Fredsvt

Nothing unusual, at least, it seems, this week it's in maximum junk week. 2008 E350 6.0, would run, die not start. "it just needs fuel filters". Find it 8 quarts low on oil. EGR valve sticks open, resulting in a horrible sounding crank-no start when warm. Fuel pump dead, as it's packed with rust. Half a book of codes stored. Pulling teeth to pull tank, Someone's already been there, sender foot screen ripped out, bypass valve removed. Tank the worst, worst I've ever seen for rust. Customer insists on "washing tank out with hose and let it dry in the sun". He refused at least cleaning the EGR valve. He got a 5 minute 5 foot warranty it'll run. 2005 Toyota Sienna: My a/c is warm, oh, and the temp gauge was pegged and there was a cloud of smoke. Radiator exploded, engine empty, water pump seals melted out of it, t-stat melted, block full of stinky coolant. Surprisingly customer authorized all of it and it lives, for now. 1994 Suburban, fuel lines nearly rotted away, 4 brake lines rotted through, no bleeders, no a/c charge and it's been messed with. Guy couldn't possibly understand how it could be rusty. 2001 S-Blazer, hack did a fuel pump, completely collapsed tank, lost all the orings and spacers in the quick connect fuel lines at the tank, each line is $165 (about a foot long question mark shaped plastic line). Woman was driving it with it pouring fuel from the return line. She now has no money for the lines, so it sits. three 1997 postal P vans bought at auction, one with 17k, one with 53k and the other with 34k. Owner's workers stripped each for parts for other ones, 53k miler has a blown motor, 17k so badly stripped, it's junk. 34k vandalized with all wiring harnesses cut, windows smashed etc. He dumped them on us since he was facing fines from the city he had them parked in. Last one for this week, and one the customer wants and needs fixed. 2010 E350 ambulance 6.0, trans done. 180k, numerous tcc performance codes, and friction element slip codes. One drive, and it slips, skips gears and gets way too hot and spits fluid out the vent. Our local Ford store says none are available, and he can't pry a unit from any other dealers, as they seem to be in demand.

Oh the nightmares are returning! A Fiero is a chevette front end, basically dropped right in, the rear is a Citation turned around backwards. Parts bin engineering at its worst. I worked at Pontiac when those fine things were out, burning and blowing up all the time. I can't count the number of 2.5 drop and reseals, thrown rods and burns, and belts thrown from poorly made accessory brackets. The 2.8s would eat rod bearings and dropping them to do rods and mains as well as fix the broken exhaust bolts was fun. Bleeding the cooling system sucked, no airlift back then. Brakes sucked, alignmnents never held. They were a joy when the rear toe would end up "out" and the things felt as if they'd spin around in a circle in the middle of the road at 40mph. In 1988, they finally gave it its own suspension front and rear, and the handling issues were finally fixed, as well as getting a 5 speed manual. The car was almost right, and as typical GM, they dumped it. The '88 formula fiero with a 5 speed was actually a fun little car. I also can't count the number of 305 and 350 TBI and TPI motors we had to change due to the mexican made blocks cracking in the lifter valley, leading to mystery coolant loss and spun bearings.

Keith, You then discreetly take out your phone, and video the trooper in front of you, making sure you show the plate. Post it on youtube for all to see. Problem will be taken care of. The commander of his unit will not tolerate that stuff. I had an issue with a trooper who pulled me over, for going around an imaginary "roadblock". As he was trying to help remove a small fallen tree on one side of the road. His unmarked car was in a person's front yard with NO lights on. he was so pissed, and screaming curse words and shaking. I thought, seriously, that he would shoot me, since one hand was on the gun in his open holster. He took my stuff, after screaming at me for 15 minutes. The people in the houses nearby came out and watched. He handed me 3 tickets totaling 13 points. I went to my lawyer's office the next day, relaying the entire story. I also spoke to a family friend (retired commander of Parkway Troop E) and told him what language and attitude he used. Some phone calls ensued. In court, everything was dropped and the trooper HAD to issue a written and recorded apology to ME and the public for his inappropriate behavior. He was forbidden by his direct commander to appear in court. Of course, I still had to pay the cash cow, court costs.

