Jim Warman

2001 F150, 4.2.... about 250,000 kms... Came in on the hook... no start - theft light flashing dimly. Boost and it starts and runs. Once it's in the shop, the cluster goes apeshit.... guages sweeping, lights flashing. Can communicate with the PCM but not the HEC. Dealer test mode (the "odo trick") wont run. Powers and grounds check good. Vehicle does not fail to start.... Cluster now working "normal" but still no comm... Replaced cluster and released truck. Two weeks later, it comes in on the hook... no start - no comm with cluster. This time, it will occasionally no start but only when it feels like it. SM forces me to order new cluster - amidst cries of "it don't feel right". Cluster came in today and I resisted the urge to slam dunk it. But, finally, I have a new symptom... no comm with PCM. Did the usual checks and came up with no ground. When I started pulling out the harnesses, I found G101 stuck to the bottom of the main harness.... Not a mark on it.... Never, in the 6 or 7 years that this truck was on the road, has this ground been attached to anything. This ground is tied in to the PCM case ground and it can only have back fed and grounded through the PCM mounting screws. Why could I communicate with the PCM and not the cluster for so long? I wish I knew. And they wonder why I drink..... Word to the wise.... stop ohming grounds.... load test them - BIG. An old sealed beam works good.... Wouldn't have helped in this case but I've had a a few stinkers in the last week or so.... I'm not getting much diesel lately, but this crap is making the 6.0 look like a cakewalk....

I recall, many years ago, seeing an aftermarket kit for the E4OD that would have it default to OD off on start up... you might check into something like that for the tow/haul function. As for a speed governor... I don't recall seeing anything in the "wild". A lot of our fleets use a "stool pigeon" to record infractions... not as good as a governor but, I think, safer should the driver need that extra speed to get himself out of a bind he created (we have a couple of guys that don't get to drive the apparatus - they feel that the lights and sirens guarrantee them safe passage). This is the one we see the most in our area (the one that plugs into the DLC) http://www.davisnet.com/drive/products/driveright_600E.asp Often, just the threat of being caught can make someone striaghten up and fly right...

We have a procut machine only because Ford tells us we must have one. Even the SnapOn equipment rep gave up on trying to set our machine up. We can have a rotor off the truck and half machined before you can even get the ProCut into your bay.... But enough of that.... After a brake job, following a few simple steps to "cure" the pads can save misery and comebacks. I like to "break" the edges of the linings.... even rubbing the pads together will accomplish this - the idea is to get rid of that sharp corner on the rotor side of the pad. Once the job is complete, drive the vehicle to ~ 30 or 40 MPH on a suitable road. Apply the brakes moderate to heavy and slow to about 10 MPH but DO NOT STOP. Drive to allow the brakes to cool a little and repeat the process at least 4 times (I usually do about 6). After starting to do this, I don't recall having much in the way of squealing concerns. Shallow cuts can be detrimental.... instead of just trying to clean a rotor up, aim for a finished thickness and go there.... two passes at the very most. When machining, the chips also carry heat away from the process.... shallow cuts produce little in the way of chips and that heat stays in the rotor and tool bits... That's this old farts take on it, anyway... HTH

I can't be sure about the injector harness concern... An 04 with a V-Mac underhood compressor..... the compressor installation required that the GPCM be moved and that was done poorly. The right side injector harness was lifted up and #7 wound up chaffing on the heatshield. This truck was a stalls/sometimes no restart. During the no start times, I couldn't get the buzz test to run... almost like the FICM was "protecting itself". I can't see a short like this pulling FICM logic power down but there remains the chance that it was pulling the injector powers down. When I replaced the harness, I recall it being brittle but I thought that could be because of it's proximity to the compressor...

Same thing here... I tell the guys to hit cancel... then I can update them when time permits....

Tony, I wouldn't get too concerned with the camshaft "tone ring"... It is simpl;y a single pin on the cam that (basically) tells the PCM if #1 is coming up on compression or coming up on exhaust. If you have the VMM, you can look at the crank sensor using the lab scope. There is a "preset" in the lab scope that takes the guesswork out of voltage, triggers and such for the VRS CKP as well as a known good pattern in the library to compare your sensor to. HTH

Jay, you should be able to increase the display range of the PID (on the IDS, at least....) - remember the guy programming the scan tool probbaly doesn't even know where the hood release is.... I hope I'm not preaching to the choir, here.... Highlight the PID like as if you are going to go to active commands..... on the right side of the screen will be 3 display property icons - pick the top one and a window will pop up allowing you to adjust the high and low range for that display. I find this particularly useful if I'm looking for more detail in a trace. Switching a PID to digital (yes/no, on/off or numerical), graph, bar graph or histogram can also help. Hope I didn't hijack the thread....

