Jim Warman

The obvious question is "are there any codes?". These are fairly simple systems, but they can work in unexpected ways.... and the dash indicator (or lack of it, is odd...). When the switch is turned to 4HI, the module drives the shift motor while watching the contact plates... Once the plates indicate that the transfer case is in the desired gear, the module sends a timed vacuum pulse to the PVH solenoid as well as a signal to the cluster to turn on the light. The part with the hub vacuum is to ensure that the front driveline is up to speed before the hubs are commanded (not a pretty sound if it soesn't happen that way). Also possible is that the truck may be overdue for a spindle service. The large seals in the steering knuckles can leak enough vacuum to keep the hubs from operating properly... They may leak when rotating but seal fairly well when stationary (or vice versa). They can be tested with a hand vacuum pump. The workshop manual describes this system very well and in great detail... I would suggest that the tech at the dealer peruse this section so that he might understand this system as he needs. Try this... with the heater on either vent or floor, engage 4WD while moving.... does the HVAC system switch to defrost for a short period of time? If so, this would signal a vacuum problem. With the truck stabilized in 2WD, can you turn the front driveshaft by hand? If not, turn the hubs to lock and back to auto (this should unlock them) and try again.... I have seen concerns with the mode synchro in these transfer cases (doesn't usually result in no 2WD... but I haven't seen everything there is to see.......... yet...).

In the long run, Ford doesn't give a rats ass if we upsell a repair or not.... All they are concerned about is if it is going to cost them money... Customer pay = no problem... Ford pay = "I see nothing!!!". For my own part, I would never dream of asking a customer if, sayyyyyyy... "Do you have any oil spots on your driveway near the <affected part>?" If I have to repeat the question, one of my eyes starts winking.. can't figure that out....

If the engine is running away.... it ain't gonna matter.... FWIW, Roda Deaco makes a PAS valve set up for the 6.4. It isn't pretty to install and it doesn't make it any easier to work on the engine.

"Free flowing exhaust".... as in no cat? In the end, it isn't about what is best for the truck.... to some extent, it has nothing to do with the owners desires nor his wallet. It has everything to do with what is legal and what our grand children would have us do.... Am emissions control is an emissions control... I'm not such a curmudgeon that I deny the existance of these things or modifications.... But they have no place on a daily driver. If some guy walked past your house on a daily basis and took a dump on your lawn, you'd have him arrested.... If some guy drives his truck past your house on a daily basis and takes a dump in the air you breathe, you should feel the same. Cleaning up vehicle emissions isn't some folly or a plot by the "cabal"... It is both a necessity and a requirement... if we are to be regarded as professionals, we must act as professionals. One of the driving factors to my success came when I finally stopped saying "yeah, we can do that" and started saying "no, I wont do that". If we thumb our noses at the law, we will be considered as gypsys, charlatans and thieves....

Here's what an open weave filter can do for your customer...

I'm still trying to figure the difference between "combustion pressure" and "cylinder pressure". I'm having a real problem.... Someone seems to think this is a good place to advertise aftermarket products rather than share knowledge and ideas....

Hmmm... something we'll have to watch.... Considering the chance of an embolism because of the high pressures, I have to shudder about Anthonys use of the term "hands on".

We still aren't seeing many (but I think many are being "overlooked" when the chance is there). Part of that may be due to the affluence in our area. The rumour is that Slave Lake has more millionaires per acre than any other place in North America. Still, there are a lot of 7.3s on the road... Recall notifications are discarded as junk mail more often than not - unopened. (Oh my God... he's not going to mention OASIS again, is he?). OK... I promise I wont if you promise to use it.... So... what are you going to do? truck comes in... intermittent stalling... Scan codes? Fiddle fart around with the bulkhead connector over the left valve cover or something? Look at the colour of the CMP? It becomes important for the SAs to be able to do our size up for us.... Everyone that comes through the door for this FSA has the possibility of being a good customer.... and we need to get subjective.... Would you rather have an easy going guy - not much cash but pays his bills - understands the foibles of human nature - prioritizes his repairs? Or would you rather have the dick that flashes his bankroll and finds fault with absolutely everything you do? For the recall itself... it pays good if you see a grey sensor.... It still ain't bad if you don't. For the guys in Mikes shop, I could write volumes.... Mike... just remember, it is the customer we need to please - not the guy in the next bay. Stick by your principals.. know when to "flash" them and know when to remain silent. If doing a good job.... if doing what needs to be done makes you an ass kisser, there is a very real chance that those guys are part of what is wrong in this business... Keep up the good work....

