Matt Saunoras

i got myself good on wednesday. anyone ever notice how ridiculously sharp the heat shields are on new cat converter assemblies? had a 350 that needed new cats under the recall. all was going well, had a few close calls but was making due. until i tried to reach up past the left side to plug in o2s11. pulled my hand down and i felt the shield slice right into the tip of my right ring finger, brain said panic and i jerked away lightly slicing my wrist in the process balled my fist up, swore and walked around for 30 seconds and when i opened my hand it was completely covered in blood. that ruined me for the rest of the day

that sync course sucks. it took me less time to do torqshift 6 lack of interest was definitely a factor

I'm not even getting a prompt for 70 yet. went into today and tried to force an update and nothing. it's been 18 days since the thing wanted to update

I hate to admit it but I do all the sync (sink) work at our shop, what little there is always filters to me. I used to work at a linc/mercury store and picked up a lot of electronics experience from there. I'd rather work on trucks believe it or not

anyone putting half shells in vehicles under warranty? i've got one to check out tomorrow, guess i gotta pull it apart and look it over. if i throw a whole ficm at it you know they'll call it back

just for the hell of it I did a before and after test with light heat on the front nuts. these 2 were very stubborn and i had a hard time holding them with my "custom" 7/8s wrench. applied butane heat to the nut for 30-45 seconds, held them with the wrench and they zipped right out. i couldn't believe it worked that well. must have been just enough to break the loctite

my mac guy gave me a hex bit that's 9/16 on one end and 7/16 on the other. if i ever run across another i'll use a 7/16 socket and the bit

they ran straight rev-x

I'll be buying myself an oil cooler

i had a broken intake valve spring on a 5.4 3v. it was a few years ago and i can't remember exactly the symptoms other than an occassional idle misfire. anytime anyone mentions a 3v misfire that always pops into my head whoops. missed that 2002 part seen valves sticking on 2 valves but it always showed up on running compression

half our shop is asphault. you stick any kind of engine hoist on it and your an inch into the floor. i dropped a 5r55s on it one day and it didn't do a thing to the trans. i joke all the time that i'd rather have sand floors

if assholes could fly this place would be an airport i'd bang her like a screen door in a hurricane

you know i thought it might be a 14mm but a 9/16" fits perfect. 14 would be a hair too small but it would work

just a heads up guys you need a 9/16" hex socket to remove the factory plug above the starter. something like this. the 6.7s aren't coming with an element and you need to install one. http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?item_ID=3213&group_ID=364 of course there's no reason anyone would have a hex socket that big. in a pinch i took bolt and welded a nut to the other end but i still wasted time doing this also i contacted hotline about any instructions on wire routing. there currently aren't any and they told me to compare with a new vehicle. well we haven't ordered any 2011s with wiring yet. thanks anyways

i don't know what's gonna happen with it yet, i got sick of looking at it in my flat stall so i put it outside yesterday. by then there was a shit load of coolant in #5 hole, but i blew it out and it started.

saw a caliper bracket explode in the same manner. neither of us were hurt but it sure suprised the hell out of us.