A "red letter" day indeed... now if we could only get these guys a bit more involved..... Looking forward to our first chat night..... but Kieth will have to remind me.... probably more than once.... just ask my loving bride....

We've had a few that leak so bad we can't road test them for an oil cooler restriction.... These ones get an oil cooler along with the EGR cooler.... Without this, the chance of replacing two EGR coolers is too real.... Of course we could always replace the EGR cooler and road test it for oil cooler restriction... but we're still booking two weeks, right now and neither us nor our customers have the extra half day that this is going to chew up....

Since most of the concerns I see are intermittent, I think I'll stick with the old way... Some failures seemed to need manipulation to find the glitch.... We all have our pet "first things to check"... could it be that the automated test is designed or destined to have those techs that are always in a hurry to try and convince a customer that "this is normal". For concerns that are easy to reproduce, this could be the panacea.... I fear that techs unfamiliar with these engines pr new to "dieseldom" might take this test as the "last word" and subject their customer to unecessary repeat visits.... or worse.

Thinking about the statement that the "dealer can retrieve the info....". Reading it just the way it states.... we can retrieve the info..... Nowhere does it say that we can "see" the info - We can't "see" electricity, but it is there.... If we are asked to upload a recording to hotline, there will be other information tagging along with the PID readings - a brief description of the truck (possibly even the VIN) as well as (quite possibly) info gathered in the network test and, with this new protocol, perhaps even some "log" files.... Log files that we retrieved, but can't see... As one hotline engineer stated - if we could see it, we could figure out how to change it... and that wouldn't be too good....

Appeals have worked pretty good for me.... cite the source of the text (section, subsection, all the good stuff) and print off the necessary part of the manual.... I have to admit that it looks like the warranty nazis are getting worse, lately, though...

I gotta dredge up this old subject - that Excursion turned nasty on me.... After a long wait for the cluster (and another long wait for the time to put it in - used truck...), I still have 900 mV on circuit 904.... We'll keep it short and sweet - here's the "gotcha". This thing has a remote start - and I removed the module very early in the going. What I didn't consider is that this truck has PATS - but what can go wrong with the PATS bypass, right? The remote start module powers it up when needed and it's output isn't really "coupled" to anything. As I'm staring at my nemesis, scratching my head and wondering if I should use a gun, a rope or pills to end my sorry existance, I'm probing around with a high impedance test light.... and there is 12 volts at the PATS bypass module!!!!! Some idiot has wired this up direct to B+ Unplug the module and there is 0 volts on ckt 904 - plug it back in and my 900 mV is back. The PATS signal is waking up something in the IC module and that "something" is powering up the alternator.

Mark, it's not hard to see how much most of these guys know... One of the big problems is that <A:> It makes sense to them and <B:> For some reason it makes sense to others that are at the same experience level.... And don't you dare start clouding the issue with FACTS.... And that friggin' EPA... who are they to tell me I can't help kill my planet.... They're just in cahoots with Ford and oil companies, anyway. I'd like to write more but I have to go clean my hand guns....

As FTCA states... (especailly with a truck this old) a crankcase pressure test is going to be valuable... just to keep some logic to what you are doing, look in the PC/ED in section 4 - "Diagnostic Subroutines" and scroll down to "Performance Diagnostics".... this section covers about most of anything you will need to check. Not wanting to be confrontational, I find it necessary to remind my techs constantly to check the resources we have..... manuals, OASIS, hotline. It appears that these are becoming forgotten in some cases. (There are many TSBs floating around that cover some of the most mundane topics, yet offer some good tips on the subject at hand). Some things I see get missed on the preliminary checks too often - high side exhaust leaks (manifolds - especially the left side one... up tube leaks.... oil level and condition.... come to think of it, most of the basics get missed too often). If the truck has a catalytic converter, I have found that I can't rely on EBP readings - It only takes a few minutes to split the exhaust and look inside the cat to see if anything bad is happening. If a truck is seriously down on power, we would expect some sort of trouble code in the system but, if there aren't any to be had, we can look at section 3 for some guidance - "Lack/Loss of Power" is symptom chart 10. The introduction list the OASIS codes we should use when consulting online resources... Some of the stuff in the pin point testing is way off the wall when it comes to those things we should check - but I'll be the first one to admit that brain farts are a way of life. When all else fails, there is scan tool diagnostics.... it's not difficult to make a recording of an event or a condition and to post it to FDDTS and have some pretty good help deciphering the information.... Take a look at your options and decide what you need to do to make your customer happy... Someone like me will likely bust your chops but all of us are more than willing to help. Sidebar... turbo replacement is always a sore point with me.... We're about $2500 CA for a turbo. If I'm changing one of these, I am going to be able to show a cutomer why I am changing it - dusted fins (ooops, what was that crankcase pressure?), oil leaks, impeller touching the housing, overheated turbine..... There is going to be an identifiable "why".... Yes, I'm a dink at work, too...

