Bruce Amacker

First of all, charge what it's worth, 20-22 hrs is completely in line. We charge more than that, but usually there is other fun stuff to deal with during the R&R from salt rot. During classes I poll the techs, and have known a few techs to do the pan in-chassis, but only one who says he'd do the next one in-chassis. Secondly, a couple of tips I have come across the hard way: 1. Pull the motor, and burp the old pan off before inverting the engine. Inverting the engine before burping the pan dumps crud where crud shouldn't be, which on a Generation 1 truck leads to crud in the HPOP blocking the edge filter. This restricts the oil dump passage to the timing cover, which causes a P1211, IPR of 4%, and ICP of 1500psi with the light on. Follow the PPT to replace the HPOP, but it's expensive and the customer is bitching. Disregard the PPT, removing the ferry plug and cleaning the crud from the edge filter fixed the problem. This shouldn't happen on a Gen 2 because of the screen in the HP reservoir. 2. Make sure you use the good OE gray silicone that's not outdated. I bought 3 short caulking gun tubes, used one for a PSD pan, and the sealer never set up and dried. It turns out there are expiration dates on 2 of these tubes (but not the one we used), and they were expired. This created a war between my Ford dealer and I that will not soon be forgotten. I did get paid for the labor in the long run, but it wasn't easy. 2B. Using the wrong silicone may disrupt the anti-foaming additives in the (new) oil, causing hyperactive ICP activity and stalling from aeration. Figuring out the new oil is bad (or why it's bad) isn't easy. 3. Smearing chassis grease on the bottom of a pan before it rots will keep you from experiencing this fun. You guys in the sun belt don't know what you're missing! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif Have a great week!

Hey Guys: I'm looking for a root cause and thought I'd ask some opinions. The truck is an early '04 F model with the complaint of stalling and smoke under the hood while on the highway. The owner opened the hood to find a harness smoldering on the right side. He waited a bit, it started, and he drove it to the shop (independent, not dealer). Shop found #1 harness melted from overamperage from the FICM to #1 pigtail. They removed both valve covers for inspection, and all 8 injector pigtails looked fine, and resistance measured about the same on the coils. They test fuel pressure to find none, replace the HFCM and the FICM harness, and inspected the old harness thoroughly for rub throughs. They started it up to find a dead hole on #6, installed a new injector on #6, now the truck runs perfect, no codes, gave it a good test drive, and gave it back to the owner. I asked if it had been reflashed or back to a dealer recently, with the answer being no, as this shop does all of this guy's work, and they are pretty sure it had not been flashed lately. My question is, what caused the harness to melt? Flashing without pulling the FICM relay? Any comments? I'm looking for a root cause. The harness is on it's way to me right now for a more thorough inspection. Thanks!

Hey Guys: Maybe one of you has an answer to this: Since my last IDS update, I keep getting a pop up box labeled "Manual Calibration Update". It has a button in the center labeled "Update Calibration/Tech Tips" and wants to go on the internet to get updates. I click the button and it goes online and updates. The weird thing is that this pop up box comes about every day, which I don't think is normal. Do you guys get this pop up? Thanks!

Current price at my local IH dealer: Part # 1847170C92 $30.99 for both FF (F model) Good Luck!

Did you change just the relay, or the whole controller? I've had nightmares with these old IDI's and aftermarket parts, and in this situation I'd only install 8 OE plugs and an OE controller, and the problem won't come back. This is one area where OE really matters. Good Luck!

I think this ball is available from IH under IH SFN 04-24 Ball:1833830C1 if it's the same as a DT (and I think it is). On a DT if the ball is missing, the truck won't start- this is probably true on a 7.3 also. Good Luck!

Hey Guys: ISIS and IE7 are not compatible. If you have already made the plunge to IE7, go to Control Panel and Add/Remove programs and uninstall it. IH says there is no fix for it at this point. Happy Holidays!