Not defending the dealer, Mike, but this is a little too open ended for anything constructive. Obviously, the guy is upset... upset enough to post the name of the dealer.... And, shit happens (boy, does it happen - more on that in a bit). We are human... that's our first mistake. It is easy to have a lapse of consciousness, judgement or just plain not double check ourselves. The first instinct of the dealer is to deny involvemnet... bad move since this closes too many doors too soon... This dealer should have determined the reason for this new concern BEFORE contacting the customer. If they are guilty... then admit it, fix it and move on. At the same time, there are numerous instances where I see cars that are running "prefect" are cars I wouldn't let my wife drive up town. for the more later.... in one week, not so long ago... thanks to my over-supply of geniuses.... I had a 7.3 towed in missing the oil pan drain plug (I was forced to work outside in -40 to get this puppy back on the road... thank God for the "Murphy switch" action of the high pressure oil system).. A few days earlier, a Taurus had been towed in. On this particular day, on the advice of an apprentice, we hired a tow truck to bring this car into the shop because "there is nowhere to push" (you can hear me start to sizzle just thinking of it, right?). We'd done a heater core and coolant flush on it about two weeks previous. Turn the car over.... hmmmm - not much compression there. Degas bottle is empty and, when I remove the cap I get a face full of "death smell". Drain some coolant off the bottom of the rad.... and it's good to a whopping minus 20. I find out later that the customer played a large role in the demise of this engine.. but it is, never-the-less, our baby. Holmans customer hasn't mentioned any involvement with anyone higher on the food chain than an SA... It sounds like the SA is a young lady with little experience.... I'll bet she's scared shitless... Be interesting to see how that one plays out.... We all fuck up... if we have knowledge and common sense, we can recover gracefully. "You're still young, that's your fault, There's so much you have to know." - Cat Stevens (Islam Yussuf) Mercifully, Saturday AM dawned with me having one less Einstein in my stable.... even though I had to work till 6 o'clock to make up for the "loss".

Download 'em once and save 'em to disc.... If you have internet at home, burn them there. Other worthy downloads are the coffee table books (Kieth has several that you get on this site)... many available on PowerStroke Central..... Some of the Q bulletins from fleet.ford BBAS (body builder advisory service)... and maybe some of the owners manuals for stuff you work on lot's (not a week goes by that someone doesn't ask me how to change the EATC display from metric to fahrenheit) - available on InFord and Motorcraft.com. HTH

Tony... our technical training instructor took great pains to make sure that we saw this is not the case. Page 40 of the 6.4 coffee table book pretty much sums it up. I vaguely recall a reference to the throttle plate "sweeping" at engine shutdown.... I don't recall what purpose this served but I do know that it has nothing to do with any air denial system. If I get the time, I'll see if I can find anything in my notes. Since we are in the heart of the Alberta oil patch, there was quite a bit of discussion regarding the EGRTP and positive air shut-off function. A runaway diesel sitting in the middle of a remote oilfield satellite could carry a very heavy liability... since some owners either can't service their trucks regularly or just can't seem to leave the friggin' things alone, Fords stance that it is NOT a PAS device is probably the wise choice, anyway.

We had about a 2 week cold snap here in the GWN with temps sometimes getting south of -40...... And the Allison transmissions in the DirtyMaxes started falling like flies. Seems that the OTA coolers were gelling off and (due to some warm up kind of strategy) the torques were cooking themselves. Th rumour mill is having a field day with this so I can't post any meaningful numbers... 67 in our town alone according to one account.... over 600 in northern Alberta according to another... and still another says over 4700 in western Canada.... At least it should take the heat off the 6.0 and the 6.4 for a while....

The point is..... I, too, recognize the late motor from these features.... However, when you work on a great variety of these during the course of a day or a week or a month... you gain a familiarity that will not often ring any alarms. It is quite natural for us to expect an ICP to be in one of two places... without having the penny drop immediately if something like this is "wrong". Just as often, our right front ICP (or lack of it) can be masked by that nifty little VMac sitting in the way... or how about that run of 05s that didn't have a MAF??? Where, oh where is the EBP? Sometimes a guy has to look first. Most everyone contributing to this august body of knowledge and experience has a very intense, very intimate relationship with this engine. Our days aren't filled with "trying shit to see what it does"... Our days are filled with engines that are either doing something they shouldn't... or NOT doing something they should... Through knowledge, experience and talent, these guys will take an ailing motor and nurse it back to life. There are those that don't give these techs credit for those things they know... those things they learn by applying their talents, wisdom, logic and experience. I don't think that there's anybody that knows these engines better than them...

