Keith Browning

He should know better than to take it personally, besides, I was doing a count down which some might consider taunting! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/blush.gif To be honest, I cant believe the recall announcement took 3 days to sneak out. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shocked.gif Now, this is our business and things like this affect our jobs. Problem with being too itchy to inform people before we have all of the facts and information causes problems. Remember a few recalls that were leaked to the media before Ford announced them to the dealers? People were calling the service desk asking questions they could not answer. Blame Ford for that but I suppose they DO need to make sure any affected vehicles in stock do not get released until they are serviced. To do that they need to issue an "Advance Notice" to the dealers, not the public. Ahh, who gives a shit any way? /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shrug.gif The bashers and nay-sayers will have a ball regardless of timing. Let em eat cake!!! Any way, on the lighter side, I only have one truck on my VIN list and it is in stock. Already have a repair order too... now aint THAT jumping the gun?

Yeah, torquing the injectors is critical and I think someone pointed out that if there is oil in the hold down bolt holes you could end up with a good torque reading but not actually tighten the clamp effectively. Makes sense if you are in a rush.

Awww lighten up. You dont count because TDS is your house. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/notworthy.gif

Well I don't want to make it sound like I think they are a bunch of whining babies, its not cool having your new $53K truck torn apart or held on delivery for damaged injectors. I completely understand BUT when the truck is not even diagnosed by a technician and some Yahooo is advising to go lemon law or try to get Ford to buy back the truck it just kills me!

Someone at TDS posted that he cant pick up his new truck, something about "an injector inspection and the service manager is waiting for instructions from the factory." Yep. I know the feelin! This one is going to explode and I am smelling smoke already!

That must have sucked big time. That is one thing I fear and this is my first experience with fire and I can guess that ANY experience with fire is not pleasant. By the way we are back up and running in a fairly clean shop that stinks like, well, shit to be frank! I guess we really are lucky we have a place to go back to work to.

They have been coming that way for quite a while now, or at least in my area they have.

Well done! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rockon.gif

Well I wonder how long it's going to take before some prick feels the need to leak this out to all of the diesel web sites like some kind of modern day Paul Fucking Revere! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/boink3.gif Yeah, I know, the "public" has a right to know. Problem is it's going to consume other forums and send people needlessly into a tizzy over their trucks which are likely not affected. I think I am going to have to lose my passwords for all 10 of the sites I visit until the dust settles from this. Anybody know just how many 6.4L trucks have been built to date? The good thing is that only 3,100 engines were affected which means there aren't too many to go around. Maybe I'll get lucky and not see any of these which would be good considering I am down on shop space due to the fire... then again, it would be just my luck the 20 or so trucks we got in during the last month were all affected.

Now THAT is ingenuity! Too bad you have to do that to begin with. Have any of you guys contacted International and let them know what a problem this is? And since we Ford guys use NETS for F650-750 and LCF engines I assume this will affect us as well? Is there any service message or bulletin about this?

Not sure who dropped what agency's name but they closed our Parts and Service departments this morning abruptly. We were given time to remove any vehicles in the shop and gather keys and paperwork. Air quality tests are to be done later which take 24hrs and then up to another 24-48 for the results. So, it looks like a 4-day weekend for me. As I sit here looking out the window I see a lot of landscaping chores I can get done now! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cool.gif A little fresh air and sunshine, the weather here in Jersey is perfect so I really don't mind. The only thing that does concern me is that they let us walk around in this crap for two days and some employees have been in the building since Sunday... If the air tests come back with anything negative this could get ugly. Perhaps they should have handled this differently. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif

I had the opportunity to ask my manager about the customer after reading your post and he said that the guy was very upset but not angry. He understood that it was an accident, one of those things, but he was upset because he really loved the truck. I mean he needed to regain his composure upset! I guess some people really love their trucks. Great customer, bought it from us, does all work at our shop and to correct myself, this truck was in the shop for a 90K service and the QCRC /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbup.gif yielded a 4-wheel brake job and ball joints. The tech was done with the job and only needed to road test it which never happened because the truck was not needed for the week end. Since the floor was to be cleaned Friday night, the truck was just put back up in the air and out of the way and you know the rest of the story. One half of the shop is closed off with plastic and is being completely washed by hand. To do this our Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep service department was shut down. A few of us were jawing about this and realized just how many people were affected by this and how many more are involved in cleaning and restoration of the building. The Ford shop slowly got re-grouped to one side of the shop that was already cleaned and had less smoke and water damage but some of us were not very motivated at all, myself included. I know the lift the truck was on is condemned but I thought I overheard someone say the lifts on either side were as well. The roof decking above is buckled and a section of it is going to be replaced. Back to the customer, we swapped in a similarly equipped truck (loaded red 2008 crew cab, 4X4, 6.4L diesel) which he will be picking up tomorrow. I am sure he will fall in love with this one as well. Funny thing is, he uses this truck for work which is waste removal. Kinda too nice of a truck for a work truck but who am I to judge? I am sure the insurance is covering most of this but we are giving him the truck which is really cool.

