Mekanik

I have seen a guy screw up valvetrain on a 6.0l headgasket job by not removing the rockerarms from the cylinderhead. He thought he would save time by leaving them installed on the cylheads, and trying to line up the pushrods while installing the heads. It didn't work out too good.

I am working on a 2006 Taraus with a 3.0l 2 valve engine. The customer's complaint is that intermittently the engine will crank and not start. As always actually verifying the problem is the biggest challenge. It took two trips and one week each time to verify the problem. It is getting worse and happens more often now. It will more likely happen after sitting overnight. No DTC’s by the way. One thing I never really liked was the way it fired-up. It seemed to start just a teeny bit slower than other 3.0l's. The first time it came in I put a fuel pump in it because it leaked down, but guess what? That didn't fix it. Last week I was able to get the problem to act up quite a bit. If you cycle the key after it doesn’t start it will usually start. Sometimes the needles for the gauges start twitching after the engine finally starts. The first time it was in I made sure the CMP syncro was set properly. The syncro was recently replaced and I would only feel better if I knew it was timed right. I was able to determine that when the problem occurs I have good fuel pressure and spark. I do not have the ground pulse from the PCM. CMP Fault pid reads “No”, SYNC pid reads “yes” I have a good RPM signal, I load tested all the powers and grounds for the PCM and replaced the PCM this morning. This afternoon I have the same exact problem. I called hotline and they suggested I do a voltage drop of the starter circuits and if they are ok, replace the starter motor. Supposedly they have had some starter motors creating RFI and shutting down the PCM. The circuits test fine, and I put a starter motor on the vehicle. So far so good, but time will tell and I think I’ll keep it for the rest of the week. One thing I noticed is the way it starts now. It fires right up. Like I said before, I was never really happy with the way it started before, but now it starts right away. Hopefully this car is fixed.

Thats awful. What you get for tightening a pinnion nut with an impact!!!

This was back in 1995 when I was working at a Lincoln dealer. There was this one guy putting front coil springs in a Town Car, and the spring compressor let loose and basically cut off his pinkie finger. When the medics got there, he let them see his finger. He was holding his hand palm up and I could see the front side of the finger because it was twisted all the way around and only holding on by a little piece of skin. This by the way was the most anal mechanic I have EVER worked with. Yes he was using the proper tool and the workshop manual. Another one was in the same shop about a year earlier. A service writer got into a old grand marquis to move the car down the service drive that went right through the shop. The floor mat was all scrunched-up, and when he pressed down on the brake pedal, the accelerator pedal went down too. He squealed the tires and nailed the service manager who went over the left fender and then got run over by the left rear tire. His arm was broken really bad and he was flopping around like a fish out of water. I have never in my life heard a grown man scream and cry like this. I was two stalls down putting a trans into a Subaru Justy, and I can still remember the sound very vividly. The messed up thing is the service writer that just ran his boss over with a Grand Marquis, walked over to the manager who was crying like he was about to get his head cut-off, shrugged his shoulders and then walked back to his work area to write-up another vehicle.

Yes, after he said that I mentioned that damn book that comes with the engine that is meant for the "installer". Then I pointed to a warning sticker that is on my side cabinet that warns about making sure there is no debris in the intake manifold. This guy is making all thsse excuses and saying that he tried his best, but the thing is I'm not his boss. I'm not judging him, or saying that he is a hack. Me and my service director are just stating facts. Showing him what happened and that Ford will not warranty this engine.

I hear ya Jim. We used to camp in tents when I was a kid. One of my favorite camping trips was in northern California. We were backpacking for 7 days in the middle of nowhere. My wife is a little high maint. The closest thing to "camping" I think I will get her to do is in a cabin. It'll still be fun though.

I'm working on a Focus right now that the customer bought a re-man long block from our parts dept. and installed himself(He claims to be a mechanic). It got towed in Friday after he started it and it was knocing very bad about 15 seconds after he started it. Long story short, I now have the cyl. head off and can see some sort of hardened steel stuck in the cylinder head and the piston is all beat to hell. I can look in the bottom of the intake manifold and still see metal in the bottom(FROM THE OLD ENGINE), just waiting to get sucked into an intake port. The customer/ mechanic came in to see for himself. I kind of feel bad for him, but he has a real attitude about this situation. He says, "How come nobody warned me about this? " When my boss said that when we sell someone an engine, we assume that they will have someone who is qualified install it. "I am qualified. I cleaned the manifold the best I could. " My favorite was when he said that he has not done engine work in three years, like what the hell does that have to do with us? The engine needs a new head and piston, and my writer told me that it is actually cheaper for him to buy a new engine. I thought I was having a bad day, but it turns out it's not that bad of a day afterall.

Maybe I'll do something like that next summer. We have a trip to Disney World planned for November. camping sounds fun. I camped with my mom and sister all the time when I was a kid.

That makes sense, and I remember seeing the coolant level come up when opening the system.

So Jim, your saying that ideally the level will go up?

We are having a debate this afternoon. Here is the question: On a vehicle with a de-gas bottle, will the coolant level drop or rise when the vehicle is warmed up. Now we aren't talking about a 6.0l with a venting bottle for whatever reason. It is just a genral question. At first I said that it would rise, but after listening to another tech who is a instructor at a community college I changed my mind. " Don't confuse expansion with pressure. " It kind of makes sense. If I were to pressure test one of these systems, the coolant level will go down because it is being compressed. Maybe I'm wrong. We have several techs here that are saying it will go up. What do you think and why????

