jaysonfordtech

I have to say as an American living 30 min from BC I have gotten a kick out of listening to the goings on up there. It sounds like you guys really really enjoy spending money on elections, and now this new twist. So ya Jim what says you?

Wow no engine stand, that 170 lb ft final torque is gonna be a bitch! I guess you could try the whole in chassis thing, but I kinda think that is a hack-tastic way to do this job. I put silicon on the flat part but without flipping the motor over there is no way to keep it clean enough for the silicon to stick.

Doing one right now. 2nd and 3rd row come out, filler neck and connector to the tail lights. Other than that it is the same as an f-series. The rear air is left alone other than the connector to the lines at the accumulator. Good luck.

Anyone tried oven cleaner? I have heard it works really well for this, but have not tried it myself. I have had a few that I solvent tanked, hot tanked, then pressure washed with good success.

Yes you can claim the 2 tsb's together, I just did. Plus time to replace all of the swollen hoses. The 3 gallons of simple green does seem to do the trick.

Well guys I think the big three execs are the axis of fail myself .Three private frickin planes flown to DC to beg for cash, and no plan to present other then show us the money, come on! I would have told them to pack sand myself! As for the business model it will have to change. The latest labor agreement is a good start on that end. They may need the tools of bankruptcy to make the needed changes such as renegotiate contracts to contract the dealer base. Some of us will lose our dealers, and with it our jobs but it is either some survive or all die. Look around you, how many Ford and GM dealers are there in your county/area? How about Honda and Toyota? Where I work it is 3 Ford, 4 GM, 1 Toyota, and 1 Honda. That cannot be sustained. What about GM’s 8 brands, or for that matter the Mercury brand they simply cannot provide unique new models for all the brands, they must shrink. Ford is on the right track with the integration of global platforms to reduce cost, I can’t say how GM is doing on that. There are lots of things they will have to do to survive, and perhaps consolidation of the auto industry is in order, but not combining 2 massively failing companies into one really big shitty company, like the GM Chrysler deal. The idea of Nissan buying Chryslers truck operations could be a good fit. How about Mahindra and Mahindra buying the Jeep brand to get their foot in the door in the North America? I don’t want to even get started on the disaster created by Hank and Ben at the fed and the treasury. That would turn into a 6 page rant.

Guys I have to respectfully disagree about the job and the need for the Federal Reserve. While there have been mistakes all the way back to its creation, the job done is better than any other system that has been proposed. They are a creation of the congress and as such can be dissolved by an act of congress signed by the president. It is their independence that has insulated them from the pressures of the political system to make decision that are correct but hard to swallow, think 1980s high interest rates to knock down the inflation rate. There have been some great ideas about monetarism by Milton Friedman that can and have been used. That being said there are also great ideas by Keynes, Hayek and others that can be used during different times in our economic cycle. The decision of what to do with monetary policy is made by the Federal Reserve board of governors with the chairman as the person who is in control of the agenda. The chairman alone can’t change interest rates. While the they have not always made the best decision about monetary policy, there is way more risk giving the power to change interest rates to political hacks that will make decisions on their best interests not the countries. For a good idea of the risks of the gold standard or silver standard there are sections of Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations about the discovery of new stocks of gold and silver that massively changed the value of existing savings and currency and its effects. Just as the Bretton Woods agreement was a good idea whose time has passed, the gold standard was a good idea whose time is gone. There may be a better system in the future, but it does not yet exist. But then again I may have drunk the Kool-Aid being an undergraduate in economics.

First off I must say I did not vote for either John or Barak. I am however looking forward to seeing the faces of the now excited American people in 2 or 3 years when very little has been accomplished. Please remember that this man is a politician, not a messiah. May the flying spaghetti monster give the president guidance, and may Charles Darwin bless North America. LOL!!!

Ya I'll be going too, if I am still working at a dealer in January that is. The wife is excited. I've got mixed emotions about it. I know the company is burning through money by the bucket load and has mortgaged everything including the house. It’s a bit like AIG did after getting money from the government. But what the hell, if the titanic is sinking we might as well drink the booze before it goes to the bottom.

Quote: Heard a rumor today that the head bolts were getting ready to be recalled. Anyone else heard this? Please do tell where you heard this.

We have seen several for sooty tailpipes, but do not sell it because we are way up on our 126 because of bedplate and headgasket repairs. Customers don't seem to notice the black pipes. we have replaced 2 or 3. One of them due to oil contamination due to engine failure, one for black pipes and one for mil on and high backpressure.

We always heard 16 to 18 MPG was average. That was what I was told by my customers and 9 to 13 MPG on the 6.4.

Did they have the senior master fix it right contest in Canada? Did anyone here win the trip?

Do you have a test coil? I have seen the old brick eec 4 coils act like a plugged cat at times. Is TP sweep clean? Do you have a working sbds? There were lots of cool tests to pin stuff down on sbds.

