Jim Warman

If you call 1-800-ROTUNDA in Canada, you will get the Canadian "menu" (including the Froginese menu selection). Depending on your selection after that, you may be directed to a US entity. Selecting the SPX choice will direct you to a US line. Not sure why your partsmonger can't do that for you.

A guy can work late near every night if he wanted. The patch is pretty much shut down until after new years, though. Our store is in the middle of doing year end tight now but I'll try to remember to get some contact info for you. Whenever we need Rotunda stuff, like I said, the partsmonger gets it with no muss and no fuss. Gotta love them grasshoppers

"The guys an the web forum said that I should avoid the stealership".

Welcome to the clan, hope you had a happy festivus/kwanza/christmas/hannukah. My first suggestion would be to get a better partsmonger. Popular rotunda tools are rarely more than a few days away - and we live about 15 miles up shit creek from where you lost your paddle (actually, Slave Lake is a wonderful place to live -moved here in '81 and haven't looked back). As for the probe kit..... There are some fine wire DMM probes available that are finer than most of the commectors you will encounter (not to mention that backprobing is both the preferred method - since you will be perfecting the asre of volt drop testing - and easily accomplished with the fine wire probes. For load testing circuits, I scavenge connectors from junk wiring harnesses and sometimes resort to the drawers of pigtail connectors mentioned in late model wiring manuals. From what I have seen, the price of the rotunda probes is somewhere between and .

Actually, it rarely get's to asking that. The question is "do you want me to fix it or not?". The method is "my way". If I am to be wrong, it will be by MY mistake and not someone elses. I'm a self-centered prick. I like it when people remember me - and I really don't care what they remember me for - as long as it's honesty.

I predict that I will be wishing the year was over by Jan 3rd. 2013 is the Chinese year 4711... the year of the snake (interesting to note that my loving bride was also born in the year of the snake - 1953 - and I come to the shuddering realization that I've been boinking an old lady - somebodies Gramma, no less). It's a good thing that the Mayans didn't have a consulate or embassy in Beijing or it could have been the year of the..... ummmm - nothing, I guess. If you're Jewish, it will be 5773/5774 depending on what month. If you're a Scientologist, its been well over 75 million years since Xenu sent all those billions of people to Teegeeack and blowed 'em up (blowed 'em up, real good). Teegeeack is, for the record, earth. Tomorrow is nothing more than a day not yet experienced. Even the worst of days is a new and exciting day. Even though I have my own concerns, problems and cares, tomorrow is still a wonderful and new opportunity. May all of your days be filled with good things.

This has been going on as long as I've been in the business. There's been many times I have changed what the customer wants changed, all the while staring at broken shit. "Hmmm, wonder why he don't want to fix that?". Even before the interweb.... we would see all manner of remedies. Guys asking for a manual choke kit was one of my favourites... granted, the number of mechanics that could actually fix an automatic choke was small, it was more a case of not wanting to pay beans and wiener prices for prime rib. Something we have probably all seen in this brave new world is a customer with someone elses diag/estimate in hand wanting us to perform the work - as if by some magical/mystical process, having a good tech perform bullshit work was going to make everything OK. "Mister, I can fix your car - but I don't want to marry it".

The two over-riding questions in the world today.... One is "what the fuck did you think was going to happen". And my personal favourite - "How many trips to the emergency room begin with "Hey guys, watch this"?".

That wasn't a car - that was a Chevy For the OPs boost issue... I'd be looking at MGP or whatever they call it now. The cluster might be an issue on it's own. If there was a concern with overboost (especially "gauge pegged" overboost)- don't we think that there might be a code in memory? Customers tend to speak in code... and they like to throw technical sounding terms around (especially the ones they got off the internet). My car pulls to the left means the steering wheel is off centre. My truck "hesitates" on the highway.... 'scuse me? I turn the key and it wont "crank" (which may or may not mean it wont turn over or it turns over but wont start). Gawd I'm turning into a cranky old phuque.

Not sure how you'd get enough uniform "plain old nuts and bolts" to fuck up evenly in what must be "plain old brine".... But, over the years, depending on the task at hand, I've used water, brake fluid and whatever brand of weasel piss is handy. All with varying degrees of success. Disclaimer - I do not live in any "rust belt" - real or imagined. Sitting on my bench as I write - WD-40, Kroil, Motorcraft Penetrating fluid, and a half dozen oddballs that seem to have materialized from nowhere but all of them are in really spiffy looking cans that cry out "I loosen shit" (the chemical version of a padded bra). I seem to reach for a particular product based on my task at hand - for no other reason than "that is what I've used in the past" with no emperical proof that it does what I think it does, that it does what it says it does, or that it even does anything at all. A bolt is more likely to come out based on my actions rather than anything I splash in its general direction.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned picking rubber bits off a tire. I can remember my first set of G78-14 Polyglas tires. Worlds ahead of them old 7.50s

