Jim Warman

I dunno.... there's times I wish I was back on the bench working flat rape.... It would stop questions like "Well what HAVE you been doing?".... and "well WHEN will it be ready, then?". The answer to the first question is usually "coming every time you called me" or "dealing with an apprentice that can't handle the job you gave him".... The answer to the second is always "he can take it now, if he wants... Find me a box for these parts....". Being in an instructional position is an awesome responsibility.... it is here that we can directly affect the minds and habits of these youngsters... and allow them to be just as good as they can ever be....

Bah.... Humbug.... So you US techs got some cheap leather jacket... we Canadians got a..... ummmmm.... we got...... errrrr.... well...... Never look a gift horse in the mouth. We should take even the smallest recognition of our efforts as proof that we might be making a difference.... no matter how it may seem in the long run. In spite of what I may seem, I remain the eternal optomist (mind you, I do have it pretty good)... Moaning about what we don't have takes away from the joy of what we do have.... "Cheer up... things are never so bad that they can't get worse" /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/hitthefan.gif

Good points, Kieth... there has always been at least one 4X4 pick up parked in my driveway.... There are times that I cringe at the pump island - my SuperCrew loves $100 fill ups. This little hummer http://www.thesmart.ca/index.cfm?ID=4720 can get you about almost 70 MPG.... I can just see me taking a load to the land fill or hauling my holiday trailer with it... Like "boxers or briefs", we all have our preferances... the preferance of the majority is going to determine the winner.... Me? I'm squandering my kids inheritance.....

Just an afterthought... and I've likely said it before.... just like a concert pianist continues to practice, practice, practice... so should we to perfect our skills and knowledge. Even now, some of the innocent questions asked by apprentices are food for thought and have lead to an even better understanding of some things on my part.

Brad, several years ago, I read an article about (I think it was a} SAAB engine where they could vary the compression ratio by moving the cylinder head away from or towards the crank... sleeves and all would move.... I wonder if this is an offshoot of the same idea???? Back in the 80s, Ford was experimenting with the "polymotor".... Largely made of polymer plastics, there was metal banding around wear points. IIRC, they were bragging 170 HP from a 4 cylinder DOHC engine weighing 175 pounds....

I'm not sure how many guys here have visited their regional technical training facility, done WBTs or even the old CD <another goofy acronym here>..... Ma Ford drills SSCC into us at every turn.... symptom to system to component to cause.... Along with all the other drivel we may write on the back of the RO, it is vitally important that we include the symptoms we saw.... the system involved, the component(s) affected and what we believe to be the cause. If the cause is a modification... include that info. At the same time, I have been told I have the "gift of the gab".... I refuse to lie but there are times that I've had to "dance with the truth" to appease "good" customers and management alike.... I catch a lot of crap for keeping the odd work order past cut-off... but after I write my tale of woe, I like to ruminate on it for a while to ensure that I'm not saying anything I wish I hadn't (quite unlike my posts on the internet). Never, ever, ever exceed your level of comfort.... My first loyalty is to my customer.. this is the person that allows my boss to give me his autograph twice a month. If he wants to act like a !@#!?$!, I can treat him like a !@#!?$!.... But when push comes to shove.... SSCC Wow.... I didn't know that t w a t had that many letters /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/king.gif

The world has become a litigious place... lawyers will take a case looking for a big commission..... In everything you do, cover your ass... If you do things "by the book", no panel of your peers could ever find fault in what you do.. and we will all be judged by our peers.... If I deem a vehicle unfit for the road, I cannot legally "hold" that vehicle... I can, however, insist that the only way that vehicle leaves our property is on a hook. After it is out on the street, it is out of my hands... and I have absolvement. At the same time, I find myself reaching for a torque wrench for things I never used to... Mistakes are there to be made... and, as human beings, we will make them. But... if named as a correspondant in some sort of litigation, establishing a background of doing it "by the book" can absolve us of any wreckless endangerment issues. And it goes further... say that a customer says "I have this noise... can I keep driving until my appointment?". If you are going to say <yes>... be sure that <yes> is what you should say.... If there should be a catastrophic failure in the meantime, it could become your fault.... CYA... it's a game smart people play....

