GregH

Oh, and this is not the first time I've applied for a teaching position. I've gone to two other community colleges and one high school vo-tech. They have all turned me down because of my record - even though it's been 16 years ago. The director of this department at this community college is an ex-con...

Thanks for the support, guys. I got my shop foreman to write me a letter of reference, along with other references. At work, my shop foreman is the only one who knows about this. I trust him because we've talked for years about the need to develop an exit strategy for this line of work - there are no old technicians. Yesterday was my first day back after vacation, and after an hour he comes up to me and asks about how the decision went down. I didn't suppress my grin fast enough, and no other words needed voicing. I did tell him the final decision is Dec. 13th. So he said he would put it out of his mind until then. My manager is a hothead. I can't wait to tell him... Anyway, Dec. 14th through Dec. 30th is a little over two weeks notice...

... but not the trade. I applied for and got a job teaching automotive service technology at a community college about 3 hours away. Well, the president of the college said he was going to recommend me for the position to the board - it's their call - but it is usually a rubber stamp thing. This will be a big change for us. Spring semester 2012 I'll be living on campus in faculty housing, while my daughter finishes her school year at home. If everything is still a go next summer, my spouse will find a job down there near my college and we'll sell our house. We'd then rent until we found a place to buy down there. Three hours closer to friends and family, I'll be on state health insurance and state retirement, ridiculous amounts of time off, and its not that much of a paycut... Starting salary is 20% less than my top year ever, and I've dropped 10% from there in these last few years. A lot of pieces have to fall into place, though. I need to find cheap, nearby housing for just me during the week, my spouse has to handle everything here during the week. Then she needs to find a job down there in her field, and we need to sell our house. After that, we can breathe again - we'll rent while we recover from those expenses and take our time finding the right place to buy. Wish us luck.

We're running 3.79 a gallon here, 3.09 for regular gas. Glad I cut mine with ATF..

Be aware too that any electric motor will draw a lot of peak current when starting up. It may work to his advantage to change over to a 12V compressor and tie into a deep cycle battery - a lot of power is wasted by making the conversion to 120VAC, and the waveform is not necessarily optimum for motor operation. Using an RV isolation relay and a little imagination you can set up a deep cycle battery to charge when the engine is running, but be separate when the engine is off - tie your inverter and compressor into the isolated system.

I maintain a fleet of E450 buses with frame mounted batteries. My FICM 12v powers typically drop below 9 volts while cranking, even with new batteries. I chalk it up to the long battery cable run... MPWR drops below 48 volts during crank, but no where near 18V... And the powers jump right back up to where they are supposed to be immediately after engine start... If the engine starts and runs fine, and there are no codes, it may be fixed with that one bad battery. I take it mpwr comes back to 48 volts?

Thank you Brad. This was really informative, clear and easy to follow... Oh, I haven't spun any cage nuts yet. But I did snap the head off the right front bolt. How the hell does that happen??

So, the 6.7 says to use an impact to remove the body bolts, and a jack to assist with the two front mounts. Anyone been here before? I'm pulling my first 6.7 body, but I've been around the block a few times with the 6.4.

Ron Jeremy's dick isn't all that fat...

And doesn't it seem like an odd design choice to feed the EGR cooler with preheated coolant from the oil cooler... Seems as if the cooling would be more effective if it got it's own flow from the water pump. I read something about up to a 700 degree drop across the cooler too, Fred. I usually explain the chain of failures to customers using an engine (or components - depends on what's in my stall) as a visual aid and tell them for the coolant to keep from boiling when in the presence of exhaust that can be up to 1200 degrees, the coolant must move fast. Since it gets a feed from an oil cooler that gets restricted over time, the flow will slow down, and once it goes slowly enough a steam bubble forms at the rear of the cooler. Since steam does not conduct heat as well as liquid, the metal there overheats, expands beyond design limits, and cracks any joints in the area.

Thanks for the input. It's up to the customer now. If he decided to do it, I'll let you know how it turns out.

I have a customer who wants to have us install this fuel tank into his vehicle: Titan Fuel Tanks website part number 7020211. It is a midship fuel tank with a 50 gallon capacity. Uses the same fuel pickup and sending unit. Anyone use a product like this? Will the miles to empty reading be correct? Does it affect the fuel economy calculation? Will the fuel gauge work right? Thanks!

There seems to be more heat retention from the body style - makes the plastics more brittle. Also, the lifter guides on these things are really weak. The last one I had I was still able to remove the damaged lifter through the bottom. I held the lifter in the guide outside the engine and found that it would turn easily within the guide. The other lifters in the engine were just about able to spin in their guides, too. So if #8 hadn't have failed on mine, it would have been another one soon... I include guides on these engines if the heads have to come off for any reason...