A friend of mine passed recently, and he was an avid drag racer in his day, if he knew this was available, he'd have wanted to go in it: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20140409/CARNEWS01/140409843?utm_source=DailyDrive20140409&utm_medium=enewsletter&utm_term=article3&utm_content=20140409-Watch-a-1,000-hp-Caprice-hearse-run-a-nine-second-quarter-mile&utm_campaign=awdailydrive

Jasper's "dyno run" is horse crap. Our shop used to be a "go to" for the local Jasper rep to send warranty stuff to. I hated every minute of that. 2 7.3s with "knurled" valve guides with seized valves, that the pistons whacked. A bunch of GM 6.5s with the same issue. 6.5s with used electronic injection pumps installed, that caused constant stalling and breakdowns. Gas motors with incorrect bolts used, that broke. Two straws that broke the owner's back: Shop bought a 4R70w for a E250. Trans neutraled and hammered on 4-3, 4-2 and 3-2 downshifts under power. After replacing every part on the motor, electronic wise, as their "trans wizard" said it CAN'T be the transmission's fault, didn't fix it, a trans from Ford did. Customer got pissed at not having his truck for two weeks. The shop ate the grand it cost to properly fix it. Second a school bus with a T444E, no icp on crank, goose it with ether, it'll run, but no power, surge and idle stability sucked. Found right head had massive ICP leak from top of injector bore. Pulled injector, evidence of severe rust in cylinder head (junkyard appearance of rust INSIDE valve cover) huge pit at upper o ring of injector. They sent a head, replacement head had a .020 piece of wire hanging out the injector hole at the chamber. Send that POS back, got another. Installed, using the crummiest head gasket I've ever seen. On retorque, second to last head bolt pulled threads out of block, Jasper said RUN IT. The thing started easily, then started leaking oil out the bellhousing from the rear engine cover or back of oil pan, that had a CORK gasket on it. OUT it went, back to bus company to put in another motor. I can't count the number of rears we bought from them that had gear noise at 45-50 on the gas. Garbage.

When you put our healthcare here in the US under the IRS and HHS, one crooked as a bent stick and the other is neither about health or services, you end up with a mess of huge proportions. Taxes upon taxes, fees, and more government intrusion into something they have no business in. There was nothing wrong with it the way it was. Those that could afford healthcare, either through their employer, individually, or elsewhere had it. Those that couldn't afford healthcare, for the very poor got Medicaid. The seniors have Medicare and the plans that cover what Medicare doesn't. Even if you couldn't get Medicaid, if you walked into a hospital and needed something, it was called Charity Care. My next door neighbor had nearly 1 million in Charity Care done by a hospital not far from us. She will never need to pay that back. What we've gotten is a 3 trillion dollar program, that can never work, the numbers will never add up, there are more uninsured now than there were pre Osamacare, and in 10 years there's STILL going to be 30 million without care. If the young kids don't sign up to pay for older or sicker people, it is going to collapse under it's own bloated, beaurocratic weight. My own experience was getting a new plan (same insurer, partially paid by work) that has stuff I don't need, but I lose quite a bit in drug coverage. We CAN'T get more insurance to make that up, as each insurer will say you have "other insurance" and won't cover anything. Oh, and btw, Fox news is the ONLY news in this country. Those of us that really care have to watch Fox, go to BBC, Euronews, Canada, and elsewhere to really find out what's going on. The networks are nothing more than our shithead excuse for a president's bully pulpit.

Hi Dwayne I can't say about the 3 valve 6.8s power, but in a F53 38' motorhome (gvw 14500), the old 2v labored, or should I say SCREAMED to make them move, especially on hills. Our customer at the shop who parked it in our lot was happy with 7 to 8.5 mpg. When I was at the limo company, we had 4 6.8 E350 vans, set up as 11 passenger w/ large luggage area, for airport shuttle. Best mpg various drivers could get was 4 mpg. They do drive rather fast and hard to get from stop to stop.