Well guys as much as it sucks to pay out the nose for fuel, there is a good that comes from it. The price mechanism performs the task of rationing a scarce resource. If fuel was set by law at a level as low as it was before there was a reduction in supply it would encourage wasteful consumption. Think about ice after a hurricane. At 2 bucks a bag you would take as many as you could to keep your food cold, have some for your drinks and have extra just because. The supply being limited there would be a shortage in no time. The person with insulin that had to be refrigerated could and would likely be without something they need to sustain life while a few people would have a frosty beer. However if the price of ice was 8 bucks a bag you would take only what you had to have to make sure what was important to you was protected. Sometimes we forget that fuel moves throughout North America. The price of fuel will react to a supply disruption anywhere on the grid and will show the most pronounced change closest to the shortage. If you care for a better explanation of this idea here is a link http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2007/Mungergouging.html

We have that too, its called a CRHA. flush center part of turbo into the box and reassemble, lol.

Well guys, I worked Tuesday through Saturday at the last dealer I was at, and I loved it. I have no kids so that was not a consideration. I wouldn’t mind Sunday through Thursday so long as my wife has at least Saturday off. I personally like to be able to go and do the business things that need to be handled during the week on my day off, so sign me up. But if the whole world goes to this mentality the only thing that will HAVE to be done during the week is anything related to government, there is no way you will talk them into working weekends.

First off check the ICP sensor for oil passing through, and a melted connector. That was very common. Next I would wiggle test while cranking to see if it is a chaff in the harness.

Quote: I find the idea of the joint venture encouraging in a time when the industry is suffering badly. Development of new technologies benefits everyone involved right down to the consumer and raises the bar for the development of new technologies. As a country we definitely need to accelerate our efforts in new powertrains, fuels and rethink transportation in general. I hope that Ford and GM follow through with this and I definately would not consider this "the end." I meant that this is the beginning of the end of separate companies. They will end up combining to survive. That will mean cutting ½ of the management and I suspect at least 1/3 of production and distribution facilities. It is always darkest before the dawn, and we are a fair bit away from the dawn. The credit crunch, high fuel prices, changing consumer taste, and the housing collapse in the US are not done with these companies, far from it. At our level it will mean major consolidation of dealers. How many towns have multiple Gm and Ford dealers within 5 miles of each other? Just remember you have to break eggs to make and omelet.

I do believe this is one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. After the 6 speed tranny joint venture, GM has approached ford about combining powertrain R&D to reduce costs. Maybe consolidation is the only way to survive. http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080804/AUTO01/808040378/1148

I had a customer asking about doing this earlier this week. I told him that it will effect his warranty, and kids don't really need clean air do they? Dumbass!

I have seen this too on the 6.0 blocks. It looked like the final machine work was done with a cheese grater. We also use silicon on all of our bedplate jobs.

Quote: We are going to sell a customer on preventive maintenance - and then brag about spending nothing on a car for over 200,000 whatevers.... Actually Jim I wish people would keep their rigs for 200000 whatevers and maintain them like I did that escort. Due to the long commute I had at that time I was servicing the car every 3 and a half weeks. As for peoples choices and the high price of fuel, the best part is that my opinion or anyone elses will not be the factor that canges peoples minds, it will be Adam Smiths invisible hand. Incentives matter. I am all for personal liberties. If someone wants to drive a 6.4l superduty for a delivery truck, I am all for that so long as they pay the cost of doing so. I might laugh at them when I see them drop $150 in the fuel tank, but I am not about to try to take away that choice. Nice rant though, lol.

I agree that the supply side of the equation must be addressed, but there are also many other big and small changes that could help. Imported ethanol from Brazil is taxed at about a buck a gallon to protect the corn farmers in Iowa, and the big AG companies that have set up the corn ethanol plants. The US federal government has mandated that ethanol be added to all gas sold in the US. This has driven up ethanol, and in turn corn prices. Getting rid of the ethanol tariff would do a great deal to lower that component cost of gas. We have to make a decision as a nation what is more important clean air or efficient vehicles. We have mandated emissions levels out of diesels that have choked a sizable portion of the efficiencies advantage out of them. On the gas side we have slowed the introduction of direct injected and turbocharged engines due to NOx regulations. The level of crash protection mandated also has added a great deal of weight to the vehicles, necessitating the use of larger engines to produce an acceptable level of performance. The decision by consumers to use large diesel powered trucks for commuter vehicles is asinine. I could go on for pages with things I consider good ideas, but the opinion of one mechanic does not make the world change.

2000 focus 2.0 dohc, and I car pool with 2 other techs for the 30ish mile commute to work. We rotate weeks of driving. My other rigs are a 2003 Taurus with a 3.0 2 valve, and a 1986 Ranger 2wd with a 2.9L. The wife drives the Taurus for her 7 mile round trip commute to work. My prior car was a 1992 escort with a 1.9l and a manual. That car was awesome on fuel. 39 mpg all the time. I got rid of it with 205,000 miles. I gave it to another tech I worked with. It’s still on the road with like 250,000 miles!