Being an old guy, I do know several techs that have retired from the trade... only to become "old retired guys"... something I cannot imagine being.... My Dad was forced into retirement at 65.... he lasted 7 years before his retirement killed him.... He was active, he was (AFAIK, in pretty good shape for the shape he was in) healthy and all he ever wanted to do was get up in the morning, go to work and "do stuff" that made a difference. He was an electronics tech by trade and, even in his 50s, was sometimes required to scale 150 foot antenna towers. I'm 57... and I don't see me retiring... I desparately NEED the responsibility that goes along with a full time job.... to look the alarm clock in the "eye" and utter death threats... to get up and have a purpose in my life.... Yep, my back ain't great, there's days I can't open a jar of pickles because the hands aren't what they used to be.... I have a bone spur on my left wrist I could poke your eye out with .. and the tinitis - some nights I'm surprised my loving bride can't hear my ears ringing.... (Oh, wait... that could have something to do with loud music and "herbs"). People that are attracted to this calling can be "unique".. and that could include the urge to be "part of the scene" until the undertaker gets his way with us. I ain't as good as I once was..... but I'm as good once as I ever was.... For each individual, there is a destiny... some destinies are left unfulfilled... other destinies are realized and some are surpassed... but all of that hinges on the individual and his circumstance... This is a noble profession if we do it right.. if we have the "want to"....

So.... when are you planning that Carribean cruise? Or will this become a log cabin on a lakefront lot??? Jes' kidding, Alex.... But I would like it if you could get a pic of the customers face when he reads the estimate.....

For those that often try to add sanity to some of the TDS threads, there is a golden opportunity regarding the prevalent use of the term "stealership".... Look for "when exactly does the warranty expire" in the 7.3 powertrain forum. If nothing else, we can reduce the incidence of this derogatory reference.

You got it... this shaft looks as good as the new one... What screws a guy up is "bottoming" the shaft in the convertor and hitting the few good splines that are down there.... Proof positive that the simplest of things are overlooked and discounted.... when they shouldn't be.... With the way I preach, I truly have egg on my face....

Ummmm, has everyone missed Chryslers "lifetime" powertrain warranty? I've only seen a few TV ads and read a couple of press releases... This isn't available in Canada... it only applies to the original owner (the bean counters are depending on the "trade after three years" crowd) and it has the possibility of turning Chrysler back into a "hurtin' unit". A sign seen many years ago... "if you can't blind them with brilliance... then baffle them with bullshit"....

A long time ago, ASE tried making a plunge in to Canada.... I even ponied up the coin to travel to Edmonton to write some of their tests... Time constraints kept me from completing all of them but I did get an nifty certificate proclaimning me to be some kind of expert.... not hard to do given the questions asked.... Given the opportunity, I would give BOTH Tech A AND Tech B a sound thrashing for being idiots.... Interestingly, I received a mailing from ASE not five years later... telling me my knowledge was about to expire.... And I could get smart for only $50 a test.... How generous... 50 bucks a pop for multiple guess questions... with three answers so blatantly wrong that the fourth answer was a gift. I don't know of any system that is going to be perfect... political correctitude keeps me from telling an idiot that he is, indeed, an idiot... My teaching is a "tough love" style designed to get apprentices thinking for themselves. I gaurrantee that I will give them the "tools" to be "the best that they can be". I can drag the horse to the water trough... it's up to him if he's going to drink or not. But... if there were some sort of MANDATORY certification level, we would have less idiots to deal with... the scarcity of labour would improve the dollars paid which should improve the quality of the people attracted to this trade which should improve this trade and on and on.... As it stands right now, I believe that most states allow anyone with a $49.95 PEPBoys tool kit and a pair of coveralls to call himself a mechanic (correct me if I am wrong.... please!!!) and open up shop.... I am still registered with iATN and am amazed with the depravity I see.... People trying to fix things with no understanding of what it is they are trying to fix... Not only that, they wont purchase the documents they desparately need... they wont invest in the training they desparately need.... And. after they bag the poor shit customer for umpteen hundreds of dollars, they admit that the concern is under warranty, beyond their scope and maybe he should go to the dealer.... But, when we get to the dealer, is there a chance that maybe sales volume is the only thing that counts? Do we have someones brother in law as service manager? Do we have a shop busy enough to be shitty? Do we have a shop that is slow for good reason? The state of the trade today is a very complex equation... in many respects, it isn't an equation that can be broken down into little bits that can be resolved individually since each part of the equation depends on the other parts of the equation... So... the work we turn out as indi8viduals is the only way we get to make "our statement". Be the best that we can be.... if we break something, don't try to hide it.... if we screwed up, admit it... A very good friend of mine has a catering sideline... I often cook dishes for him either as a favour, getting paid "somehow" or just being invited to the "bash" (cooking and woodworking are two of my "escapes")... rule of thumb... don't serve a dish to your customer if you're not about to eat it yourself.... Too many techs expect their customers to accept things that they wouldn't accept happening to their own vehicles.... Case in point... A 6.0 sitting in one bay this very day... A new RETAIL motor installed not long ago.... Now... the cause for concern involves a piston cooling jet, a large chunk of piston and a large chunk of engine block from the bottom of #1 cylinder.... None of these is because of the previous tech.... However.... What about the broken fan stator - the missing stator stand-off from the lower right side.... the nut missing from the cooler line support at the right side of the engine... the broken FICM harness retainer... all this and more left behind by a "trained professional".... The tech working on it opined that he should go on the message board and speak his mind.... I told him that if he didn't, I would... and that it would probably be better if he did.... I think I'll go look after I close this tirade....

