Matt Saunoras

Yeah I have seen a handful of loose 3v plugs. The telltale brown combustion stains and the boot will smell pretty bad. A few were so loose half the plug was melted away.

Finished my shortblock today. I'm still very leary on 6.4s. They've burned me in the past with oil leaks, fuel leaks and coolant leaks upon reassembly. You name it and I learned the lesson the hard way. Basically if I've seen it leak before, then I'm replacing it. The shortblock is warranty but I upsold exhaust manifolds and a RH up-pipe. Also I had a little talk with the managers today and got my concerns taken care of. $6 more and hour and a 40 hour guarantee. I am not going to lie I have never heard of anyone who is flat rate get a guarantee that high. The numbers don't lie, I am making the shop a lot of money. Right now I've got a 6.0 ambulance that needs a fan clutch and a turbo cleaning. I really want to upsell a main harness on this thing but I'm not sure if they'll go for it.

Many times with the lisle tool. Yes there is always the chance something will end up where it shouldn't, no it hasn't happened yet.

Ha! I've dissassembled more than a few 6.0 turbos and cobbled them back together. Knock on wood no charged back cores yet. They did call back the 6.7 one I did last week. Actually I think they've called back all my 6.7 turbos

The shortblock showed up today for the 6.4 thats in a million pieces around my area so much so I can hardly get to my boxes. Behind that is the ambulance I put coolers in. After letting the batteries juice up a little bit today I got it running long enough to see fuel pouring out from the front of the left head. Apparently I disturbed the lines enough to cause the banjo washers to not want to hold any longer( why the left side I'll never understand)...... but what do you expect for 250k? This is the ambulance that the last time it was in I was pulling it outside after cleaning the turbo and a PS line blew out (record shortest roadtest ever). Outside I'm working on a 2011 F-250. Another dealer just put a left front caliper on this thing. For whatever reason I came to find there is a shit load of air in the system. After a half dozen service bleeds and a half gallon of brake fluid all is well. I also had to pull the reductant tank for a pump low pressure concern along with the temperature sending unit not reading correctly. The pickups are fairly easy to get the tank out of on the ground. I honestly don't know how you guys do this diesel shit all day long day in and day out. I've never spent so much time at work and turned so little hours. My service manager really pissed me off bad today. He says to me "these diesels might be neat and fun to you but we're not making any money, you're not turning any hours" Last time I checked our diesel labor rate is $20 an hour more than our car labor rate so fucking guess what, we aren't equipped to do this shit, we don't have anything special to do this shit, all we have one guy that isn't the highest paid in the shop who wants to do it. How does that not equate to being profitable? I get shit done and it doesn't come back but why would that matter to an asshole that sits on the internet 7 hours a day and beats his other techs out the door at 4:30? I've got a feeling I'm going to be changing careers by the time I'm 30. I am quite discouraged at this point

hahaha that was awesome!

I do a mix of both but right now I'm not sharing work with anyone so I'm not saying anything. The CP definitely doesn't make up for shitty warranty times I'm not going to lie, I bend over backwards for my paying customers to ensure they come back. If that means putting 20 or 30 miles on the vehicle after a major repair then so be it.

The bridge was out but the pushrod was okay

Yeah it's a tip of a rocker arm

Put a right bank of injectors in a 6.0 f-series today. Also sold a HFCM and upgraded regulator kit. Going in tomorrow to start the coolers on the ambulance. Got the 6.4 shortblock out onto my rotisserie stand. The stuck lifter doesn't have a roller, needles or anything on the bottom.

I had a virgin 2010 6.0 ambulance not long ago that defintely never had an oil cooler yet the reservoir had collected a more than normal amount of debris. Even the new style steel screen was torn allowing some of that crap to pass into the high pressure oil system. I wondered why for about 10 minutes then continued along. Anymore I always pull out the high pressure pump, reseal everything and blow out the passage.