I believe the gassers in trucks of the era you speak of, were equipped either with a 370 or 429 cubic inch displacement that were from the same family of engines Ford called the so-called "385" series, using the same engine blocks as the 460. My vague recollection, is the larger displacement 460 engine was used only in Ford's smaller trucks (3/4 to 1 ton). This is the same as GMC and Chevy offering the 366 and 427 in their trucks with the larger 454 being offered only in their smaller trucks. I always wondered why the larger 26,000 lb. GVWR class of trucks used smaller displacement engines. Not only that, but I also remember the majority of them being equipped with Clark 5-speed manual transmissions with 2-speed axles in them too. It was also explained to me that the extra gear reduction was needed to compensate for the lack of low end torque from the gas engines. And for this reason, the ones equipped with the optional diesel engines (of which I believe the 8.2L Detroit "Fuel Pincher" V8s was one of them) were not equipped with the 2-speed axle. All I remember though, is all of those trucks were absolute dogs. You were already up to top gear by the time you got up to 40 mph (which was a lot of shifting). Today's trucks of that class seem to be absolute rockets when compared to those mentioned in the above paragraph. Trick question. Does anyone remember when was the last year Dodge was in the medium duty truck game? I mean the ones in the same class as the ones mentioned above, not the current Ram trucks with 4500 and 5500 designations. If any engine needed a two speed axle, the "fuel pincher" Detroit was one. When I worked at the limo company, we had a 8000 series GMC rollback, with that fine oil leaker and head gasket eater. No turbo on that one. Noise and slow are the order of the day. Much like the International 9.0 liter V8 diesel. Our outside tow guy had a similar GMC with a turbo "fuel pincher" it was better, but he was doing head gaskets about every 6 months.

That's exactly what it did. Labored up to the governor. Lots of light blue smoke, and very, very quiet at 3300. Then poof with about a thousand O's. And so much black smoke I couldn't see behind it for more than half a mile.

I just had a very, very early '94 DIT (manual) in for some work over the past few days. Started simple, but turned into a small shit storm. Another 80 year old owner, who loves his old truck. 210k on the clock of at least 90% low load, under 1500 rpm driving and idling. It's mainly a farm truck used on his shooting range. Came in dropping cylinders, both banks, then shutting down due to both shorting to the melted glow plug lines. Original factory installed cam sensor, customer wanted new one. I updated this years ago with a '95 PCM (TEE5 tear tag) so I can get some info out the OBD plug in the truck. Melted v/c gaskets, harnesses and I really wanted an engine harness as it was soaked with diesel. I tried for a 95 or 96 engine harness, no good either. I ended up replacing all 4 pigtails to the gaskets. While there, someone put on a 6 groove alternator (reman) on the 7 groove belt (now 6 groove). The tensioner crooked and idler bearing shot. I see the tandem pump has regular fuel hose for gasoline, so they are swollen twice their normal size, oil leaks galore. Huge blowby out the dipstick tube and oil soaking all the way to the air filter. The glow plug relay melted. Spring hangers and shackles rotted off frame. P/S leaks. Is there any source for the correct 7 groove alternator pulley and the idlers? Ford is long gone. Most of the stuf for this truck is extremely difficult ot come by. Where things don't rot away, what do you do? Napa idlers are different diameters, the alternator I ended up putting an 8 groove pulley on it so it doesn't rip the last rib off the belt. Customer approved wiring and belt stuff. He'll come back for other work over time. I used the napa pulleys but wasn't happy with the end result. Took it out, and the nearly plugged cat finally blew out all the crap after holding it wide open in 2nd for 2 miles. The poor guy behind me sure wasn't happy. Still amazingly runs well.

The welding approach works well for below flush broken bolts. Since I'm not a talented welder, the guy in the big truck shop next to us will come over and do it. Got 7 broken flush and below flush out of a 5.7 Dodge 'hemi'. These things just EAT manifold bolts and manifolds. That day was two identical 2500 pickups, each truck had multiple broken bolts on both sides and needed manifolds. Worked great on a 6.0 gas GM, left rear manifold bolt was 3 threads below the surface.

I heard this years ago from a shop owner and tech, second part seems to be typical, sadly. IIRC, he had it on his website. We strive to keep your vehicle one step away from new, not one step away from the junk yard.

I gave them that option on the F150, a second battery with isolator, and they want it done "as inexpensively" as possible. Their fleet management company won't pay for inverter install or anything aftermarket. They have to cut checks for this. I've told their guy when you play with the big boys.... The high output alternator option, I'll look into it, and see what they say.

Can someone please answer for me of the following vehicles which have BMS with load shedding capability? The following trucks they wish to have these things. 2013 F150 5.0 2014 F550 6.7 2013 F250 6.2 2011 F250 6.2 I looked and looked on PTS, and only the 2011-2013 F150, from what I can tell definitely has it. A local fleet wants to run large inverters, 3500 to 5500 watt to run various different tools when on site. Their typcial 1/2 drill will pull a max of 150 amps from the battery, already over taxing the generator on gas engined trucks. They routinely fry batteries and alternators on older (pre '08) trucks with inverters installed. I run a 2 gauge positve cable with a 300 amp maxifuse to the inverter, and ground is same size, from inverter to frame. If the battery is drawn down even with the engine running, will load shedding take place? Thanks for any assistance.