I see. So when you use the solvent with the machine, it is totally out of the system. I was told that the solvent left behind will mix with the oil and be fine. There was a time period where we could no longer get the pancake filter or the in-line permanent filter. We just replaced what was necessary and cleaned what we could. That is basically what i did the second time around. I used brake clean to clean the lines and evaporators. I replaced the condenser because of all the metal in it. It pisses me off that I have done thing a certain way for years without any problems, and then I try something different thinking that I will be doing a better job and it backfires.

I have used brake clean several times without any problem. That solvent dosen't seem to evaporate that easy.

I was working on a 2008 expedition on Friday that had a blown up A/C compressor. There is a TSB for this that suggests two different methods for cleaning the A/C system of metal debris. Method A: Use some ford A/C system flushing machine-We don't have one. Method B: Use two new adaptor kits with a "pancake" filter in-line before the condenser after replacing the compressor- We don't have the two expensive adaptor kits, and neither do other local ford dealers. Both methods require that both expansion valves to be replaced along with the manifold line after the compressor. It also says to either replace the condenser filter/ desiccant or just replace the A/C condenser. I figured that if I replace both expansion valves, manifold line, and flush the evaporators and and condenser along with the remaining lines I would be OK. If that wasn't enough, i would run the system for an hour and then replace the newly replaces condenser filter/ desiccant. I figured it is basically a filter and it would catch all the metal if any that was left behind. I took the filter out of the condenser and then flushed it out with the Ford solvent that is kind of like mineral spirits and there was a ton of metal in it. I flushed it until the solvent coming out was clean. I flushed out the condenser, evaporators, lines with compressed air. The evaporators and lines seemed perfectly clean. i think most of the metal was stuck in the condenser and the condenser filter cartridge. Anyway, i get the whole system cleaned up and I really thought I got all the metal out. The oil capacity was 7oz. and that's exactly what I put in. 2oz. in the compressor, 3oz. in the condenser, and the rest in the evaporators. I sucked the system down for a whole hour to boil all of the solvent out of the system. After I charged it up with freon I ran the engine at 1200RPM. The new compressor locked-up after 15 minutes. I have never had something like this happen to me. I took the new compressor apart and noticed two things. There was metal in the oil and it seemed watered down, possibly by the solvent. I also noticed what looked to me like metal transfer from two of the pistons to the cylinder walls. What happened????? Was it the solvent? Did that water down the oil and cause the compressor to get too hot? Did I not put enough oil in the compressor? The TSB actually said to put 2oz. of oil in the compressor, and that's what I put in it. I put 7oz. in the system, and that is what the spec is. The only two other things that I thought could have happened was some metal was still in the condenser. I flushed the condenser out with a solvent can at approx 100psi. and the A/C pressure is about 350psi. I could see how some metal could have gotten lodged loose by the A/C pressure. It seems like a far distance to go in such a short period of time, from the condenser all the way back into the compressor. And then there is the possibility that I got a bad compressor which I highly doubt. I would like some input on why this happened.

I found it. I remembered that it was in a SSM, but I did not have the vin. C6TZ-3123-A

Yes, it had the metal clip. All the tech really needed was the ruber seal, but he must have found one. I lost one of the metal clips years ago on a injector O-ring job. As luck would have it, I was going to the auto show while this thing was apart. I stole a metal clip off a injector connector on a 7.3L enging mock-up at the auto show.

2001 F350 Super Duty I'm looking for the needle bearing in the back of the hub. Anyone know the P/N?

For some reason I can't log into FMC dealer right now. I think that joshbuys is right. there is a circut after the inertia switch going to the PCM. I think the PCM won't let the truck start if it does not have 12V at that circut. Now I'm not saying that every 6.0L will do this. I once had a 2003 excursion that came in with a lack of power complaint and the vehicle was recently repaired at a body shop because of an accident. nobody ever re-set the inertia switch on the vehicle. Believe it or not, it also required an injector after I re-set the inertia switch. This is why I had such a hard time believing it could be a pump or anything in that circut. I didn't work on this truck, but I can tell you that it would shut down when the tech would flick the switch with his finger. I will say this, the tech that is currently married to this vehicle was on vacation one time it was in the shop and my boss wanted someone to put a fuel pump in it because of the DTC it had in memory. I told him I didn't think it was the problem and I even demonstrated un-plugging the pump with it running and it didn't stall. But there was still power on the wire after the inertia switch to the PCM.

Interesting. I never really thought about it, but Canadian bacon does not have the streaks of fat. Without the fat though, it' just ham. Sorry.

Well thats a given. I didn't even think it was necessary to mention hot sauce.

Souffle? Qu'est ce que c'est souffle? (lap that one up Dwayne ). I thought souffle was something they feed to interior decorators????? C'mon Jim. Interior decorator my ass. Souffle makes a good breakfast if you have really 'manly' stuff to do during the day. It's a great way to start the day if your going to be cuttling down trees all day like the guys in 'Heli-logger', or if your going to be king crab fishing for 20 hours straight.

Brad, you hit the nail on the head. The tech found that if he flicked the inertia switch with his finger the engine would shut-off. On this engine the inertia switch not only shuts off the fuel pump, but the PCM too. I have a 7.3L that has the same problem. I wonder if that thing has a bad inertia switch too. Thanks for the tip

LMFAO!!! Jim, you crack me up. There is no way i would eat "scab bacon". I've got a really good recipe for a bacon souffle if anyone is interested. it goes great with a side of bacon and coffee. What is beercon?

Wow, i didn't realize this would be such a hot topic. I read a recipie for a sandwich with bacon and peanut butter. Sounds a little wierd, but worth a try next Sunday morning. Jim, what do you think? I was expecting something from you.

Is that really what you guys call bacon? If so do you call it Canadian Bacon, or just bacon? Do you guys ever eat 'American Bacon'? Just curious. My wife was asking today during lunch when we were eating a pizza with Canadian Bacon.