Brain fart.... we haven't seen much in the way of identifiable running concerns.... though we have had a sudden influx of cold weather driven codes. When I saw "ICP", I suddenly thought "HPOP" for some reason.... (might have something to do with 50+ hour weeks and too much entry level staff). For the cold weather driven check engine lights.... A lot of P0196s - they didn't appear until guys started using their engine heaters. Lots of EGT codes - apparently, these systems are having a tough time completing regens in the cold... P132Bs from iced up EBPs. FWIW... cold = -40ish

Print off one set of them and get the girls in the office to photo-copy a bunch.... The 6.4 sheets are two and three pages... (can't remember which one takes what. But if you just want the files... open the sheet in the online manual... click on "printable view of this graphic"... That will open a copy of it in adobe reader... at the top, you'll then see a little icon that looks like a floppy dick.... er, disc and a "save as" dialogue box will open. FWIW, the sheets on the "warranty administration" pages are also in *.pdf. At the risk of climbing out on another one of those shaky limbs.... I have to wonder how much time a tech can gain in the course of a day by knowing where to find the information he seeks. I don't hardly watch TV any more (DO NOT DISTURB ME THIS SUNDAY, though) so I spend time nosing around on InFord... fleet.ford... motorcraft.com and any others I can get my foot in the door. There's just too much stuff to "know" that it is impossible for a guy to remember it all (add, that "things can change" and we are left doing stuff an older, harder way). Information is our friend.....

They're in the PC/ED manual.... Look under diagnostic subroutines.... Both the no start sheets and the perfromance sheets are there. They can also be found under the Warranty Administration link (at the top of the list above the ProTech link). Look undeer the forms/worksheets/charts link in the left margin.

Kelly, is this on a 6.4 or ?????

If you are referring to it being used as a positive air shut off, it was never designed nor programmed for that function....

So... I'm doing the EGR cooler on an 03. (Retail job... an engine installed recently by another (non Ford) shop.... I knew it was an 03 from the moment I got the RO.... and there was "something" about the job that wasn't ringing true.... I unplugged the ICP from the right valve cover and wondered about the long, taped harness running from the connector to a take out near the FICM connector.... oblivious, I was... When I removed the turbo and I saw that the rear bolt was vertical.... it never dawned on me... When I pulled the intake off and started to realize that the cooler was square.... hmmmmm... The box that parts gave me had "3C3Z" as a prefix.... SHEEIT!!! A late motor in an early truck.... I wonder what other tricks some of the less conventional shops are going to dream up for us to deal with....

For those that prefer a mechanical gauge, there are gauge pods available that install on the cowl panel or hood... Can't remember brand names, off-hand, but JEGs or similar hot rod suppliers would be a good place to start...

Now, I might be just a iggurrant old guy... but somebody is going to have to explain the difference between a "tuner" and a "programmer".... As far as adding air.... with no other changes..... not to the fuel curve or it's timing.... hmmmmm... Some of the things I use to determine warranty elligibilty... the back tires are at 3/32 and the fronts are at 12/32 (and the truck has only 30,000 Kms on it).... if there is a code left in the PCM, it might be a P0297.... line 3 on the RO is "wind noise at 140 Km/H"... there's more... but these should do for now. If the "ball bearings" in the turbo went out... little wonder that Ford wouldn't want to honour any warranty.... Something that "grinds my gears".... I'm doing everything I can with my daily (and some of my "not so daily" drivers) to minimize the footprint I leave behind me on our environment... and then some poohawk comes along and tries to undo all the good I'm doing....

FRT used to have direct links to some of the 6.0 "bibles" on FMC dealer. I'm sure that if a guy furbled around for a while, he might find some other stuff... Put it this way.... 90% of the work is being done by 10% of the people... if these guys can do "just enough to stay employed", that leaves more time to pretend they are doing stuff... I still see people with <user name> = "user".... <password> = "password".

Anything workable here? We are getting a LOT of snow STILL... and we wont get to see this TSB until they translate into Froginese....

Rest assured, Dwayne... we get the same deal as you.... Do the diag, get into the disassembly, parts are ordered and it's pushed outside to wait for parts.... Next thing you know, the tech is scrambling to box up all the parts whiule the roll-off driver is loading the truck. These guys.... these are the guys that get charged for their impatience... And it is something we can quantify... Mikes guy... here's a guy that can still use his truck. Parts are ordered, appointments made and then "something" happened... not sure what... but it did. You can't predict these guys... and once they (and their truck) are off your lot.... the only thing you can do is try to remember them... This kind of crap has been going on in this industry for at least 40 years (or very nearly) that I know of... and I don't see it changing any time soon. Customers grow up being taught a mistaken view of this industry and it's people... and it hasn't varied for generations... If we plan on making a real difference... especially one that isn't going to alienate the people we need the most... then we must work towards changing the way that we are perceived... People need to see the difficulty involved in repairing state of the art vehicles.... learn what "mass produced" can really mean in terms of after sales concerns.... they need to realize that a repair shop isn't a money factory and that none of us are rolling in dough... As long as we have inadequate techs and lyin' cheatin' big box xtores... we will have a problem. What can we do about guys like Mikes 4X4 customer without looking like greedy, thievin' bastuhds??? Nothin'... sadly, nothin'... Now... just think of how this might have played out had Mike parts dept. actually had the part in stock....

Mike... ya done good... it's these sorts of threads that can, eventually, get dialogue going and stir creative juices... Heated discussion simply means that it is a very important subject and there are differing viewpoints... Somewhere, somehow, someone just might come up with an idea that can take some of these speedbumps out of our lives...