make sure that i routed the line correctly. even with all the access i gained by removing everything it was still difficult to route the line properly as it kept getting snagged on everything. (like your drunk friend in high school who you are trying to get home and just keeps fighting you the entire way.) at the end of the day i got the job done and it took me about 6hrs and paid 3.6hrs. will deff do things differently next time, now that I know exactly what im doing.

its not so much the cost of living. its the TAX'S! I make decent money, the problem is I dont get to keep very much of it (66%=2/3rds). if i gross a $3000 paycheck i get to take home $2000.

that seems like a good idea. I can see that the most difficult snaking of the line may be under the EGR cooler

Hahahha no one makes more than the shop Forman and he makes $30 hr

About to do my first broken injector hold down. #8 injector blew out and snapped the fuel return line, the injector hold down bolt head broke off leaving the body of the bolt still lodged in the valve cover. I have never replaced the fuel return line with the vehicle in its fully operational state (nothing dissasembled yet) I'm wondering if anyone has any tricks or advise for routing this rats nest of a return line through the engine with as little headachs as possible? thanks for the help, always appreciated

So I spoke with the service manager to find out more info about how they came up with their "in house" times. Apparently they take all the warranty times for all the jobs and they add 40% to it. It helps us stay "competitive" by having the highest labour door rate in the city but under cutting the techs on the actual hours they can charge for the job.

That's about the only thing I can honestly say about my shop that is one of those "deal breaker" problems, you know those problems that just eat away at you on a daily basis. We have this in house labour guide on our computers and it states the labour times for almost all jobs on all ford vehicle. We do service off make vehicles (for the city of ottawa) and they require us to use "pro demand" for our labour times. Our "in house" labour chart falls somewhere in between warrenty time and what the mitchell guide/ pro demand states. For example to change all four upper and lower ball joints on a Econoline van, warranty pays (2.1 hrs) our in house guide pays (2.9 hrs) pro demand / Mitchell pays (4.4 hrs) so were loosing 1.5 hrs on that particular job and its like that for everything. Thus we are loosing 1-2 hrs for every job over what's fair to be charged as stated by the industry standard labour guides (like the 18 hrs for the fuel system replacement when most guys say 20-25 hrs is fair). If you do the math for the year, that's a ton of hours were missing out on because of the politics of the "in house guide" The shop is pretty good in all other aspects but that one particular problem frosts me when your busting your ass on a RETAIL job just to break even. I have found it very difficult to make 40 hrs a week under this system at this shop. What's even more frustrating is that I'm doing the exact same work as I was doing at another shop where I would typically make 50-60 hrs a week. The volume of work and the type of work hasn't changed, just the labour guides between the two shops. To quote a man much smarter than I "I didn't build it, I didn't break it, I'm just trying to fix it" and I would like to be compensated fairly.

Blue Point (KRBC50T) 5 drawer tool cart Snap-on Classic 78 (picture was taken before the shop fire)

still trying to sort out whats happening with the insurance in regards to my toolbox burning in the shop fire. naturally both snap-on and mac have come by to lend a hand. currently I have a snap-on classic 78 and want to upgrade the size for sure. Mac has offered a Macsimizer "MB1354" (which retails for $10,000) and with the help of Mac Tools corporate (15% off) and the franchisee playing with the numbers = $6,000 cash total (ie no financing and tax included) The box is massive, there are 3 other techs in the shop that have that exact same box and they love it. If you took all the drawers out (and moved that little wall 3/4 of the way across the box) my classic 78 snap-on box could fit inside this Mac box. It would result in tons of opertunity to grow. I would choose the black with green drawers for colour and would add the hutch possibly a little later on. Does anyone have experance with Mac box's? The good, the bad? What kind of toolbox do you have? What kind of toolbox would you like to have?

i would have the heads sent out while they are off and tested for cracks ect... last thing you want is to do all this work and just replace the gaskets only to have it return with the same issues... COVER YOUR ASS

yup! they are not magnetic. we have to call in a mobile machine shop guy to come drill out broken 6.4l bolts any time we encounter them

that sounds awesome! just trying to figure out at $500, how many of these would I have to do in order to make my money back and then eventually start making money with the tool. In Ottawa Ontario Canada we have a lot of salt on the roads and I do end up doing my fair share of broken exhaust studs. My Shop charges 1hr for the first broken stud extraction and 0.5hrs per additional stud after the first one. so if you have 3 broken studs, my shop charges 2.0hrs to remove those broken studs on top of the labour for replacing that exhaust manifold or gasket. at $35 an hour and an average of about 2-3 broken studs per manifold. I would have the tool paid for in approx 5 or so manifold jobs. I did over 10 manifold jobs last year alone and the 5.4/4.6/6.8 engines are not getting any less rusty. I think I just talked myself into it lol

only problem with a welder is when working on bolts that are (non-farrous) like 6.4L exhaust manifold bolts. you have no choice but to drill out those bolts

would love to see an "on car" how to video of a 5.4L (as they are generaly the toughest in terms of space). The feedback from buyers is very positive but I would like to see more videos before commiting over $500 for the kit (keepin mind that im in Canada so that $500 is closer to $1000 for me)

ohhhh I like that angle! This box is rated to hold thousands of pounds of weight in tools. Over time as the box rusts and rots, what if one day I open that top drawer and the rust lets go. My top drawer holding hundreds of pounds worth of tools falls and takes one of my legs off! Not only is the box an eye sore but its going to become a safety concern moving forward The box is double walled so the outside wall that was burnt and warped is starting to rust on the inside. the only way to sand and repair and paint that would be to remove the drawers and then cut the wall holding the drawers to access the inside wall

Exactly! Make it focused on long term. Boxs last decades and are inside a climate controlled environment (shop) at all times (they don't depreciate like cars) and I planned on having this for the next 20-30 years and sure you can slap some paint on the side but the metal is warped and wrinkled and now the drawers are weaker because of it and will break and rot off long before my 20-30 years of use expectancy

That's what I'm expecting from the insurance company... The side of the box is warped and dented... The box paint is powder coated paint so it will never match. And how strong are the welds on the inside for the drawers? I have thousands of pounds of weight inside that box, how long until the box falls apart from rusting on the inside? A year? Two years? I bought the tool box for over $6,000 less than 3 years ago with the intention of having it for my career as a mechanic (20-30 years). It may hold up today but the integrity of the box has been compromised and it will not last for 25-30 years like it would have had it not been burned in the fire (that's going to be my arguement to the insurance)

no i have the box paid off (paid it off last year with my $4000 government grant)