3000 miles on the odometer, and this college kid takes his new truck out to Sardis Lake and proceeds to embarrass himself by ingesting water into his engine... Low compression on 2 and 8, loses oil pressure once EOT rises above 180 degrees, ominous noises from crankcase area... Interestingly, it loses fuel pressure off idle. FRP_A rises from 4500 to 14000 without a hitch, but then it drops off. FRP_CMD drops too, and I can't pin down what is causing the low FRP command... Anyway, quoted $15K to repair. His dad was surprisingly cool about it. He asked me to push the vehicle back out into the lot and give him a few days to calm down before he makes a decision.. should be interesting..

You might consider checking your alignment, too. Low caster numbers on both sides won't cause a pull by themselves, but it will make the truck sensitive to outside conditions that would cause a pull.

Thanks for the assistance. I heated the #4 mounts from the top to avoid being right next to the fuel tank. Carpet and padding were pretty close, but I used a 2"x2" metal cylinder I use for driving in seals to act as a flame guard, and kept a gallon of water beside to take care of any sparks. After the bolt was out I poured some of the water through the hole to cool the mount and fuel tank area.

Do you stuff the torch up there beside a midship fuel tank? I have pretty much wide open access to the top of the bolt on this mount..

I'm wrestling the body off of this vehicle, and I'm down to the last two mounts - #4, right in front of the rear axle and behind the side door. So far, I've caught hell with all the rest, even with generous amounts of PB blaster. On one or two I've had to use some heat. These mounts have a hex head nut made onto the bottom that allows for the use of a wrench to back it up while an impact is used from the top side. Unfortunately, the driver's side #4 is blocked by the midship fuel tank. Any suggestions for getting it out? Thanks!

Not to be a douche, but you got 25 years of paychecks.. What other recognition do you need?

The five transit buses that the city owns use about five and a half pounds of freon for the rear system. They don't seem to be really sensitive to freon level.. I agree with a compressor going out...

I'm going in to work today, but this evening starts my vacation.. We're headed to Florida to see the last space shuttle launch with my brother and sister. We're also going to spend a day at Universal Studios, take a look through Brevard Community College's 24 inch telescope, cruise in a glass bottomed boat at Silver Springs, and a few other things. We'll be 12 miles from the shuttle launch in a recreational park for Kennedy Space Center employees. So we should see a pillar of light rising from the horizon, and then hear the sound about one minute later... Oh, I'm not going to be worth a shit today... If any of you see launch footage, look for us. We'll be the ones waving... Barring weather or mechanical, the launch is scheduled for 11:30 eastern on Friday. The launch window extends to Sunday if necessary.

Charity begins at home... When the series of tornadoes swept across my part of the state, there were many, many houses around mine that were damaged. Smithville, barely half an hour away, was wiped off the map. Great swaths of destruction criss-cross my route to and from work. There are those displaced who were not injured physically, but lost everything. There was one individual who's checkbook was found almost 100 miles away in another state... There are also those injured or killed, and those who are left behind. Worst series of storms we've seen in decades.. We were unaffected. We gathered our extra clothes, toys, etc. and gave them to the Red Cross donation center in town. We donated money, too. We did our part. Our efforts made it to the people who needed it. Unfortunately, in the confusing aftermath, there were those who took advantage of the situation. Impromptu donation centers cropped up that were scams. People took money and goods under false pretense. These gifts, intended to help those affected, never made it to their destination. Few of these perpetrators were identified. We see it every time. When Katrina had her way with my home town, there were those who used the situation to steal. When a severe (for our area - don't laugh you Canadians..) ice storm in 1995 shut off the power and isolated residents in their homes, ill prepared to deal with the cold, well intentioned rednecks with four wheel drives picked up firewood, blankets and coats and distributed them to those in need. Some of those good intentions never got where they were going... For the tangibles - money, clothes, etc. - I stay with the name brands. St. Jude, Red Cross, the tithe at church, March of Dimes. The intangibles - my labor, my knowledge - I am much more free. Along similar lines, I must tell you a true story that happened many, many years ago... While living in Louisiana a few decades ago, I ran a paper route. Not a bicycle route, but a car route with around 1200 houses to throw. I would get started at about 2am, and spend about an hour and a half folding papers outside the newspaper office. Not long after I got started folding, a car drives up into the parking lot and stops by my car. A woman steps out, and in the glow of the interior light I see a car carrier with a little bundle wrapped up in it. The woman walks over to me and says if I give her $20 for some diapers for her kid, she'll give me a !?@#%!. After a flabbergasted moment, I declined the offer. I did offer to pay her $20 if she helped me fold newspapers, though. 45 minutes later we were done folding papers, I paid her $20, and off she went... That was when I started getting a little more careful with my charity...

One of my former coworkers built a 20x40 shop on his property. It has two roll up doors offset in each of the 20' walls to make two long stalls. There is a lift set 20' in, centered on one roll up door. There is an area ahead of the flat stall, 10x10 or so for storage, laid out with shelves - holds a lot of stock for routine maintenance. The next 10' or so is for paperwork. The last 20' is his flat stall. At the head of the lift stall is a regular entry door, sink, worktable and tools. The rest of the lift stall is open. I think he spent about $20K for the foundation and building. He appointed the interior and installed the lift himself.

The A/C needs to be off, too...