Word to the wise.... The SuperDuty has no EPA fuel mileage rating.... This thing is a 6000 pound plus brick and anyone worried about fuel consumption has no business buying one. The bad part.... if you are about to investigate a "poor fuel mileage concern".... the mere act of trying even one thing to improve fuel mileage is admitting that you think fuel mileage is poor... I now pronounce you man and wife... this simple act will have you marry this truck and the trucks of any friends that this person might possibly have. I get the occasional fuel mileage complaint on most any platform.... I also have a convenient stretch of highway that I can use the IDS fuel consumption test on... A two way average of instant mileage at a given speed.... Almost always better than the EPA rating where applicable... There you go - thank you very much.... Be very, very careful of things you might "start".... someone, somewhere will have to "finish" it. The worst thing that Ford could have ever put in these vehicles is the fuel mileage computer.... Nobody "hand figures" mileage any more... And nobody knows how to work the fuel mileage computer, either... recipe for disaster.... Me? I have a small metal jerry can... when it was new, I couldn't put 32 cents worth of gas in it.... now it holds five bucks worth of gas.... with room to spare.... I guess I'll have to fix that chain saw - it uses more and more gas every year....

I'm still absorbing..... the idea that inverse voltage (reverse polarity) is being applied has me intrigued.... 07T07 has us replacing injectors that had reverse polarity applied during testing... and the 6.4 bible tells us that reverse volts is applied to de-energize the injectors.... But we don't see inverse volts on your volt trace (other than that interesting little tail on the intial spike). And the decay of both amps and volts is fairly generous in spite of the time scale you have selected. I have to admit that I had trouble dealing with the abscence of coil oscillations and kept thinking "old school" injectors. My only familiarity with piezo crystals is from their use in knock sensors and, possibly, from other vibration sensors.... This will allow me to plead ignorance if I have overlooked enough stuff to look foolish. Instead of applying inverse volts to close the injector, could it be that a piezo stack has a good deal of capacitance? In this light, we might see the initial sharp peak and decay (but what about that pesky inverse voltage before the peak and hold?) as the piezo stack energizes... When the injector "turns off" could the mirror image inverse amps be caused by the PCM shorting INJ+ to INJ- on the injector side? Rather than applying inverse volts? Also worthy of note... I understood that these injectors operated in the 80 volt range... far below the 200+ volt initial spike and the 130ish volt hold plateau.... Again, I am "almost expecting" typical coil oscillations and trying desparately to reconcile what I'm seeing in their place. I hope we'll see lots of traffic on this subject... not so much because this is stuff we are likely to check, but because it helps us understand what is going on inside of these little miracles and it get's us used to looking at scope traces (something I think we all underutilize) and, perhaps, using the lab scope in the VMM (IMHO, much better than the cartoon in the WDS) in our daily work. More amazing... some fat old f$*k that dropped out in grade 8 is asking these questions and not some young lion.... Sorry about that, I think I'm on a crusade.... But, reality has to raise it's head and bark every now and again.... I'm sitting here swilling a beverage or 5, giving Bruce a hard time ... the house ain't getting done .... and I have a fistful of 08 keys and free reign of the shop from "beer thirty" PM to 7:30 AM.... And my wife likes reality shows - and Kieth is hiding the "puke" smiley....

I actually wish this wiener lived on my street.... He'd get the "GrampyJim Good Neighbour of the Year Award".... Used to be I'd say "too soon old and too late smart".... I think I can change that to "too much money, not enough brains".

The biggest concern we see with dyed fuel is the storage.... Straight from the bulk supplier, this stuff is often OTR fuel that has dye added when it is loaded on to the delivery truck. But, when it gets to the other end.... Water is the biggest concern (along with algae, maybe a product mix or two thrown in for good measure). One recent customer was running low on fuel out in the patch and mooched some of a guy with a tidy tank in the back of his truck (I think you guys call them jockey tanks)... There was maybe a half inch of fuel in the filter bowl on this 7.3 and the rest was water.... Bad enough that this can happen with small storage.... Once we get out to "Green Acres" or some construction sites, things can go real bad real fast.

The friendly folks over at FRT initially started out to form a group to challenge or lobby (not sure which was their choice or if they even decided on choices) Ford and the slash and burn treatment of SLTs.... That turned into a quest to Onionize shops and then use bullying tactics to squeeze more dollars out of their shop. Any mention of persuing higher earnings through "merit" get treated with anything from disdain to hostility. At the same time, there are occasional murmurings asking about the government licencing we Canadian techs are subject to.... While no gaurrantee of trained, conscientious techs, it evens the playing field, prevents those abjectly unsuitable to the trade from entering it, allows recourse and ensures at least a basic set of knowledge and skills.... Alberta, at the very least, has a pretty strict labour code. For many states, I think an enforced labour code would alleviate many of the concerns I see techs mentioning.... Like I keep saying... if we want to be treated as professionals, we need to act and sound like professionals... we need to keep techs inadequate for electronics performing tasks more suited to their abilities..... and we need to make that brake job pay the tech less and that driveability concern to pay the tech more....