Something to consider.... I'm wondering if anyone else has seen the weird ones I have- like the electrical insulation becoming conductive on primary wire. I have seen this one three times, all on Fords, and am still baffled by it. Case #1, F-750 with an Allison WTEC and a repeat VSS code, defaults to 2nd. New VSS, check for a loose reluctor, inspect the harness closely, etc, all OK. Cust reports it only happens in snowy (salty) weather. Replacing the VSS twisted pair to the TCM fixed it, and a close inspection of the wires replaced showed no fault. Case #2 was when I stopped by at a friend's shop, a mid 90's F-model gasser. He says, "Hey, you wanna see something weird?" I'm always in for weird, so he shows me the O2 wire, which is pulled from it's harness (but not peeled to copper). He wraps one hand around the insulated wire and touches the battery hot and ground while we watch the scan tool, and he can force it rich and lean by doing this. This would be normal if you were touching the O2 terminal, but this was through the insulation. Case #3 was a '97 F with a 7.3. Cust complains of surging with the 4 ways on, and only when it's hot. I confirm the problem and see a CMP code stored. Install a BOB and put a scope on the CMP line to have it pulse 12v high whenever the 4 ways illuminate, which makes the engine purr, die, purr, die, etc, as the 4 ways blink. I'm thinking it's a problem in the cluster, so I pull the dash to find no difference. I opened the CMP harness from the PCM to the CMP, separated the green wire and wrapped it with a piece of 1/4" polyloom, and that fixed it. My conclusion? When the harness got hot by the engine, it bled voltage from the front turn signal wires to the CMP circuit, interrupting the CMP signal. All I did to fix it was to put polyloom on the CMP wire. I saw that guy regularly for years and he said the problem never returned. In retrospect, it probably should have gotten a new harness..... I talked to guy who worked at one time in a plant that made primary wire. He told this was no surprise to him at all, that when they were making the mix for the insulation they would sometimes run out of raw material. "Put another bag of clay in it" was what the foreman would say as the recipe was being put together. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking through a mine field. Happy New Year!

Years ago I built almost the identical thing as your brick for electrical testing, with one improvement- an LED across the terminals to verify your power and ground are present when you're 30 feet away. Mine is a piece of 1/4" pegboard cut into the shape of a big "H", so you can roll up the cord around it. The cord itself is an old trouble light cord, salvaged from the many trouble lights that have given their lives for the cause. The LED draws only a few MA, so you can leave it hooked up overnight and not worry about excessive drain. This works great for doing voltage drops, figuring out taillight problems and etc, because of its length. I use it in electrical classes and have seen several students mimic it on return trips. In addition to a headlight for doing load tests, I have a couple of blower motors to load a circuit. Most sealed beam headlights only draw about 2 amps, which isn't enough for me. The blower I use the most draws 9 amps and has a blower housing and fan attached to it. This makes for a good trivia question- If I block the air inlet, or outlet, does the amperage go up or down, and why? Most guess that if you block the airflow the amperage goes up, but actually, it drops to about 6.5 amps when blocked on either the inlet or outlet. Happy Holidays!

Yes, they come with the 9 pin Deutsch. They probably also come with a 6 pin Deutsch for the older MD's, or at least they did the last time I purchased them. There's a $488 cable from Eaton that also works well with these programs if you're on a budget. Merry Christmas!

Thanks for the response. On this truck, 4 coils made the problem better and 8 coils fixed it totally. Not a cheap fix! Merry Christmas!

I don't know about the 6.4, but DPF's in other chassis that I work with (T444E Busses) get cleaned once a year with total ash accumulation only a couple of tablespoons. They use a pulse air cleaning system that looks like a Barracuda parts wash cabinet. An oven is in the works for cleaning them. Merry Christmas!

2004 F-450 6.8 I am helping a good client with an ABS problem over the phone. The speedo reads MPH sitting still when you rev the engine up, and ABS light goes on with no codes. I told him to check the charging system for stray AC and other possible wiring issues. He used a scope to select and change the 4 weakest ignition coils, because that's what his dealer "said" to do, reporting a common pattern failure and cited a TSB. We couldn't find a TSB and I've never heard of an ignition coil causing this problem before. Has anyone else heard of this? Merry Christmas!