I've managed to avoid 6.4s more than not. I was pretty surprised to see all the rockers and valve bridges are destroyed in this engine at 75k miles. Honestly I didn't check the hours because I plain forgot. #2 and #8 cylinder walls are washed out. I've got to believe this is pretty typical also. No overfilled oil, no oil in the cac. Front cover is cavitated and the high turbo has a bit more play than it should. I think I need a little more damage for a shortblock, so I'll mount it up on the stand tomorrow and tear a few caps off. Also I did have to get the field service engineer involved on this truck. The warranty is one month from being out and it is pretty apparent that someone was right in the middle of removing the cab and aborted. This truck has no warranty history (YET) and all my cab bolts were loose. The front 2 were hanging out about an inch. I was told by hotline and FSE to proceed. Earlier today I finished up a 6.7 turbo, tomorrow I'm starting on coolers and possibly injectors on a 6.0 ambulance. Also I have to diag another 6.0 f-series in the morning for a hard start runs rough....cough.... injectors Work has been good, so good I haven't even been paying much attention to the new shop they're building. It's coming along nicely. They should be pouring the floor next week. I did manage to talk them into TWO 18k lb racks for me. Bring it on!

Yeah brain fart. I realized that when I did my turbo today. EGR coolers are what I was thinking of.

I finished mine today, 2012 F-550. If I remember tomorrow I'll snap a few pics. The bearing was completely gone but suprisingly none of the turbine blades were missing. The shaft still spun with your fingers but you couldn't help but laugh when you did.

Customer pay EGR coolers are done. Didn't get an okay on it until yesterday afternoon just in time to get everything ordered for today. Scramble to get that done, thankfully no further damage once the thing was running and blew all the coolant out of the exhaust. Other 6.4, number #3 intake valve bridge is laying out of place. Obviously the reason for no compression on that hole. Doesn't explain why I'm getting 360-380 on every other hole EXCEPT 2 and 8. #2 is 310 and #8 is 300. (Suspicious? yes, also suspicious is all the worn out rockers) The #3 intake lifter is stuck at the top of the bore, pulled all the shit out of the way, crank the engine over and the pushrod just sits there.

I would recommend replacing the EGR up-pipe bolts also if it's a CP job. I have snapped one already and I believe a few other guys on here have too. I keep some spares around. They are definitely tight coming out of the exhaust manifold and EGR valve if it's an early cast iron valve.

Got one getting towed in tomorrow, suspect turbo failure

Backordered right now, no updates in DOW, no date off back order. FOC stock has been depleted!

which hole if you don't mind me asking?

Glad you said it Keith. I have never rushed diesel work

I've run into a few trucks now with red coolant. CAT ELC is red and rotella ELC is too. I've used both. Peak Final charge is a redish orange but its EC-1 rated too and it can typically be found in parts stores. I used it one time in a pinch. Don't quote me on it but I think fleet charge is freightliner coolant. Pink in color and not EC-1 rated.

Alright. All is not well in 6.4 land. The one with coolers hydrolocked overnight so I had to pull all the glowplugs to get the cylinders dried out. Figured I might as well manual compression test it. Not the easiest thing with a bunch of washed down cylinder walls. Once I did get them all oiled up again and finally started getting some good readings I was well into 3 hours. Base engine is fine as far as I can tell, getting 400+ on all holes now. Pulled in another 6.4 with a P0303 and a dead hole on #3 cylinder. Relative down 22% and 5% on #8. No idea what's going on with that yet. It's one month away from being out of warranty. It's blowing raw fuel out the exhaust so the DPF/DOC is surely cooked. There is a lot of fuel in the oil too. I should just run it til it don't run no more.

Doing a set of coolers/stc on the ambulance companies ONE and ONLY 6.0 f-series, almost done, crack the turbo to clean it and the turbine is melted. At 3:30 today I'm not getting a turbo so work haults to a stop. There's a 6.4 outside that needs at the very least a horiztonal cooler customer pay. I haven't been given the go ahead to look at it yet. The bucket truck has been done. There was a slight tie up getting it re-registered, insured and state inspected. I ended up with 25 hours on it. Not sure if I gave or got the screwing, there was so much overlap but it ended up needing an IPR and a fan clutch after it was all done. I sure don't feel like I slammed it home.

Its possible a complete ficm is more but halfshells are quite a bit less. A halfshell from ford lists for $556.67 and 10% over cost is $367.40. A whole FICM on the other hand would list for $725.00 and 10% over is $478.50.

Good, maybe it's about time. I'm sure cummins loves dickhead dodge owners puking black smoke out of 8" stacks. I would LOVE to see a nissan with cummins mudflaps and big 16" C's in the rear window.