Ford drop shipped us some EGR cooler test plates a long time ago.... I think we used them a handfull of times and now they sit forgotten.... Critical point... if we follow the TSB properly and raise the rear of the vehicle enough, we shouldn't need the test plates. If we pressure test the system in accordance to the TSB without raising the rear of the vehicle, any coolant loss will wind up in the right side manifold where we can't see it.... *Brain fart*... see what I nearly did to myself in the "AX4N" thread....

Well, then.... I guess I will continue with my old fashioned ways... Remembering that the bottom line is .... (a) Happy Customer ( Profitable RO © Nobody crawling up your ass for a bad decision YMMV

I predict that I already sympathize with you.... Since we have had this sudden influx of "youth", my faith in humanity has nose-dived... Even my best new apprentices are headstrong, refuse to admit they in "over their heads" and would rather furble around for hours, making bad decisions than ask for assistance.... If they are looking for me to lead them down the path, I can't... it wouldn't be right and would delay the inevitable requirement of forming ideas and making decisions - something they should start forming from the git-go.... All I can do is give them a shove in the right direction, a pep talk on defining "job" and "career" and where they see their sorry asses 10 years from now... Well, all that and show them how to perform the tests.... listen to what the vehicle is trying to tell them, use the resources available.... that big, sometimes useless attempt at instilling experience in the inexperienced... without the pain.... I'm not heartless.... but it would be nice if I could find someone that can THINK... someone that will ask WHY.... someone that can apply "logical progression" and, at the same time, think sideways (especially when the PC/ED tells us to use an ohmmeter). I see a lot of my "younger self" in some of these budding youngsters.... If they can avoid many of my early assumptions and mistakes, they will have long and fruitful careers....

I recall 6.0 issues from using SDs as tow units or service trucks on flight lines but I don't recall a 6.4 post (but, hey, I'm never wrong..... not). I recall reading something about LSD 6.4s - availability, yes.... differences, no... My personal opinion... emergency response vehicles (fire engines and ambulances) and some military vehicles should be exempt from emissions requirements if this will improve dependability, servicability, simplicity or reduce service requirements. I don't think I'm a tree hugger and I don't think that the "sky is falling"... but you can shit in your own back yard for only so long before you can't sit out there any more....

Yep, I was looking at that about an hour ago (instead of working on my house, no less)... What is a GM district manager (I'm having a problem with that claim) doing with a Ford and why has he acted like a sophomore???? He has proven that there isn't anything you can't do with a low IQ and a lot of money.... And everyone is patting him on the back... Oh, yeah.... "My stable" includes a 67 Satellite 383 (driven about 4 hours this year), a 69 Charger 440... hasn't even been turned over this year, a 69 RoadRunner 500 inch stroker work in progress. The 06 Vette and the 06 SRT10 don't count since they are "in tact" emissions wise.... Gawd, I love playing with other peoples money.... Universal anti-tampering laws..... if ya wanna be racey, go to the track.... if you wanna be fast, keep it there.

JAYZUS.. you'd think with the amount of reading I do that I would have stumbled across this at one point or another.... This is a page I do not ever recall seeing... And I do see where some of the info might be "helpful"... but I think I'll stick with dropping manifolds for smoking cylinders... Still, I believe that I've had a couple in the last year or so that this worksheet may have helped.... And I am surprised that Hotline hasn't steered me to it in the past.... Sadly, the bulk of my diesel involvement for quite some time has been in "driveway diagnosis" to ensure we have the right parts on hand when the customers appointment is due.... and to help frustrated techs clarify things in their minds.... I'm more involved with the "unfixables" (usually something involving inappropriate test steps), answering customer questions for new vehicle sales, dealing with irate customers (see "unfixables") and getting into even more "untechnicianly" areas... even though I admonish the DP that I believe I am at the point where I can best serve the store... Isn't it weird how "old folks" can digress? Now, with my interest piqued, I would like to know the same thing OHNO60 would like to know.... Is this diagnostic routine viable and productive? Or is it a waste of time in the grand scheme of things?

Not an EGR cooler but I did have one with a broken turbo shaft... turbine was laying in the bottom of the annulus and the exhaust was full of oil (customer drove back to town from the bush).... I very nearly started the truck in ths shop (sans hose since it was summer and all the doors were open).... I caught myself up and pushed the truck back out the door... thank God our back lot is gravel....