GregH

At 2000 rpm, does the engine seem like it hits the wall? Like a gasoline engine-style rev limiter? And just before 2000, all seems fine? And if you floor the accelerator, the engine jumps around like it wants to come out of the engine compartment? If so, it may be the same issue I had with an '03 late last year... The one with the PCM CMPO signal getting messed up, and the FICM killing cylinders... Here's the link: Long crank time on an '03 Good luck, dude...

//insert rude taco comment// ahuhuhu! Tacos rule! You know, in all seriousness, I had a fish taco the other day at some new trendy restaurant - you know the kind - everyone there had a little goatee, wore black, and spoke in monotone. My big assed redneck self, standing all of 6'4" busts up in there and orders the special of the day with a sweet tea. I'm given two fish tacos, a cup of hot tea, and two sachets of sugar. WTF? But, yeah, the fish tacos were an assault on the taste buds, but they were pretty good.

So I get this company owned 350 in with a leaking radiator at 38K. CP, with no help offered, since the leak has been there long enough to allow the coolant to be diluted to almost pure water. Ya gotta at least pretend to care about your truck to get AWA... Put in the radiator and degas "T", start the engine, and find that it starts running rough after a few minutes. Do some testing, and find injectors 2,3,6,and 7 aren't contributing very well. STFT is +12 to +15 on those, while the other four cylinders are -11 to -15. Number 6 even goes into a dead miss at times... Ok, so we're probably looking at a fuel problem. You don't get four injectors fail at once.... Pull the fuel filter cap off the top of the engine. What is this slimey shit? Some numb-nuts had put antisieze on the threads of the filter cap! And not just once! There are two distinct colors of antisieze and two colors of metal flake floating in the filter bowl! Some of the compound appears to have dissolved in the fuel, since the consistancy of the slime is nothing like antisieze right out of the bottle.... Oh my... The owner of the company will be coming down this morning to inspect...

I read about this in Scientific American a while back. It's an interesting technology. I'll be very curious to see what the commercial prospects will be... A company I interviewed for a while back had a pretty cool business plan. They are a spinoff of a defense contractor, and their job was to purchase the research from several local facilities and massage them into viable commercial products. They specialized in acoustics adn resonance - right up the same alley as this "witricity" stuff.. There was a product I saw a while back based on pacemaker technology... It was basically a tabeltop with some electronics built into it.. You place your laptop, cellphone, PDA and other whatnot on it, and the batteries are recharged and the devices synced with each other... It used some induction coils for power, and bluetooth transcievers for communication. Your devices had to be appropriately equipped with induction coils for charging, but nost devices are already bluetooth compatible.. Interesting stuff.. I do wonder - somtimes - what all the increase in electromagnetic radiation exposure will do to us.... Oh, and anyone interested can read articles from SciAm - http://www.sciam.com

Thanks, guys. You've been a tremendous help. It looks like this valve body gets no check balls... I'll let you know how it goes...

So I'm building the transmission on my mustang - 65 "greendot" C4 - and I'm having some trouble at the valve body area. It looks like there were check balls in the valve body at one point in the past, but we can no longer tell. I've scoured a few other sources for information, and some say that this transmission doesn't use check balls in the valve body, and others say it does. It seems that there is also a difference in check ball application if it is a "greendot" or a "non-greendot" transmission. Can anyone here help me out? First problem - this transmission was built about 20 years ago. The case appears to be original, but I can't tell about the valve body. Is there a way to tell from the valve body whether or not it is a greendot? And, given that info, can anyone tell me about check ball placement? Thanks, guys!

Years ago I got nailed by a whining noise on an contour with a 2.0L. Turns out that the crankcase vent filter was packed up solid and wouldn't allow airflow into the engine. The PCV system pulled the crankcase down to alightly below atmospheric pressure, and the rear main seal started to whine as it passed air into the crankcase. After locating the noise to the rear main seal area, removing the transmission and flexplate, replacing the rear seal (with no visible defects) reassembling and road testing, only to discover that the noise hadn't changed, I was at my wits end. Then an older tech came along, listened to the noise, reached over and removed the oil dipstick. The noise stopped immediately! He says, "Yeah, I got burned by that one once... You never forget the noise!" About six months ago, one of my coworkers had the same noise in a vehicle he was working on. I let him go for a while, he started to get frustrated, so I walked over, pulled the dipstick, and said, "Yeah, I got burned by that one once... You never forget the noise!" Circle of life, man...

Ouch. That was physically painful... No, the pun was not intended.. Wish I could take credit for that one!