There are people that need these sorts of things - once they are shown the features that apply to them. Back in the 80s, I met some boffin type that complained that his car needed to be boosted every time he started it. A very smart man, erudite in his field, it was beyond his reasoning that he could have his car "fixed". Now, with extended oil changes (I can recall my Dads first "almost new" car - a 1959 Pontiac Purchased as a demo in 1960) operators are confusing the terms "low maintenance" and "no maintenance". I can recall life without television yet my son cannot recall life without internet - what will my grandson not be able to recall life without? My new cell phone is a marvel. Takes better pictures than all but one of my cameras. A couple of touches and I can ask it for directions home (and I do mean "ASK") or directions to a particular store in a strange place, where to buy cheap gasoline or where to find an ATM. Now if I could only figure out how to use it. I've grown used to OTIS and now look like a fool whenever I start my own vehicles. I finally stopped manipulating the turn signal switch over and over and over. Making life "easier" and "better" is the idea. When I was a kid, I saw the movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space". One of the special effects in the movie was a shower curtain. Then, stereo. Holee sheeit, batman!!!! Then quadrophonic wannabe surround sound and now 5.1 and even 7.1.... OK, now I'm going to watch a BluRay movie..... We do technology - one of the reasons is because we CAN. In the beginning, our ancestors followed their herd of goats. Today, we can find our goats without leaving the house.

I think that you desperately need to get the concern happening to avoid grasping at straws.... given that there are that many miles on the truck, it could turn into a money pit for someone. I'd be getting my customer to drive it for two hours or so before he brings it to me. Given that inlet restriction stayed at 7 inches whether it ran "good" or not (I wouldn't be all that content with 13 PSI boost), I can't see that being a progenitor. Where is fuel pressure being monitored? How about ICP/IPR (are we looking at oil aeration?). Crankcase pressure? EBP? Has anyone gotten creative with the EBV?

I've got one with an axle seal leak and what appears to be a rear crank seal leaking...... and an IPC in a "nonrecoverable state"

Happy holiday.

Actually, Apophis is the one I was trying to remember. Not to be confused with the Nibiru crap.

I had a 40 pounder jump in my face last night. I still feel better than you do. Just for shits and grins, Google asteroid 2012 XE54.

Yes... I haven't seen them dripping oil yet but I have seen them with swollen rubber parts. You'll want to check on the drivers side if it's a 4X4.

What Leon said about wind chill +1 As far as synthetic oil is concerned... Are we talkin' PAO base stock Or "hydro-cracked" wannabe synthetic oil. Where synthetics shine is with temperature extremes. Yukon Tyler might have a case for synthetic oil as <a carefully selected> synthetic oil will resist viscosity change in extreme cold. Notice that extreme cold only applies until the engine (or gearbox or whatever) begins to warm up. I dabbled with PAO synthetics back in the 90s and could not justify the higher costs.... and if you are about to spout <but I can extend my service interval>, you desperately need to realize that it is the add-pack that "wears out" first. Anti-foamants, anti-oxidants, detergents and on and on. If you run your oil until molecular shear becomes a concern, chances are that some component of the add-pack has already expired. I live in an area that gets cold enough to make you zip up your coat... I suddenly realized how stupid that sounds given that I've seen what southerners wear at the Daytona 500. Obviously, I cannot speak for what synthetics can do for extreme high temps - but, if you can plug in your block heater, synthetics for most of us in "cold" climes is a waste of money. Google "Bobistheoilguy".

Just struck me as odd. If you stay home, drink plenty of liquids and keep warm, it will take about 7 days to cure your cold. If you go to work and act normal, it will be gone in a week.

In my minds eye, I can picture some guy in an ancient land that would, someday, become known as Mexico. He is busy chiseling a design into a rock. Several buddies call for him to go for a cervesa or four and he says "I can finish this later". He is killed on the way home by a drunk driver on a speeding burro. His unfinished calendar is sold at a garage sale and the rest is history. Every year since Canadian Tire opened it's doors, since before Allied Radio Shack merged, since AGT became Telus, some company, somewhere has given away calendars. Some people seem to make a living out of selling calendars. Most of them seem to end on December 31st. OMFG - an omen!!!!

"Legalese" is going to enter the vocabulary. Somebody "determined" that an injector was faulty. That injector was replaced. subsequently, the motor had a miss (at this point it doesn't matter if it had the miss before). Not having the manual in front of me, I am guessing that injector replacement is tech competency and that the customer opening up the motor is going to void the warranty or at least make a mess out of things. Are we even sure that the replacement injector is a Ford unit? So many questions, so few answers. I get the feeling that this isn't going to go the way you want.

Actually, since the base plate is machined from prefamulated ambulite, the hydrocoptic marzelvanes are less likely to interfere with the horizontal score motion of the lunar waneshaft.

You mention that the oil pump was replaced... Did anyone think to inspect the front cover for wear/scoring while the pump was out? We need to be careful that we don't put ourselves on auto pilot (something I can do far too often) when we start slapping parts.

Never seen one blown yet... I'm sure you are aware of the warning about striking the unit while power is connected. For my part, I would be wondering about the missing fuse cover. Customers often do some very odd things... sometimes at the urging of a magazine article, sometimes in response to an internet video and sometimes just because common sense isn't. Hopefully, this one wont turn into a hobby