dieseldoc

Supposedly they are coming from closing dealerships. I still find it interesting that you can get the 6.4 tooling off of flea bay as bruce calls it for so cheap, and guys are getting 600 bucks for one box of the 6.0 tooling. I dont work on 6.4s more than to change oil and fuel filters yet. I am tempted to buy the tooling now while guys are selling it for so reasonable. Makes you wonder why it is so cheap....... perhaps it is because someone has a very large dinner pail.

I have been seeing the three box kits selling really reasonable on ebay. There are several on there right now complete kits and all 3 boxes selling for about 300 bucks for the set. just search rotunda tools. believe it or not these are easier to find than the 6.0 tool kits.

We use to deal with the Kenworth dealer who is the medium duty ford truck dealer. They had one technician that worked on the 450/550 chassis. Was not great to say the least, it would take an average of 1 week to 10 days before they would get to it, etc. So we started to deal with the ford dealer, who is actually right next door. They were great at first, but have slowly tapered off to not worth a shit quickly. They would get us in right away, do whatever it took to get our trucks on the road as soon as possible. Now it is well you can drop it in the yard and we will try to get to it by next week. The sales department would really work with us and go the extra mile to check things out to make sure that what we ordered would work for us and our local body builder. Now they wont even open a pamphlet to look into anything for us. We have no other place to go though, the next closest dealer is 60 miles away.

I think our salesman at the dealer if a worthless hunk of shit, along with the service department, and with the exception of 2 guys the parts department too. No one is willing to work with you, or put in enough effort to even do their jobs. I really wish our dealer had some guys with the professionalism and comittment, that the guys on this site do. Personally I think our dealer owner is trying to hold out until we see what Navipillar develops for trucks. I will have to do some more research into this on my own. The 550 really is the best chassis for us, it would really suck to have to find another chassis.

I am thinking this is bad information as well. Our ops manager was told by our salesman at the dealer that we cant order trucks for that purpose for the above mentioned reasons. I really have a hard time believing that they would do that and give up that market. ford has been the go to people for these type of trucks for a long time

We tried to order several new F-550 trucks to replace some of our older service trucks(service body with crane and hydraulic air compressor/generator). We were informed that we cannot order a truck for that use. Because the urea tank is located in a position on the truck that will not allow the installation of a service body, and there is no way it can be moved. We were also told that using the truck as a stationary power source is not allowed because the underhood temperature get too high. REAALLY?!?!?!?!? are they serious?!?!?!?! Ford currently has the corner on this market easily and they are going to throw it away. Every company in every place I have ever been that needs a truck like this uses a ford chassis for this purpose. We now have to figure out what the hell we are going to do. We really like the 550 chassis because they are much more maneuvarable, 4 wheel drive, we only need a health card to drive them, we dont have to worry about load restrictions in the spring because they are not heavy enough. Ok I am done venting.

Thanks bruce that is exactly what I needed. I am trying to do the same, pick them up on ebay. I dont have any 6.0 tooling yet and they are starting to show up on my door. So time to get the tooling, and IDS is in the very near future as well.

Hey guys looking for some essential service tool kit numbers for the 6.0. Specifically the rotunda kit numbers on the boxes. Also curious what tools are absolutely necessary in the kits and which ones if they were missing are not a big deal. The reason I ask is I have several guys with 6.0s that are now off of warranty as well as several in our fleet. So I am watching on ebay for a good deal on the needed kits. Thanks a bunch guys.

off highway fuel is still high sulfur. It is illegal to run on the road because it is not taxed the same but still high sulfur. Off highway fuel is 500ppm , and the ultra low sulfur is 15ppm.

Most definitley moved on to other projects. I learned a valuable lesson on that project and sell the whole assembly now. Thankfully that problem unit was my brothers rig, it took two weeks of bleeding a couple times everyday to get it to work right. Have done several clutch jobs since and no troubles anymore.

That would be great. I checked it out after work last night and it does not have the factory module. So I will have to go aftermarket for this option if a good one is available. Thanks for the help guys.

[i also had a couple 6.4's gel last week. They only seem to gel in the primary filter housing which sucks to get to thanks to that wonderful wiring harness on the frame. My question is which brainiac decided this was a good place to mount the filter base. We all know how critical clean fuel is to the fuel system in these engines as well as the 6.0. So they mounted the fuel filter in the filthiest hardest places to get at they could think of. I just dont understand some things.

Thanks Brad I will definitely look for it next time I am at my shop. That would be awesome if it did. I dont really want the remote start, I dont see a point in it. In fact I WILL not buy a remote start for my trucks. Thanks guys. If it does have the module all I need to do is ask my parts man for a remote lock key fob for a 96 f series? Or is there a part number I can go in with.

Midland Diesel Service. I always talk to Craig when I go in there. They are a pretty good bunch of guys. Knowledgable and treat me pretty well. Prices are fair as well.

I was at the my local pump shop today picking up some stanadyne fuel additive. They got a test stand as well. They were pretty excited too. I would love to see one in action. Congrats on the new toy larry.

Oh yeah hackery happens in the cat world as well. Unfortunately I am the one that typically has to pick up the pieces afterword. I am paid hourly, so it is not quite as bad for me. However the customer now has the impression that we dont give a shit about his truck, machine, whatever it happens to be. I care about my customers, however much a pain in the ass they may be sometimes, without them I dont get to eat and I have to live in a refrigerator box. That makes them very very important to me. Unfortunately it isnt the hack grease monkey that gets the bad name it is the whole dealer. When this guy tells his buddy's about what happened. He isnt going to say joe blow messed up my rig, he is going to say those morons at cat or ford wrecked my truck. That is my biggest pet peeve is guys that have the attitude "this is just a job, its not my machine, who cares". Oh well, they arent going to change, all a guy can do is the best he can and hope they take a few pointers from you along the way. I am not trying to say I am the best tech in the world and everyone should learn from me by any means. I have a lot to learn and you can always find ways to improve things. But you have to want to.