Magnet on my toolbox: "Got a complaint? Just ask for Heywood Jablowmi" From years ago, in another life: "Purple is the highest number in the alphabet." In response to a witty remark (stolen from "robot chicken" on the cartoon network): "That's hilarious! Let's hear it for 'Jokey McShut the fuck up!'" And, from one of you cats on this board: "We were all over it like a Hindu on chicken!" I'm still trying to figure out what that means!

It's now a "T" recall - 08T01. Pays .3

I'd have to agree with Bruce on this one - why isn't the P1000 clearing? It's been some time since I've dealt with a persistant P1000. The WDS had a tool to tell you which tests had and had not passed to clear the P1000. On the IDS, under Toolbox>Powertrain>OBD Test Modes (I think - kinda doing this from memory) does it have a selection that will indicate the pass/fail status of the OBD tests? Might give you a concrete direction to go in...

Good job, Keith. *Pat on the back* Here's a cookie. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cheers.gif

If fluid starts pouring out, then it isn't necessarily fucked... I assume you're topping it off after these events, right? I would expect the fluid is getting too hot. The torque convertor seal will start to leak with hot fluid, but it will usually seal back off when the fluid cools. Harsh shifting is a default condition when the fluid gets above a certain temperature. The tranny is trying to keep itself cool by eliminating as many sources of heat as possible - minimum shift time to minimize clutch slip. Inspect the transmission cooling system. Reman was installed? Did it get a new OTA? Are the lines bent up? Is there an inline filter, and is it installed properly? Why was the original tranny replaced? Were the lines and radiator cooler flushed? Also, remans aren't perfect - new doesn't mean good. First step is a visual inspection. Second, do a cooler flow test. I would expect you'll find a problem there...

Sweeeet! Nice find, Keith... Reads much like the Newman motor - although the government hasn't bumped him off, yet. wikipedia has a nice article about Meyer. A little dry, perhaps, and they do tend to edit out a lot of the conspiracy stuff (unfortunately), but some really good information. Speaking of conspiracies and stuff, if any of you have access to "coast to coast AM," I highly recommend giving it a listen. This dude, George Noory, hosts a 4 hour radio program every night starting at around midnight. They've got all manner of conspiracies, crazies, government plots, you name it. Anyone remember the book (and movie) The Philadelphia Experiment? Well, they had someone on the radio program who was actually there and witnessed the proceedings. He helped to design some of the hardware and explained how some of it worked. You know what's funny, though, is that with my scientific background, I could understand much of what he was talking about - and it was scientifically accurate... Interesting stuff... I'm sure the radio program is available online as an .mp3 - probably for free....

Using salt or some other electrolyte in your water will speed up the reaction - this is because pure water doesn't conduct electricity very well at all, and salt water conducts better. However, be careful with your mixtures... Regular table salt, NaCl, will produce chlorine gas along with the oxygen. Also, some of the liberated hydrogen will want to cling to the chlorine atoms, and make a little hydrochloric acid. So, your container needs to be able to handle this.. But since you've got to design your rig to withstand acid anyway, why not use sulfuric acid? H2SO4 is almost as cheap as salt, and it has the benefit of not producing chlorine gas, and has no competing ions for the hydrogen to bond to. Your reaction efficiency will go up, and your harmful byproducts will go down. The remainder after the reaction would be a quantity of sulphur dioxide which, other than smelling like rotten eggs, is pretty much harmless. But what is the real goal here? To get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible... It's all about energy storage... Here's a few facts for you... 1 - The energy density of hydrogen in ideal circumstances is about 1/4th the density of gasoline 2 - The energy density of lithium polymer batteries is higher than hydrogen, but not by much. 3 - Gasoline has about 33 KWhrs of energy per gallon. 4 - It takes about 1.58 KWhrs of energy to move an internal combustion powered car one mile. 5 - All but about .3 KWhrs of the energy above is wasted. The energy that actually hits the pavement over one mile is about .3 KWhrs. So, we're wasting about 80% of the gasoline we put in our tanks. If we switch to hydrogen, and burn it in generally the same way, we'll still lose about 80%. Interncal combustion sucks... Fuel cells are better - They take fuel and turn it into electricity. The electricity is then turned into kinetic energy through an electric motor. Total losses in this type of system are about 60%. Better than IC, but still poor. Add to the fact that to store 33KWhrs of energy in the form of hydrogen will require 4 gallons of volume in the vehicle, and not one like gasoline.. Batteries anyone? It seems that battery technology changes daily, but as far as I can tell sodium-ion batteries are the best. I couldn't find any mass/volume ratios, so I'll convert gasoline back to mass. For every pound of gasoline in a vehicle, there is about 5KWhrs of energy. The best batteries (sodium ion) can hold about .2KWhrs of energy per pound. Energy efficiency from battery to pavement is about 90%. Gasoline efficiency from tank to pavement is about 20% - makes for 1KWhr to the pavement per pound of gasoline. Battery is about .18KWhr on the pavement per pound of battery. Add in the range improvement from regenerative braking, plus the weight savings of not having nearly as large an engine, transmission, radiator, EVAP gear, and other whatnot, and the fact that batteries don't lose weight when discharging (elimination the design constraint of having to allow for as much fluctuation in vehicle weight) and I would say that it is possible to retrofit an existing vehicle into an electric and not lose anything in performance. A vehicle designed ffrom the ground up to be electric would trounce all over a gasoline equivalent.... Unfortunately, there is the cost.... Batteries are expensive... But that will be a topic for another day...

