Matt Saunoras

I have some 7018 rod I found in the old shop but no idea how old it is or how much moisture it's absorbed. Would it be any good without drying it first?

Interesting. I wish I had some free time so I could try it. What rod are you using?

Good luck, I've thought hard about leaving Ford all together but never once considered an independent. Fleets are always looking for techs but I fear the repetitiveness. At least in a dealer you can specialize but not do the exact same thing everyday.

My TIG will do stick welding but I've never tried it

Yesterday I was worried this customer would never return after they declined the fuel in the coolant job. There's another one on it's way too.

I keep 5/8" fine thread nuts around just for this situation. You never know when you're going to have to slide hammer something and when that time comes all you have to do is weld a nut.

I would not hesitate to sell a BRS-127 in a BRS-110 box.

That's why I wanted it. 3 years ago we didn't do trucks here. We didn't have the customers and we didn't have the room. Whatever I'm doing now I've built from nothing and work isn't always raining in from above, I'd estimate 95% of what I work on we didn't sell. I can usually look busy but I'm not an hours burner just killing anything that walks through the door... quite frankly I never have been, I've got 30 more years of this and it's not happening if I burn out in a few years. Most dealerships (at least this one) don't think about their techs long term. Our new service manager is a numbers guy but he's starting to understand how I work. Shop foreman would be a nice title but I'm not pushing it.

Doing a high pressure pump in an 03 6.0 F-550 dump. No start, sawtooth ICP. The 6.7 that caught fire was the main battery cable harness rubbed through on the frame. Below the right side battery the cable drops down, attaches to a bracket on the frame and runs down the saddle to where it splits off to the starter/across the front of the engine. Quite a large area rubbed through on the saddle and was shorting out. This is a plow truck with over 100k on the clock, salt was falling out on me the whole time which made it quite a nightmare of a job. Nothing.... and I mean nothing came apart and went together without a fight, it almost pushed me over the edge, something as simple as a battery cable. The one transit bus with fuel in the coolant is leaving, no authorization. I'm going to offer to get them a set of heads and a few other parts on the side to try and help sell the job.

I saw one cup cracked in a core head returned from one of our fleet parts customers. I don't think under ordinary circumstances a cup could crack in a 6.0, it would almost have to be a flaw. I would never bore brush a questionable cup. I've always replaced any I thought were suspect. Whitaker makes a tool to do cups in chassis. It's expensive but one job could pay for the tool when head removal is the other option. On the other hand if you slide hammered an injector you can probably slide hammer the cup too.

Thanks, it's always good to impress a new customer.

It wasn't a rub on the valvecover it was actually on the edge of the intake manifold. The brown/white wire is V-REF for the ICP sensor and it was definitely shorting to ground.

That's the same tester I have. Been through one gauge and one 6.0/6.4 adapter but I do use it a lot. I don't have the 6.7 adapter either, I use the shops

Here's a couple screen shots of the ICP bringing down some of the V-REF sensors. I didn't find this right away because my EBP was also biased KOEO while the concern was not happening. The first pic is while cranking and honestly I can't believe the bus started. The second pic I was able to recreate the concern by pushing the harness into the edge of the valve cover.

Got a couple 6.0 E-450 transit buses here for some driveabilty concerns. This is a new customer. The one I looked at today has a bunch of codes for basically all the v-ref sensors. Found the ICP wiring rubbed on the right valvecover. Gotta figure out how to get to those wires. The other one has fuel in the coolant. Then there's a 6.7 that caught fire and another F-550 6.7 that has a wrench/check engine light.

Actually can't we reimburse the customer if they have a receipt for a torque converter replaced at another repair facility? Now that I think about it I believe we subletted this freestar to aamco a few years back for tranny problems. Back when trannies would cost us money due to limited space we had to turn down customer pay work.

So.....after the better part of the day screwing around trying to remember how to pull a fwd trans I get almost all the way out with it. Go to pull the convertor nuts and the damn thing is blue......BLUE!!! WTF!!! I think a f-ing blue torque convertor sitting on my service managers desk would get the point across.

I'll say one thing if the LCF seals aren't the same they could sure play the part. They look identical but I won't get a chance to try them. The f-550 I was working on got declined.

I have an old 550 seal from last week, I'll have to check it.

The torque convertor recall sits waiting for me. As I come to find out an 18k lb rotary will lift a freestar.

I need some F-550 rear axle seals and I seem to remember someone on here posting one time that the LCF seals are the same. I cannot for the life of me find that post though. Can anyone confirm? I'm showing BRS-110 (backorder) as 450/550 and BRS-127 as LCF. I'm looking up both for an 07 if it matters.

Working on the 6.0 F-550 that would barely run. Suspected combustion gas in the fuel rail, verified fuel pressure was very low (20s-low 30s) and that FICM voltage was also dipping into the 30s while running. It has an underboost code in it so I figured I'd quote a turbo cleaning as long as the rest of the repairs turned out okay. Put in the right side of injectors, fuel pump, upper filter, FPR kit and a FICM. Seemed to run okay so I put about 10 miles on it, noticed a few times my EBP desired didn't match up with my EBP_G, still thinking turbo is stuck. This truck is so heavy I can't really tell if it's lacking power or not right away. So I get back into the shop, back into my spot and the truck dies like someone shut off a switch. Scan DTCs and there it is, P0231, fuel pump secondary circuit low. It's seriously a miracle this truck didn't strand me. I've got no voltage coming out of the fuel pump relay internal to the CJB. Let it cool off a while, pulled the turbo, wasn't stuck even a little bit. Cleaned it anyways and put it back, the relay must have cooled off enough too because now it's putting out good voltage until I key off and back on then nothing again. The PCM wants the relay closed, it's just not happening. Actually the FPM pid came in handy. I think it's the first time I ever used it. My EBP desired idling is around 5 PSI while my actual is near 3 PSI. Vanes were commanded shut at 85% but I'm going to have to try a known good VGT first then maybe pull the EBP and have a look. All my pressures are good KOEO. So this truck kind of threw me for a loop. To make it worse our new SM asked me today how long it would take me to do a freestyle torque convertor. Then I happen to notice one on the schedule for tomorrow. I hope I gave the wrong answer

The core is $75

I have a horizontal that's mine and a vert that has a core charge

I can't imagine some of the garbage those guys have to read through, I can understand the cut and paste responses though. The other guy here types in some real garbage, I would be punching the computer screen if I was on the other side. Granted not all the time but usually when I'm hotlining something I have time to waste anyways. Anymore I try to use them as a second opinion and as documentation for a big warranty claim. It seems to help get stuff paid for.