I am fine with cab removals, if it makes the job easier and allows a better quality repair. HOWEVER if you are going to be a hack while you remove the cab, DONT DO IT. My last experience with a cab off was not a good one. I took one of our trucks to the dealer, for warranty head gaskets. The tech opted for a cab removal to do them. Unfortunately our trucks are a pain in the ass for you guys(crane, pto cables, extra wiring) When the truck came back it had several things that were not correct. Things were routed incorrectly. Like hoses and wiring that were now rubbing on each other or other items that could cause a premature problem down the road. The clips were broken that hold the wiring above the turbo, other stuff was tied up with zip ties, that should have been bolted. This truck has a lot of miles and lots of people have been into it so it maybe wasnt all from the one tech. The biggest thing was that one of the cab mounting bolts was loose. The bolt would not turn but the washer was loose. I tied up the stuff that was hanging loose and rerouted a few others. I told the guy that drives the truck to take it back and have them fix the body bolt, dont know if he ever did or not. My advice is if you are going to do body off be sure to take pictures and notes so it goes back the way it came. I dont know maybe I am too picky about stuff like that but it is important.

Yep it has power locks. I had thought about that, however a kit for a diesel with manual trans last time I checked into it was really expensive. Will have to keep digging more.

Has anybody come across a good kit to install remote door locks into a mid 90s F series. Specifically a 96 F-250. I love my 96 and will probably be buried in it, when I die. I also own an 06 and it is ok. The only thing from my new one that I would want on my 96 is the remote door locks, and the key pad on the door. Any suggestions on where to look for one, or even someone that has installed one and how it worked. Thanks for the thoughts fellas.

For whatever reason I had to work on a terra-gator(fertilizer spreader for ag applications) with john deere engine. Slow on our side, something to do beats going home unpaid. They brought it to our shop because we are the dealer for them. Check engine light comes on and engine goes into derate. John deere dealer had 5 service calls to repair this concern, couldnt fix it. There was lots of new sensors, modules and harnesses hanging on this thing. Remembering all the times we have talked about this, that is where I decided to start. I found the batteries are 10 years old and the battery connection about as crusty as can be. I took them apart to clean them and found one positive bolt broken. Installed new batteries (failed load test). I cleaned connections and installed a new bolt. Low and behold I can no longer duplicate the customer concern. The customer hearing what we did to fix it is extremely pissed off now. I am glad I dont work at the john deere dealer cuz this guy is gonna go huntin deere I think.

I work for a cat dealer as a truck technician. However I do all of our fleet maintenance and repairs. Our 6.0 liters have come off of warranty and with the economy they have decided to keep the rigs 7 years or more. I now have more engine work to do on them and they are beginning to have more issues as they age. I use the scan tool for my own personal use, I do some work on the side for select people and help out my buddies with their pick-ups as well. However I think after christmas and all that I am going to order and IDS. I am just going to tell my buddies that I will buy the tool but I am going to have to charge them a little to help recover the cost.

He told me that they are cleaning out a closet and found it. If they can get something for it than great if not was told to throw it. I think it comes down to what it costs me to get it shipped here. He told me one tablet doesnt work but the other did until they were playing with it(slow day at the shop) and tried to update it, now it gives an error message upon start up. I have never messed with one of these so not sure if it is an easy fix to get it to work again or a complete waste of energy. Dwayne the laptop is no problem it is getting them to spend the money on the ids software and vcm. I currently use a auto-enginuity which works great on 7.3 but now that we have more 6.0s I am way behind the eight ball. They have had stuff they wanted me to do and I have told them go to the dealer I cant do shit without and IDS. they get mad and say we will have to look into it and thats the last I hear about it til I need it again. I am tempted to just buy my own IDS and everything but thats not in my personal budget right now either. Thanks for the info guys, will have to ponder on this for a while, I would tell him to just send it to me but it is big and bulky and going to cost a couple hundred to ship.

I know the WDS is kind of old technology and I would LOVE to have and IDS. It's just not in the budget right now. Just curious if I can use the WDS for a while until I can get the IDS worked into the budget. We dont have a need to do software updates at this time. I am looking more for better diagnostic capabilities(cylinder contribution, IPR command for leak testing, etc.) Thanks again guys.

Does the wds work with the 6.0? or is that why it was replaced with IDS. I have a friend that could get me a WDS set up with the cables, docking station, tablet and all for pretty cheap if I want it. He said the tablet worked great but has come up with an error message now after trying to update it a while ago. Is the tablet shot now or can it be salvaged? Any info on this system is appreciated, thanks guys.

The best hand cleaner I have ever used is the Zep brand Cherry bomb. As far as penetrating oils go I like the sea foam brand penetrating oil. I may have to give Bruces mixture a try though. We use Zep branded brake wash, we buy it in bulk 55 gallon drums. However it is extremely flammable! I mean flammable. We had a guy one day that was putting a set of injector cups in a 3406E. After washing the bores out he accidentally bumped the starter solenoid on the fire wall. The resulting spark caused a woosh singeing his eyebrows off and melting his contacts. It does work really well though, hardly a trade off. But. . . . .