I remember seeing something similar to this on television a while back. There was this series on Dicovery or The Science Channel, where these kids had a converted schoolbus that ran on waste vegetable oil and travelled around the country looking into alternative energy... It was campy, and pretty lame, and I wondered at times about the sexual orientation of the main actors, and how their orientations probably changed after spending weeks in their schoolbus, but if you could see past that there was some interesting technology. One of the topics was petroleum from algae. Essentially a ziploc bag of green goo, tossed onto a conveyor belt running around this field in the sun. After the prescribed time, the mix is centerfuged to separate the components, and there's yer oil. It was a really lightweight description of the process in the show, but it got the basic points across. Anyway, there were some other interesting ones too - generating electricity from falling water - a whopping big underground water tank buried at the top of a hill, and a series of perf-pipes feeding rainwater and dew into it. Not really scalable stuff, I know. But at least it would get you thinking. Speaking of growing oil, anyone read about using palm oil to fuel transportation? Recent estimates are interesting - by using palm oil in aircraft, Hawaii can produce enough fuel to send all the aircraft that land there back to where they came from - eliminating the need to barge over jet fuel.... I'll try to come up with a link...

Ummm, guys, can we think about the chemistry of this setup for a moment? You're taking water and electrolysising it to break the hydrogen-oxygen bond - H2O into H2 and O2 - then porting these gasses into the intake stream. Hydrogen gas is flammable, so the flame in each cylinder is larger and hotter. More power with less gasoline... Nice.. Except for this - what do you get when you ignite a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen? Water and heat. So, you are taking water, cracking the bonds, then recombining it back to water. Where does the heat come from? It comes from the electricity it took to electrolysise the water. Which comes from the battery, alternator, and then crankshaft torque... It's kinda like taking a rubber band, and wrapping it around the crankshaft. As the rubber band untwists, it applies an additional torque to the crankshaft. It automatically rewinds itself from the driveshaft... You're not getting anything "extra." The mileage boost may be coming from a number of things - paying closer attention to fuel consumption and power may cause you to lift your foot more often, or a net decrease in potential energy in the battery? But in reality the benefit from the hydrogen generator is non-existant. You are starting with water, and ending with water. Hydrogen power has been around since cars were first put onto the road... Every time there is a significant increase in fuel price, this type of product makes a comeback... Kinda like the magnets you attatch to the fuel line... If this product were so simple and the benefit was so great, wouldn't you think vehicle manufactureres would put this into place to increase their CAFE? However, people are seeing a real increase in fuel economy. That's the bottom line... So, I suppose it doesn't really matter where the fuel economy increase is coming from.. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you're getting something for nothing with the hydrogen generator....

The plastic that the standpipe is made out of melts at 350... I've seen several like that so far... One other thing about the 6.4 and continuing to drive it with warning indicators in the customer's face - Had one that blew a turbo seal. Started pumping oil into the exhaust, and eventually the engine died. Towed to the shop, 1 quart of oil in the pan, and one quart in the CAC. Bearings trashed, metal scattered, time for a motor. Come to find out that the low oil pressure indicator is a green oil can icon in the message center. Green! WTF?! And the transmission range indicators are red. Now that's thinking there! Of course, the 6.4 will quite merrily run without oil pressure until mechanical failure occurs....

Oh, and I forgot to mention this - As different as these two career environments are, engineering and auto repair, there is some common ground. After we ate lunch, and were on our way back to the office complex, one of the engineers in the car with me says, "been a while since we went by the pool." Seems the engineers like to ride around the local college campus and look at the pretty girls too - just like we technicians like to do on our lunch breaks...

