mrbudge

I know a guy who works in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut. That is way the hell up north for you southerners. The local school board has a Freightliner school bus up there, and it has a big red manual regen button on the dash. The only trouble is they cannot get it warm enough to do a successful regen (outside temp -40C or -40F, same thing). So our government pays to replace the dpf as required.

A heavy truck DPF is a cartridge, looks like a giant air filter. They fit in a DPF cleaner with adapters and are cleaned with compressed air, with the ash vacuumed away. Since the light truck DPF is in a welded unit, I haven't been able to find any places that will clean them. The cleaning process an a filter that is not contaminated with oil, coolant, or fuel is just a flow test, then blow out the ash with compressed air from the outlet side, then another flow test to verify the result. They also watch for damaged filter cells while cleaning. If the filter is contaminated they bake it first, then clean it. I have been tempted to do a backyard cleaning on a 6.4 filter (leaf blower, or equivalent) that isn't contaminated, but haven't had the opportunity yet.

This whole rad fiasco cracks me up. We have had rads and thermostats in cars and trucks since before World War 2 and now all of a sudden thermostats and/or lack of a venturi tee are causing rads to fail?? Really??

So many times, these engines do not die, they are murdered.

Bent rod. Especially if it puffs a little blue smoke. Any flooding in your area recently?

Astro-glide

You said 0110001001101111011011110110001001110011, heh heh heh

One of the guys here is having a sale on canned soup today.

What are you saying is the cause of the failure? If the cause of the failure is a broken ring, the ring is covered by diesel powertrain warranty. I have said to them in the past that I am not a mechanical engineer and cannot determine the cause of a mechanical failure. I would suggest that if there is no evidence of melting on the piston crown, then this damage is not typical of an injector fault, which is why you would not have an injector as a causal.

You always appeal a chargeback, it is the same as an insurance company rejecting a claim out of hand, they are hoping you roll over and take it. What did you causal the failure to? You couldn't causal to an injector if you didn't replace it. I am typically very reluctant to get the hotline involved unless mandated by the warranty policy manual ie prior approval. Hotline can only offer their opinion, and they can't see what you are working on, so what good is their opinion? It is also noted right on the hotline request screen that hotline input does not override the warranty policy manual. As you know, they will take information you give them in an effort to be thorough, and use it to burn you in the end. Rant over.

I was in Iceland for Christmas two years ago. The sun was rising at about 11:00, sets at about 3:30. The weird thing is it never gets too cold with temps around the freezing point day and night. I am used to it being bitchin cold at night in winter, so it took some getting used to being outside in the dark and not freezing to death. The sun is barely above the horizon at that time of year, so the way the light shone on the lavafields was quite interesting. I would go back there in a minute.

-Quick-start glow plugs that enable smooth and fast startups at temperatures down to 25 degrees F I guess it is made in Africa

I think I drove over a Great Gimli Aardvark last week.

You say oil level is full, is that in the HP reservoir or the oil pan, or both? I vaguely remember there being a valve in the block that could do funky things with HP oil supply, but if the reservoir is full when it stops that shouldn't be it. The only thing that I have seen cause a loss of low pressure oil, especially after engine service, is silicone floating in the pan blocking off the pickup screen. Some guys seem to apply silicone with a mop and bucket with obvious results.

I have a recieved a new PCM which actually communicates with IDS when I plugged it in, so I PMI'd it, and shipped it to Chris. He is going to put the Azure flash in it and send it back.

When they were driving them out from Ontario to Vancouver this summer they usually had to stop for a visit here. If I go to Kicking Horse this Christmas I will drive by your shop to see if it is parked there. If it is I won't be stopping.

Chris, it is great to hear from you. I will order the PCM today, and have it here tomorrow. Do you want me to PMI in the Ford software before sending it out?

It is an E450 with an aluminum Utilimaster body on it. AZDTEC has good info about them, as well as the Transit Connect Electric. Canada Post owns this one, Purolator has some as well. They are driving this one back out to Vancouver as soon as I coax it back to life, can you imagine driving one of these things through the mountains in the winter?

I have been blessed with Azure Dynamics Balance Hybrid that won't start. Those of you who don't know what that is should count yourself lucky. It appears that it needs a Ford PCM (it has more than one pcm), which by itself is not a problem. However, the Ford pcm will have an aftermarket program in it from Azure to allow it to work with the rest of the systems on the truck. I have a copy of the software, but I have no info on how to install it to the Ford PCM. Have any of you had any experience with aftermarket programmers that will allow you to install your own software. Ford tech hotline basically wants nothing to do with this thing. Azure has gone bankrupt so they are not offering any support for their products. Any input is greatly appreciated.

All I can say is I guess we will now be stocking more pinion bearings. It is funny how when I get a vehicle with noisy pinion bearings there is always a pinion seal replacement in its history.

Am I missing something or does this TSB tell you to way overpreload the pinion bearings.

Yeah, but if you keep a bunch of Korean software engineers locked in a room long enough they will figure a way around that. Now if they can just get my cheater satellite TV working.

Programmer

Unfortunately it is the customer who suffers in the end. Ford doesn't want to pay to fix their car, the dealer doesn't want to pay the tech to fix their car, and the tech doesn't want to fix their car for nothing, so how are they going to get their car fixed? I have always said I feel bad for anyone who needs to get their car fixed. And the reputation of this trade continues it's downhill slide...

Circuit fault, look for water in the bulkhead connector.