Everything depends on your budget. If you can afford a few grand, PDS or IDS are undoubtedly the best choice, but they're Ford OBD2 only. If your budget won't handle an IDS, I'd also suggest the AutoEnginuity. I worked with Jay Horak developing the AE 6.0 software and have to say it does an excellent job, but remember there is no substitute for the factory scan tool. All aftermarket scan tools and software lack the cylinder balance graph, and with Perdels not active on the 6.0, diagnosing an weak cylinder or intermittent misfire becomes a considerable challenge when it's a 30 second diagnostic with the PDS/IDS. AE is the best "bang for the buck" in the aftermarket scan tool selection at this point by a long shot. Don't buy the DIY versions, get the pro version, which is about a grand. It will give you complete bidirectional module access (BCM, ABS, GEM, etc.) on GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, and BMW with more coming at every update. AE updates are only $50/year, which is probably less that the tax on your Snappy updates. >>What scan tools should a guy stay away from? Anything red. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif Good Luck!

Terminal Supply has them, they fit nicely and we've used them for years. The PN might be SSLC-180 or SSLC-96, check the diameter of the bullet. http://www.terminalsupplyco.com/products/prod_catalog_pdf.asp Page 15 in the catalog. My salesman is Doug Means at (216) 533-0472. Good Luck, and Merry Christmas!

IH has a policy of always replacing the oil cooler when the EGR cooler fails on a VT-365. Does Ford have this policy?

No can do, the file is 40 meg and too big to e-mail, that's why I use YouSendIt. Have a buddy sign up for YSI and download it for you. Good Luck!

I posted a couple more pictures in the photo area of the 6.4 high pressure pump and Henry's office. Also, if anyone is interested in a cool 1:41 minute long video of how a Bosch Piezo injector works, I uploaded it to YouSendIt.com. Here's the link, which is only good for 7 days: http://download.yousendit.com/85A07FA7049AD937 http://www.yousendit.com/download/mbqDl6kDoxN5TA%3D%3D You may have to sign up (free) to download it, but I'm not sure. Don't worry, they don't pester you with spam.... Have a great week!

My connection says the same thing- just after the first of January for Job One. I think you're right about having them titled as the subsequent year after Jan 1. I was wondering how they got around the red one I drove yesterday with a Aug '06 build date being titled as an '08, unless it's a mfr title/truck that's going to be scrapped after testing. As for equipping them with 6.0's with an '08 title, that wouldn't surprise me a bit as they've been doing that for decades. I was just looking harder at the shots I took at SEMA, as I crawled under that truck and took a ton of pictures, but never thought to shoot the fuel pump/HFCM (if it's still there). I don't see anything in the shots I took, but there is a drain plug on the bottom of the fuel tank- I wonder if that's what they were referring to about the water drain? Maybe it has a pump-in-tank like a gasser? I gotta find out....... Have a great weekend!

One of my students had the same backorder problem, and ordered an IDS from his local Ford dealer instead of waiting for Motorcraft. It came quickly, at a cost not much more than Motorcraft. ??

