Miguel351

Well, we ended up not installing it for a couple of reasons. One is that there is absolutely no room for it in there as in the open area where the heater core lines are, he's got A/C lines tapped into the factory condensor lines for a 110V rear A/C unit (a lot like ambulances would have), and the other is that after examining the setup of where the evaporator is versus where the heater core is, they're fairly well seperated, via the firewall. You can plainly see the heater core lines going through the firewall off to the right of the extension of the A/C box that passes through the firewall into the engine compartment. Perhaps when they changed over to the 6.0 in the E-series they took the opportunity to redesign the A/C box and eliminate any need for that control valve. Oh well, either way, it wouldn't fit without running about an extra foot or so of heater hose right next to the alternator. Not fun. -Mike

I just can't figure out why Ford would delete it. I mean it's a part that been in use for over 40 years. Even my '69 Mustang has one! It just seems odd that in today's day and age, there'd be any reason to delete it. It's for a front air system. The way Ford has the rear evaporator simply tee'd off the main condensor lines and not in series, their rear A/C setup is inherently ineffecient. We've had a few vans that we've been adding a secondary condesor/dryer unit and hooking them all up in series. Seems to have done the trick. Well, I think I'm going to install it anyway. The customer bought it and he wants it installed and he's going to pay for the install. That's good enough reason for me. -Mike

Had a customer come in for some unrelated work and also asked that we install this new A/C heater control valve he found online. After consulting our parts guy, he shows no Ford part number or corresponding exploded parts diagram showing the E-Series ever got one from 2005-up. Is this correct? What would be the downside to installing one? Is there a really good reason Ford went without it(better heater box design, etc.)? Is there a reason we couldn't install one(flow restrictions, etc.)? Any and all wise counsel would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, -Mike

Yes, big-time illegal to disable the system. I contacted NHTSA to ask a few questions about it as well. Turns out that the "electrical tape over the light" trick constitutes a "disabling" of the system since you are hindering the systems ability to notify the driver of ANY change in condition via the indicator light. Makes sense to me, it just sucks. They didn't say, however that outright removal of the sensors constitues "disabling" since the system tells you that it can't see the sensors. System is still working just fine, it's just giving you a continuous memory error code. This is the only grey area that the aftermarket crowd is able to survive in these days. SEMA and many aftermarket companies are working with the manufacturers to remedy this situation by making the TPMS systems programmable according to the specs of the tires being put on the car/truck. They've already got all the mfg's on pretty much the same sensor frequencies and using extremely similar technologies as a whole. The jump to a universal/programmable TPMS system should be a small one. We'll see what happens! -Mike

I use the hx4705 iPaq. When they first came out with the PDS, we jumped both feet first on the bandwagon, mainly also because Ford and HP had a pretty nice discount on the hx4705 for Ford techs. We quickly dumped our NGS on eBay since we wouldn't need it anymore and we could still get decent coin for it. Suffice it to say I spent a lot of time on the phone with the Technical Support Hotline resolving many issues and errors. I didn't realize that not as many dealers were adopting the PDS yet. It all worked out in the end, though. It's a pretty slick little device. As for the top vs. bottom thing....the hx4705 is, visually, horizontally symmetrical. Maybe they're just looking at it upside down, or downside up. The actual top has the slots for the memory cards. A 1GB SD card is more than you'll ever need as long as you back up your session and calibration files to the PC you sync it with everytime you update the PDS software. In fact, I've never seen that thing under 800MB available. You can even install the PFM software on your IDS laptop to keep everything in one spot. That's what I did. -Mike

HP had a recall on the first version that came with the iPaq's with the button that switches from charge to link(red to green). They later replaced it with a new adapter. We had to get ours from HP direct(free, of course). It's part number is: 250177-B21. It goes from the iPaq to USB with an AC adapter port molded right in and it's been a while, but I think it came with the charger, too. I don't know if Rotunda offers it OEM now, but I know you can get it from HP. Hope this helps, -Mike