Whoah. I. am. speechless. That place is a freakin' playground!! Every engineer has a desk that is piled with integrated circuits, computer cards, schematics scribbled on bar napkins, you name it! And some seriously sexy computers - racks of quad core xenon's, terabyte drives, and 20inch monitors... (insert Homer Simpson drooling over a donut). And the place is inhabited by children. Children! Fresh out of college! Oh, and then we go to the lab... First I see an acoustic project they are working on. It's a self contained package of electronics, microphones and a battery that detect the vector to a sound source matching a stored profile. That data, along with the device's position (from an onboard GPS) and it's orientation (from an onboard compass), plus the same data from at least one other unit in the vicinity, will pinpoint the sound source. They are linked by 2.4GHz WiFi (for now) The second project is determining how vibrations in aircraft structural members cause cracks and corrosion. This one is a large piece of aluminum girder, some large concrete blocks, a plethora of accelerometers and strain gauges, and a pneumatic actuator. It was seriously cool. Anyway, great group of guys. Some hardware types that were genuinely easygoing, some software types that were a little high strung, and some management types to bind it all together. I hope to hear back, but hey - if not, then I got to look at some high end stuff that not many people get to play with. And met some people I'd probably only meet as customers.

Some time ago, I was talking about a project I'm working on in my spare time to my sister. She works for NASA as a satellite engineer... Anyway, it was a problem I was having with a little circuit I designed - She suggested I call an old classmate of her's who lives and works in the town I work in. So, I put it on the back burner for a while. I finally got around to calling him a few weeks ago, and explained my delima with the circuit. He asked if I could scribble the problem down and email it to him. I tell him, "no problem, it's all stored on my computer, I'll just .pdf it and send the pertinant bits to you." I got a reply some days later - he was quite impressed. He gave a few helpful suggestions, and that was the end of that. Or so I thought. A week or so later, he comes to where I work. He shows up first thing in the morning, and asks if I can talk to him outside. Once there, he asks me if I would like to be an engineer... Seems he passed this little design I had made around, and his peers were equally impressed. So, tomorrow I have a lunch planned with the whole engineering staff where he works. They asked for a resume' in a "handout" form - just something informal that gives the pertinant information. Also, a few examples of other projects I've made... I don't know what to think. The parent company is an aerospace manufacturer with a worldwide client base. This spinoff is an "engineer for hire" sorta thing that has a workforce of about 100 professionals. Lots of private and government contracts.. Anyway, wish me luck... This goes down tomorrow, and I'm a bit nervous, to say the least!

Found it - STC fitting. Typical failure that failed in an atypical way. The STC was cocked bigger than shit in the outlet fitting. The o-ring in the outlet was perfectly intact, but the STC fitting and the outlet fitting would not lock together when I had it out on the bench. New style STC, torqued with an old metal bracket, and it's back on the road. Thanks for the help, guys. 'Specially Keith - you nailed it, buddy.. I didn't look into the nitrile glove in the pan hypothesis - sorry inc... Later!

I've got one that has a lack of high pressure oil when it is hot. Big surprise at 78,000 miles... Except that it will build pressure fast sometimes. And other times it won't build pressure to save it's life. Hot engine (EOT over 190), short soak time (like less than 5 minutes), and the truck will restart with no issues. Longer soak time (10 minutes or more) results in a no start until it cools off. When it will not start, the high pressure system builds to 25psi. That's like .28V from the ICP (!). And sometimes when it won't start, ICP stays on 0psi the whole time (.24V) Do the air check. With such a low ICP, there should be a rather large leak. Nope, just a small trickle of air. Cycling the IPR results in no change in sound. So, I pursue the non-changing nature of the sound when cycling the IPR. Pull the IPR, inspect (no screen debris or damage) and replace. No change in the truck's condition. I've pulled the oil filter and cranked it over both hot and cold. The housing fills at about the same rate, and fills pretty quickly. There was an aftermarket filter setup, but I swapped it for factory stuff while testing. Last point, the oil pressure on the dash will not ever register a pressure until after the engine has started. The whole time I'm winding on the starter watching the ICP hold at 25psi, the dash gauge stays down. Even on a cool engine, and a restart is possible, the gauge will not move until .5s to 1s after the engine has started. When this thing starts, it starts quick. No slowly building ICP. It's like it's all or nothing... Usually high pressure leaks will go to 100-300psi, rather than 25.... Anyway, if anyone's got some insight, I would appreciate it.. Thanks!

With only one faint click, and a reported "pass" from the injector electrical self test, there is a strong possibiity that the FICM has taken a dump on itself. If so, here is an instance where experience and observation help out. Machines talk to us in many ways, not just check engine lights and DTC's. Listening to the sounds an engine makes can be just as valuable as the code you retrieve. We've performed injector electrical tests so many times, the sound is burned into our cerebrums. When one doesn't sound the same as we'd expect, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Once we find that sore thumb, it may be time to divert from the PC/ED. The test reports passed, right? The PC/ED then tells us to go to the next step. But no clicky, no starty. It's time to figure out why the injectors didn't click, but the FICM has no problems to report.

Maybe a sticking turbo? Does the boost gauge on the dash respond promptly to throttle changes?