I was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours today driving around in a 2008 F-350 4x4 6.4 liter, courtesy of the marketing dept at FMC. First stop, pick up my escort in Dearborn at Super Duty headquarters across the street from the museum, who hands me the keys to the red 6 speed club cab 1FTWX31R68EA00099 with only 700 miles on the clock. We climb in, it fires right up and we chat while it warms up a bit. First stop, a 20 minute ride down the highway to the Livonia Trans plant to watch a 6.4 on the dyno. I talked to the dyno technician a bit, who was quite well versed in the 6.4 engine. He stated there’s been a lot less problems with this rollout than the 6.0. Some early engines had crank walk due to main thrust wear, a couple of block porosity issues, and some turbo seal problems, but those were all worked out. He said they had injector problems with 6.0 engines from the start, so their continuing injector problems weren’t much of a surprise. He said they have had NO injector problems with the 6.4, which was nice to hear. As we talked, he showed me several early prototype 6.4 engines that appeared to have seen better days. These engines showed considerable differences from the 6.4 production engine, with a larger fuel cooler, larger EGR coolers, and the same SRA servo motor as the late DT has on the BW turbo. Production units with later build dates have a different SRA servo, which I stated before, is a good thing, because this has been a high failure rate unit for IH. As they run on the trans dyno, they are constantly up and down in throttle angle, RPM, and gear to work the trans quite hard. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in there, but I was allowed to write down PID data as it appeared on a PC monitor: RPM 2860 FUP 123 MPA FUP_SP 125MPA AMP 973 HPA CAN_bpa_psn 62% CAN_bpawm 61% Toil 9˚C E gbp 4500hpa EGBP_REL_AMP 3500HPA EGBP_SP 3500HPA PCV_CTL 32% IF_SRC_TQI_SP 1 MAF 1389mg/stk MAP_REL 1834 HPA M F SLM 95 MF_TOT 43mg/stk TBA 74˚C TCO 870˚ Any help in deciphering the data is appreciated! FUP is fuel pressure, and 123MPA is about 17,500psi. AMP at 973 HPA is about 14.1 psi, which could be BARO with the rotten weather. There’s two solenoids on the HP fuel pump, but I don’t know their names or acronyms. Any Cummins/Duramax guys out there? The PCV pid is kind of confusing, because I don’t see any PCV hardware on my skid motor. The truck ran and drove like a new truck should- smooth, quiet, very well sound insulated, and torquey as a !@*!#?!. The weather sucked today, with rain, sleet, snow, and 50-60mph winds the whole way up and back. With the roads wet, it was hard to get into the throttle more than 2/3 or the tires would break loose, even at speed- remember this truck is empty, and I didn’t put it in 4WD. It did have a bit of a surge in it that’s hard to explain- sensitivity to the throttle is the best way I can explain it, aggravated by the manual trans. They told me this truck does not have the latest flash level made to cure that surge. I’m also told the fuel-water trap now has a nice handle on it to drain water from the fuel, which I was glad to hear. I wanted to crawl under to get a picture of it, but with the rain, I didn’t. I had my IDS with me but figured it would not communicate unless the VCM was updated for the new engine. Next stop, I think was called POEE, or the old headquarters building where Henry’s office is still intact and sealed with a plastic door for history’s sake. Mahogany Row, it’s called, where all the top brass from the 1920’s were headquartered. There’s a spot on the wall where Henry, Edsel, and some other brass stood in 1938 and put pencil marks, like we did as kids, to compare height. (Being that this was a bit after Prohibition was repealed, I’m wondering if alcohol was involved!) People were short back then, with Henry not more than 5’5” or so. Back to Super Duty Central, for a meet and greet, and to wrap things up and hopefully schedule another day where I can drive an auto trans model, and get a one-on-one with a calibration guy to explain the fuel system operation to me. Once again, I am impressed with Ford’s tearing down of fortress walls that have been in place for years and opening their arms to an aftermarket guy. Regarding the skid motor supplied to me, I was told the big boss said to my contact, “Will giving him an engine make this rollout easier?” “Yes.” “Then give him one.” Is this truck going to be easy to work on? Definitely not, but with cab removal easier and much more R&D being put into this engine, I have much more faith that I did on the early 6.0. I just wanted to share my day today with you guys. Have a great weekend!

How about the funny "hose" leaking at the EGR cooler? That's the #1 coolant loss item I've seen, especially with leakage at the right rear. I wouldn't jump to an EGR cooler or head gasket unless something pointed that way. Good Luck!

It's not in the service info, it's in the owner's manual, which is a free PDF at motorcraftservice.com if it's not on PTS. Owner's manuals have a lot of great info in them. It's too bad the owner's never open them! Have a great day!

CF/LCF drain plug with the "tail": Ford part number: 6E7Z-9C082-A IH PN 2589259C91 List price is around $16.00 from IH, I think net was $11-12. Have a great day!