Brad Clayton

My jacket arrived today, nice little suprise when I got home. I must be a small guy, xl fit me perfectly. "I like it alot"

Now all I need is a new bike to go with it!

I saw two new engine concepts this weekend in magazines. The first was a "Popular Science" 'zine that had a six stroke engine. The engine prototype was a one lunger that would complete it's usual four strokes but on it's normal 1st stroke now the fifth stroke it would be injected with water that would instantly turn to steam powering the piston down instead of fuel and on the sixth (exhaust stroke) a aux. valve would open allowing the steam to be redirected to a cooling condensor to be reused again. Pretty wild and simple idea.

The second was in a "Truck Trend" 'zine. This engine had a variable compression ratio for better runability on E85 (spark knock prevention, ect.). I didn't take time to read the article but the pictures showed the oil pan off and a pretty wild rack gear set up. If you're in a store that has magazines check out the new issue. Not sure if I would want this motor in the lifetime powertrain option if I were producing it though.

alrighty then. Ford has a really good reputation with trouble free wiring, excluding the 6.0L of course. When a wiring concern crops up it's usually due to modifications or a sloppy repair of some sort. I am almost positive the trans has been out of this truck, so I would examine the wiring crossing over the trans crossmember to the mlp switch, seen a lot of them rub thru if not push pinned back into the xmember, 4x4's usually get tangle and ripped completely out.

Other than that I would just check closely for modifications, and if nothing comes up you can fuse each branch with a smaller amp fuse to help pinpoint, or up the main fuse by 5 amps.

/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/notworthy.gif There shouldn't be a broken down 7.3l anywhere near your training facility.

Haven't seen one of those in a long time Bruce. I actually had to think for a minute, to figure out what you were talking about. Then it all came back to me and I was glad we were in the present day and not the early to mid 90's anymore. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Yea, I stared at it for a while then gave up on it. I think this truck belongs to an older couple who drags a 5fth wheel all over the country. They have an '07 Edge with the same log going, it must be ok because they haven't complained about it. The only reason I saw this one is because they were in the owner's office for a while raising sand about it. They seem to be pretty anal (but maybe not so accurate) about tracking mileage.

Ever see someone top off a tank soooo many times before? They must have to pee every 2 hours.

I tell ya, when me and my wife retire, and we decide we want to see the country via traveling motor home style, then I'm buying an 18 wheeler and getting paid while we travel.

Is this truck a stick shift? If so I would check the wiring where it runs near the clutch pedal. They use to be bad about the harness rubbing on the pedal and blowing fuses. That's the only thing that comes to mind from previous repairs.

I know a lot of customers are confused. They should definetly be buying a Focus. But they buy a Super-Duty, thinking it is a passenger car. Of course they can't claim they have the biggest pecker if they buy a Focus.

I bet a lot of dealers would try to find a way to sweep the evidence under the rug and warranty it.

They seem to have trouble holding customers accountable.

It's been to my experience when a guy does something stupid and everyone knows it, he just wants to pay the bill and get the hell out of there.

This is gonna be a big bill though.

Quite a few on my end. But I had been at the same dealer and same small town for 17 years before becoming a yankee. There were a lot of "old timers" when I came into the field, I was most definately glad to know them before they bowed out.

There was a local garage in my area whose tech faced manslaughter charges after rebuilding a trans in a Suburban and not putting the park pawl in correctly. The vehicle rolled into a lake and the occupants drowned.

Not sure of the outcome of the case, it was quite some time ago.

I think about that incident from time to time when I do a brake job.

Here is a satisfied customer's (sarcasm implied) fuel log that was attached to an R.O.

Kinda fuzzy picture.

But we didn't send 'em packin' empty handed. Not one to let someone leave with an actual problem, all the basic stuff was checked over.

Brakes dragging? check.

Any crazy air deflectors in use? check.

ULSD being used? check.

Tires inflated properly? check.

Turbo making rated boost? check.

Dif gears 4.88 or lower? check.

Towing a 30,000lb camper with questionable rubber? uummmmm.

Oh well it seems they should invest in some cetane booster, I'm talkin' 'bout cases of the stuff.

I don't know of anyone in my area who would address a fuel consumption issue, whether it be our current platform or all the way back to an '83 model. Majority of the time it is what it is. If the truck was used for it's intended purpose then mileage would never be an issue just part of the bottom line.

If I had the money I would by a '08 in a heartbeat eh.......maybe not the best term, but at any rate, then I would get a Big-Tex goose neck and I would work it til it laid down on me, fix it and keep going til it wouldn't go anymore. And I would pass those fuel bills right to my customers, or swallow it up in my overhead.

Dude, that is the funniest thing I've read to date!!!!!!!!  

Bear in mind I said work there not own the place.

That or worse, I'm being told that if they don't run ulsd the mileage can be off due to more frequent regens.

We have a lot of customers reading message boards and shying away from '08s due to mileages. I'm not sure what they're getting instead though.

Had a customer stop in with a whole mileage log, which work out to 8 mgp and over a grand in fuel, it was attached to the R.O. I'll see if I can get it on here for all to see.

My part time job in the ski industry would be looking better everday!

ya been away for a while eh?

People posting about sightings of no emmisions on '08s sounds kinda fishy to me, I have yet to see or hear of this. But that doesn't really mean anything as far as my input goes. I have seen some strange things come out of the factorys that were a miss though.

At least we don't live in Japan, where you are forced to replace your engine every 50,000 miles or so to meet emmisions.

Excellent advise by all. I think I am going to hunker down and put my best foot forward and start doing some homework. Who knows maybe I'll set a good example for my two boys in high school.

It would be tough to follow another avenue (and expect the pay I make now) other than wrenching and I do have a ton invested in this career.

I'm glad I got you guys for a support group, I can't stand to hear negative people, you know the ones who have their arms crossed and are shaking their heads no before you even ask a question.

I've been reading alot about guys manipulating they're equipment full on to they're advantage. I think it's cool to go one step or more beyond what is available. I also think that some of these guys could probably make a whole lot more money with less backache (dolor de espalda) in the computer industry rather than wrenching.

It seems that the tech world is passing me by. I'm at the point to where I need to get with the program or get out. I now no what it felt like for the old timers that had to deal with fuel injection for the first time when the carb. ran fine for a 100 years.

I started out with the idi that had no PCM at all and a evtm that consisted of one page and four wires to look at on said page. Now I gotta deal with the 6.4L. "Excuse me could you stop the world from spinning so I could get off?"

Any advise from the guys out there that over came this hurdle? Or I would be curious to hear from some guys that jumped right on the computer band wagon and embrace it with open arms.

ditto

Indeed.....not sure what we've been waiting for.

Lost count on how many of these we did down South with the heat index and all. Had quite a few that would get injector cups as well if they couldn't be cleaned up with the brushes.

Had a '94 that was so old it was still obd 1, which required cycling the key and throttle pedal and so on to do any testing, found it had #8 injector bad. The injector was froze in the cup and took such force to remove it that it pulled the cup out with it then proceeded to flood the engine and exhaust system with coolant. Craziest thing I ever saw on one of these, the thing was welded together.

I would check the cam synchro for proper installation. It has to be timed like a distributor and if anyone had it out it may be out of time. Put the engine at top dead center of #1 compression stroke and there is tool 303-630 that should fit over the synchro if all is lined up correctly. I've seen these off one tooth and not really affect anything but if there in 180 out or so things get bad, because the sensor times the fuel delivery. I would also examine the crank pulley for seperation. If the exciter ring for the ckp gets some wear, then pcm gets really confused.