That tank's sender setup is a bit of a faff, but once you've done one, it's no big deal. The bigger tank for the E doesn't use the same setup, more direct drop in, just torquing the sender unit retaining nuts, at what they want, gets scary. Keith, did you replace the plastic drain plug with a brass one? We weren't too thrilled with that hollow plastic thing they sent with both styles of tanks.

Hi Keith We just did a badly rotted E series large aft axle tank (55 gallon) from Titan in a 2003 E450 7.3. Can't beat the price, even though it was nearly a grand our cost, the Ford tank was nearly 2300. Ouch. No more rust from the tanks at least!

When I brought my '99 Lightning in for the intercooler recall, I asked the advisor to please park it on pavement. (part of their lot was unpaved) Needless to say, when I picked it up, it looked as someone did donuts in the mud out back. Since the truck has never seen rain nor snow, I wasn't very happy. (I'm being nice) I went inside, and as calmly (sort of) as I could, went to see the sales person I bought it from and the service manager. Needless to say, there was a young lot jockey and two detailers washing and toothbrushing the underside of my truck whle I waited.

Maybe off topic, a question regarding fuel type. A customer of ours, a military contractor building drone control comm trucks, has built and sent over at least a half dozen or more 4.5 and 6.4 (de-emissioned) workhorse chassis trucks. They run them on straight JP-8 jet fuel from the bases they operate out of. We get them on about 1/4 tank of perfectly clear fuel, which leads me to believe it's JP-8 What will happen to the fuel systems, if anything on the 6.4 or 4.5 running this fuel. I've wondered. Only thing I've noticed is they are VERY loud, and smell, well, odd. We've put in auxillary fuel systems (tapped into the factory tank) for large gensets (50 to 70 kW) that are in the back of these trucks to power all the electronics.

There's about a foot of snow here, I'm 4 mi from Raritan bay. Was windy yesterday, when the snow was falling, it seemed calm. Today, the wind has picked up. The road is plowed, has been, but not to pavement. And I watch idiots going by at 50+ in a 35 zone, on packed snow/ice. Boss texted at 5:15, waking me up, saying roads are "too bad", stay home until he calls. No call.. Looks like no work. Ugh. So I had the drive cleared since 6:30 for nothing. Sometimes it's a waste, even a couple of inches and most of our parts suppliers won't send their deliveries out.

Oil cooler failure? It has a sandwich style cooler, correct? Powertrain isn't longer than 42k? Sorry for my ignorance on that.

It depends... Here in NJ, pretty much every landscaper and contractor runs insanely overweight on under sized vehicles without penalty. We routinely see F350s loaded like they are F550s or bigger. IIRC if it's registered over 10,000 and a diesel, "self inspection" DOT rules apply, for which no one does. Many guys with F550 and above seem to run around inspection-less without penalty. The only time we ever ran into an issue, a fleet customer of ours, at the time, had a Dodge 3500 diesel rack body truck, pulling a trailer. (no inspection requirement) They crossed the border into Delaware, and the DE state police pulled them over. The truck and trailer combined weighed 22,000. The leasing company had the truck registered at 5000 lbs to save registration costs. Uh oh. The DE state police impounded it, the trailer and held the driver until he could get things partially straightened out. It cost them 5 figures in fines, plus all the equipment down time, and trips to get the driver.

RUN!

It works well. Only thing we didn't like is the cheapy plastic drain plug, which we replaced with a brass plug. That environmental company got tired of rotted fuel tanks after 8 trucks had issues. Multiple times.

Keith, Has your dealer done any of these for the aft axle tanks? https://titanfueltanks.com/shop/utility_tanks/ford-after-axle-multi-model-utility-diesel-tank/ I've done a couple for older trucks with 7.3s, and the same fleet that's had 3 6.4s with complete fuel system changes had a Ford store put plastic tanks in those 3 as well.

A Jasper 6.0? Oh boy. A bigger time bomb. They can't even do a 7.3 DIT correctly, I can't imagine how bad that motor would be inside. They're going to play swap a lot.