man did this one take a LONG time to figure out. i scratched my head so much i think a bald spot has formed. it was brought in on the hook from an independent. they did plugs, front 3 coils and couldn't get it restarted the next day. vehicle has 105k on the clock I get it and of course it starts for me so i grab IDS and go for a ride. nothing really showed up for a while, once it got hot i noticed #5 dropping out a little on decel. pretty unusual I thought, not your typical ignition related misfire. get it back to the shop, pulled the intake on a hunch and found the #5 gasket torn and half completely missing. score one for me, put gaskets in it and it runs like a dream. park it in my stall and head home patting myself on the back the whole way. next day it's dead in the water, cranks fine won't start to save my life. pull the front three plugs and they're soaked. well no wonder, we have autolite platinums gapped .045" certainly that's gotta be the problem. put plugs in it, fires right up, never missed a beat all day. every warm crank results in a running engine. next day, nothing, once again. pull the front plugs out, soaked again so i dry them out, get it running and start on some tests. not a damn thing showed up on round 1. so off to type up a story for hotline. they're insisting fuel pump and leakdown is slightly out of spec so i'll buy that. even though i've never had a leakdown issue ever before, yeah that's gotta be it, i have every thing else i need. good spark, relative compression, relative injector, all my coils are good and the thing never misses a beat when it's warmed up. so i put a pump/ filter in it and it fires right up. "We" decide to let it go. before i can even begin to forget about this escape it's back in on the hook. blow the front plugs out(they're just wet from excessive cranking right? yeah gotta be) and pull it in. I ran every fucking gas engine performance test known to man on this thing and i'm still drawing a blank at this point, is it possible i'm going to be demoted back to base engine class? fast forward to friday i have all my injectors out and i even have the little cups out from the 5.4 injector recall(i feel like a chemist). my spray pattern is beautiful and for the second time i verify none of them are leaking down overnight. okay so now what, lets check manual compression on every cyl just for the hell of it. i do one hole in the back, #2. good compression, go to #5 in the front, whoa it's a lot lower than #2. take a peak down the hole, hmm why does the piston look wet, must be still washed down with fuel(all the excessive cranking right?) i'll do a wet compression test but i better blow the fuel out first. stick my blow gun down the hole and i get blasted with a face full of antifreeze. now the 3.0L duratec has been an engine a lot longer than i've been a technician so i'm far from seeing everything they're capable of. my question is this, do they have any kind of headgasket or other problems related to my concern? i've never even remotely heard of this, infact i never would have guessed this was the problem it may seem like a long story but that's actually the short version. the long version may or may not involve a pcm

i wish i would have seen this post earlier. i just finished one up today. phasers, solenoids, guides and tensioners. came in with a p0022, at idle all cyl on bank 2 dropping 10rpm over the rest. found a guide broke, both tensioners clearly blown out and holes in the screen on the bank 2 vct solenoid. something made its way through the oil passages, i just hope it doesn't come back to haunt me its running fine right now so we'll see. i'm definitely not doing another one without checking the oil pressure or cam caps. btw thanks for the highly informative post Chris

anyone ever look at msds for these various additives? basically standadyne contains everything pm-22a and pm-23a does plus more. diesel kleen does not come out and directly say whats in their formula but i do see the addition of xylene on there msds

guilty also. about a week after the air hose incident i managed to get a full drop of brake clean right in the eye. painful enough to put me on my knees. grinding, cutting or torching I wear glasses. I'm probably most guilty of getting burned too often. most of us wear short sleeved t-shirts at work. it doesn't cut it for welding or oxy-acetylene but i don't seem to learn

not too long ago i had an air hose end blow off and the hose whipped me in my left eye. luckily all it did was knock my contact out and leave me with an irritated eye. it was one of those deals where someone hose clamped the fitting. the sharp edge of the clamp could have very easily made that incident 100x worse

don't mind me, you'll find out fast i'm still learning these trucks edit- actually, to show you how little I do, i haven't done a warranty ficm under that tsb yet

That damn tsb is bullshit. Yeah my mpwr was 47.5v when the inductive heat cycle was running, it never changes at koeo, but as soon as you start it, it drops down to 42.0v. surely a new ficm doesn't do that....... According to that tsb my ficm was fixed by a reprogram, unless your the one behind the wheel feeling what a sloth it is when cold. I can't even believe how much better this truck feels with a new ficm in it.

There is was stairing back at me, laughing, mocking me, the ficm death code, P0611. Seen many of them but this one hits home. IDS is hooked to my truck It's gotta be some kind of contradiction for a ford mechanic to buy a 6.0 I hate to say it but I fully expected to see this, I'm not going to say i'm relieved but it is an easy fix. Since it's been colder out this thing is a toad when it's not warmed up. It even does the startup rough idle for a few seconds then smoothes out. classic. check eng light isn't on yet but i bet it would have set tomorrow. did the tsb, pmi and all that bullshit, didn't change anything all i have to do is start it tomorrow and get it to work one more time. we don't stock many diesel parts but you better believe there's a ficm on the shelf

guilty of buying anything i see