Thanks for the responses, guys. In my further studies of the TPM systems that Ford uses, they are not meant to be reprogrammable with respect to PSI. Where this is an issue is when we put larger wheels and tires on (a la 35" tires on 18" rims) the E350's. Most 35's max PSI rating is nowhere near 80PSI, which is what the SJB demands from the rear. But, because it's programmed into the SJB, it's unavoidable. Most 35's have a 65PSI max and seem to be happiest at 55PSI for highway travel. This, in turn, trips the light. And we're talking load range E tires with a higher weight capacity, so technically, we're exceeding factory specs. That's whay I was curious to see what you truck guys were doing if you had customers that bought/wanted bigger wheels and tires than stock. The sensors themselves aren't the issue, just the SJB. Apparently the 55/80 front/rear combo is across the board with all Econolines regardless of model(passenger, cargo, wagon, SD, etc.). It's extremely interesting to me that there are truck models that have the same PSI call out at all four corners! That's got to be some sort of stripped down F150. Like I said before, too, I only use the PDS here in our shop because it does everything we need since we don't do any major warranty work ourselves(we're fleet and have two supplying/partner dealerships) and was curious if the SJB could be programmed with the IDS. I know somewhere, somebody is doing something because of all the "tricked out" stuff I see at dealerships on brand new trucks. They're puting on the same kinds of wheels/tires that we do so I KNOW they're running into the TPMS stuff we are. In the interim, I went to the SEMA show in Vegas and found a very inexpensive, effective, programmable, and attractive "piggyback" TPMS system. http://www.tirerack.com/accessories/orange/tpms.jsp Seems to a workaround for the factory system, yet satisfying the FMVSS and NHTSA rulings for manufacturers and TPMS systems. We'd be getting them factory direct for cheaper than Tire Rack's price. Seems like a cheap cure for our TPMS headache. -Mike

Anyone had any luck reprogramming the "acceptable" PSI values in the SJB/PCM? Just kind of curious since I'm trying to avoid buying another $300 cable for the IDS-to-laptop just to find out we don't actually need it. Besides, the PDS does everything else we need just fine by itself. -Mike

That's just it. I don't know if the SJB can be reprogrammed on the vans to accept 55psi or 60psi as it's new default. I know the blue sensors are 50psi and up range(truck), so I know they're capable of the full reading range we'd need. It's just kind of dumb since we're upgrading the tires/wheels to something more capable and safer to be hindered by the TPMS. As for Ford's need for it....I see it as a "cover your a**" situation after the whole Explorer/Firestone fiasco. As I recall, Firestone concluded the main cause of all the failures was underinflation. You know all those soccer moms out there never perform ANY kind of maintenance on their cars. Anything further? -Mike

Hey all, I was curious what you guys were doing about the new TPMS stuff. It's never been an issue for me since we only do the E-series stuff, but all the '08s have it now. Is there any way to reprogram the SJB to accept any other pressures than the 55psi for the front and 80psi for the rear? We swap out with tires that have a higher load rating than factory, but they have a max pressure of 65psi. So the TPMS light will be probably on all the time since we'd only have 5psi of room before the lower limit kicks in and trips the error code for the light. I know you guys mainly do the trucks and a lot of them get aftermarket wheels/tires so I was just curious how you guys were approaching it. I have both the PDS and IDS but I've lost the IDS to laptop cable(I don't think it walked off by itself), so I haven't used IDS in a while to see if it has some option for that. Plus PDS handles pretty much everything we need for the E-boxes so I haven't had that strong of a need for IDS. I do keep them both updated to their current versions, too. I assume the IDS works in conjunction with tool ST2941-A(OTC 204-363) as spec'd in the manual, but I was unsure as to the scope of what it does beyond simple activation. Anyone care to enlighten me? Please? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks in advance! -Mike

Hello everybody. This is my first post here so let me start by saying how much I enjoy lurking here and finding the answers to some of my questions before I even ask. I have put that search tool to good use. It's interesting to see how different the 6.0L's problems are in the vans(which are all we do) as compared to the trucks. Our problems aren't as numerous, but there a few similarities(turbos and EGR's obviously). On to my question: I've recently seen a change in part numbers for the 6.0L PCM's in E350's and was wondering if anyone else has seen these and what they might mean. For example, for the '06's we've had nothing but 6C2A-12A650-YE for the past few months. Loved it, too. Vans ran great, cold started great, no smoke, nothing, plenty of power, too. Then, suddenly it became 6U7A-FJA. Likewise, the '07's had 7C2A-LB, now it's 7U7A-CAA. I haven't noticed any tangible difference between them yet, but I haven't done an explicit "before and after" test yet either. The most confusing part of it is when I get the Excel sheet of all the latest calibrations from motorcraftservice.com, there's no trace of these part numbers on there. They still list 6C2A-YE and 7C2A-LB at the latest calibrations available. I think it might be a simple name change based on while using PDS to do the recal, it didn't ask me to redock it to download the calibration files. All I saw when it was done was the new part number. Any thoughts? -Mike