Ford couldn't leave the 6.0 alone.... how many 230 HP engines does anyone think would sell when competing in the light truck diesel world? The 6.0 hasn't been without it's problems, especially early on in the adventure. At the same time, I still firmly believe that these are very good engines with decent electronics and decent after treatments. And I can say this simply because of the sheer number of happy owners we have in our area... These engines have fallen victim to owners that have never had a diesel before and have a misbegotten belief that some of the stuff they read on "other forums" is good to do. Still others have fallen victim to techs that have surpassed their technical abilities or can't stand the thought of not making buckets of gain time on flat rate. For the largest part, I think that Ford has stepped up to the plate quite well when it comes to addressing most concerns. As Kieth so eloquently put in another forum, this engine will "separate the men from the boys".... We will either see "interactive diagnostics" or we will see the good diesel techs become a commodity...

Now is a good time to get familiar with recordings.... It can take a little bit to learn which PIDs you will want to monitor for a particular concern... gather too many and the scan rate slows down - possibly enough to miss an event. Too few, and we might need to repeat our road testing. Getting used to these sorts of scan tool diagnostics will increase your worth as a tech and make a lot of customers happy - not to mention make life much easier.... There's a lot more to the PC/ED than lists of DTCs - each PPT has an introduction that gives some decebt insight into how a subsystem works. Also, if you are feeling a little overwhelmed, there are guided diagnostics on PowerStroke Central. I vaguely recall a TSB for P2614 and P2617 but I have seen these codes on trucks that stall often in one drive cycle (can also be a sign of chaffing) - In OASIS, you can enter the DTCs retrieved in the symptom code areas... For your case (not knowing anything about the truck or the concern), I would probably set up the scan tool to monitor EGR_DES, EGR_VP, EGR_DC#, VGT PIDs, may be V_REF, V_PWR... maybe the FICM input powers (FICM_LPWR and FICM_VPWR)...Any of these can be as much a matter of taste as a matter of need and my little list is, by no means written, in stone. The real beauty of a recording (don't forget to set up your pre and post trigger times to suit your reaction time) is that you can take all the time you need viewing it looking for the anomallies... Good luck.

This broadcast message finally came through today for us redheaded stepchildren.... I did print off your version and hand it to our partsmongers.... MicroCat hasn't been updated and I am told we have "no stock - USA"... Ask me if I'm surprised.......

To be honest, I think these internal "records" wont be eraseable by anyone that doesn't have some real technical savvy. I'm pretty sure that Ford knows they have concerns with power adders and I'm pretty sure that they are going to become almost unreasonable regarding some failures.... It wont take much for hotline and the warranty nazis to start working hand in hand - and I can see someone asking for an upload, somewhere.... and we will have no idea of what we might be uploading (sorry to sound paranoid). Even now, our DOM is pressuring us about customers that drive something to destruction. One sitting in one of our bays right now.... F350 SRW.... right axle joint went south... customer kept driving.... the joint turned into a drive axle, a knuckle, a hub and bearing !@#!?$!'y and a diff housing. And it's not even a "local".... I see a problem brewing. I don't think that any one of us hasn't fudged at least something in favour of our customer... even these little dalliances with our integrity can be called into question.

Found this link on TDS http://www.motorcraftservice.com/vdirs/training/retail/6.4L_diesel_maintenance/superduty.html Pay particular attention to whar is mentioned in the "Operation" section.

I like to "make sure" they are all the way down, too. I have noticed in the past that, if you try to draw them in with the hold down bolt, you can "visit" the bolt a few minutes later and gain more torque on them.... and you can repeat this process several times before you get solid torque.

Looking over at the funny farm, sounds like someone has already leaked the files.... There's some yayhoo looking for someone with 15 megs of webspace....

You haven't been sandbagging on TDS, have you? Nobodies had one of these yet but the number of stupid questions grows daily..... Tinkering with the 6.0 could be bad enough.... foolin' with this new engine might have us telling tuner dudes to FOAD.... My wife can drive a truck with all the pollution controls hooked up and working, I don't see why those "manly men" can't.... (sung to the tune of anything by the Village Fa..... People).

Just as well, Rich... my old lookers can only take so much of that dinky little screen I (and every time I put on my reading glasses, the smart remarks surface...). One of the services we provide is a government mandated "Out of Province" inspection. Used vehicles, imported into Alberta, must undergo a pretty extensive inspection to be allowed registration. This includes polling the ABS module and the RCM for codes. We were "encouraged" to purchase a capable aftermarket scan tool. Sadly, Alberta puts up a good "face" and nothing to back it up. Once the vehicle is register here, the owner is allowed to let it decay into a rolling disaster as he/she sees fit.

Even then, the PDS should still be pretty good as a handheld scanner....