Uh... okay. I did say I was going to fix that when I updated the software... which I haven't had time to do yet. Sorry. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/boink3.gif Greg, load the photos into PhotoPost then cut and paste the image URL into your post. Once you upload a photo look below it for a box with some text in it and a button that says "copy to clipboard," then edit the post by right clicking in the text area and clicking on "paste." If you have trouble email the photos to me and I'll do it for you!

So I guess dropping a transmission skid plate on the floor would be a no-no in your shop? /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cover.gif

When it smokes, does it smell like fuel or oil? Unless you smell oil, the only thing I can think of if all sensors are in range is an injector problem. Does the engine continue to run smooth as it begins to smoke while idling? Your description sounds like the classic extended idling smoke... but you are smarter than that. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

Oooh, that's right, you guys had that car come crashing into the shop. That was a mess too and that was during business hours. Incidentally, did your company's insurance pick up any damage to tech's damaged tools or tool boxes?

Fortunately the company insurance covers us if accidents occur. When we all first arrived for work we were told to not open our toolboxes until we checked in with our human resources manager. I opened up with her standing beside me and we inspected everything including turning on my computer. It was quick to determine that I suffered no damage at all but if anything was lost it would be put on the claim. My brother was one of the unfortunate ones because his less than 1-year old toolbox was in the line of fire from the water hoses. He got his box taken apart and cleaned. His losses were just his computer, monitor and all of the training books he has collected... with class notes in them of course. Could have been much worse I suppose. We shall see if he gets a new computer out of the deal.

Over the weekend a truck up on one of our lifts caught fire and likely burned for a couple of hours according to the fire Marshall. I dispatched the vehicle Friday afternoon and it was on the lift when the tech went home Friday night. Service was closed Saturday. The fire department got the alarm at 11:00 PM Saturday. The customer had run a 2 gage battery cable from the left battery to the pick up bed and ran it loosely along the left hand frame rail. Apparently the technician set the lift and raised the truck without noticing the cable had been caught between the lift cleat and the frame rail. Fire damage was limited to the truck but the sheer amount of soot affected the entire shop and the parts department. Water damage was heavy, our basement with our lockers, special service tools and older print manuals and the air compressors had several feet of soot and oil laden water before the HAZMAT team pumped it all out. The roof was damaged as was the lift. Three toolboxes had heavy water damage that destroyed three techs computers. One tool box was sitting exactly where mine used to be up until three weeks ago. The place stinks! What a mess. My shop off to the side was right next to the lift where the fire was but the concrete wall kept smoke from entering for the most part. I only had to scrub my floor... others were not so lucky as I mentioned. There is a clean up company there as I write this. Some of the guys had their toolboxes completely emptied and disassembled to be cleaned. Now everything has to be cleaned and inspected, the ceiling has to be pressure washed. The scary thing about this is the oxy-acetylene torch was 10 feet from the truck! This is going to affect us for some time to come. I heard that if this truck was gasoline powered instead of diesel the fire would have been much, much worse.

Alex, in my dealer's case I believe the mailers are a part of the Ford Marketing program. I have seen my managers putting together specials so I think the specials and prices on the coupons other than nationally advertised items are set by the dealer. I am not sure how it actual works but I could ask. The screw up could be on our end, Fords end or anywhere in between! As far as I know we are honoring the "insane" coupons we have sent out to our customer base.

Nuts. I got one too. Diesel fuel filters and an LOF - $103.00! Techs still get paid the .9 but that was a serious f-up on somebody's part! That coupon was in the ford mailer too. So far, three 6.0L owners have taken advantage of that one.

The obvious answer is to stop idling these trucks. You are seeing first hand the devastation extended idling can cause. I do recall though that this is not an option for these trucks due to the service they see. Have you considered setting up the secondary elevated idle? Instead of a cat delete pipe which would be most appropriate, and as a temporary measure, why not "clean" /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif your clogged cat to make it drivable until it can be repaired? /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/whistle.gif

WOW! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cover.gif With that kind of anger it had to be from the FRT web site. Hey, do you still have to pay to use that site or have they opened it back up again? I haven't had much time to cruise all of the diesel sites in a long time. I kinda miss that site, minus the anger.

I feel like I missed something! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/tired.gif

So I was discussing the 2008 trucks with one of our commercial truck sales reps who has about 5500 miles on his demo. He drives mostly all highway and was getting around 9 mpg to start with and now it's creeping up to 15 mpg. He mentioned that he was told the "Ford" programs these engines to run a little rich for the first 10,000 miles which should suggest fuel economy will improve. Anybody hear anything like that?