Jim Warman

So.... remind me again about your feelings on canned asparagus.....

Whenever I cook large quantities ( or big meals a la Thanksgiving and such ), I do sample as I work - but not much since all I really want to do is be sure I'm serving stuff to be proud of. In this case, it is usually a while before I can stare a steak in the eye. We eat when we're done cooking and serving but I don't eat much (I think I inhaled about 5 pounds of steak as I was cooking. Since we can no longer donate prepared foods for charity, we divvy up the stuff that can spoil. A half dozen cooked steaks, a half dozen raw steaks, over 5 pounds of shrimp, salads and on and on. I suppose I should be thankful for my small part, though. Another friend does the pies for desert. Yesterday - from scratch - she made 151 pies including banana cream, lemon meringue, apple and strawberry/rhubarb. Yes, the crusts and the fillings were all from scratch. On the lighter side, one of the other BBQ chefs quipped that he can't get one pie a month let alone 151 in one day.... Though I might complain about these adventures, they are hard work but still good fun. Having an idea of what it takes to feed large groups (the biggest I've been involved in was about 1200) makes cooking for family sized gatherings childs play. For supper tonight, I'm thinking boiled hotdogs and mac and cheese.

that this is over for another year. Every year, our local Rotary Club holds a raffle - with just under 800 tickets printed, the grand prize is the winners choice of a boat, truck or car. The price of the ticket includes a banquet plus entertainment. Every year, a very good friend wins the contract to cater the event and every year yours truly gets hornswoggled into being one of the BBQ chefs.. This year was no different - at 10 ayem we met to start setting up the kitchen area and BBQ pit area - 4 grilles this year. At 5 peeyem, three of us began cooking steaks... just over 800 of them. It's now 10 peeyem and I've been home about a half hour... and I am bagged - but I am told I smell pretty good... a bit like "medium rare"....

My own take on working on all makes... this deals especially with newer vehicles... "no more than 10 years old and the badge on the front matches the sign outside". Don't get me wrong, I spent many years as a jack of all makes - but you will, in this manner, remain a master of none. There are still shops out there that are trying to figure out where the PS reservoir is on some cars.

One that hung around for a long, long time waiting for service records (and is still darkening my door.... ) is an 08 F350. It had three rods noticeably bent, four bent push tubes - we wont go into injectors or how it kept binding up on me. Finally got a short block and one head... now an EGR and a GPCM... what next?

One of the reasons we get stereotyped is, all too often, that the stereotyped label fits. If we hop into the WABAK machine (set it for the late 60s, Sherman.... and don't forget to bring some ZigZag), we see that we didn't need to know a whole bunch back the. If you were working on a V8, 32 degrees of dwell and 8 before top centre would pretty much keep you out of trouble on most anything you were going to work on. Polarizing a generator would be about the hardest thing unlearn (techs would try polarizing alternators.... not so good for the alternator) and cars remained more mechanical and had little in the way of electronics. Back then, you could work on pretty much anything that came through the door because the level of sophistication of a car was low... breaker point ignition was breaker point ignition and capacitive discharge ignitions were rare.... very, very rare. Oh, we still had more than our fair share of hacks, thieves and charlatans but, if you were good with your hands, you had a real good head start on stuff. Fast forward to today. The modern automobile is a rolling computer network - with more computing power in a dashboard clock than what as sent to the moon in 1969, you really need to have your wits about you (not to mention good reading skills) to just barely make it in this trade. Add that having an understanding of electricity is more important now than it ever was (it was handy way back when - imperative now). Where the dealer techs get slammed starts with the training - the number of online courses that Ford offers FOR FREE to dealer techs, is nearly staggering. Yet many techs refuse to do them - many because they don't get paid to do them (yes, some dealers will pay for passing web based courses - our store pays 2 hours per course). But, even if you don't get paid, there is no reason not to take the courses since the extra knowledge will make you, as a tech, more valuable. Also, we get the latest and maybe not so greatest innovations that come down the pipe... diesel engines. GTDI engines, MyFord Touch, SYNC, intelligent access... the list goes on and on - all of it stuff that aftermarket shops wont see for several years if ever. I could go on and on ranting about this topic.... But look at it this way... you are fixing the cars that belong to other mechanics because they can't fix them, right? Could it be those guys are the reason for the stereotype? If they can't fix their own cars, what are they doing to the customers car?

I am told that, in this instance, we didn't. We get mixed stories from Ford.... In one case, the tech was told that metal in the secondary filter is a sign that the filter is doing it's job (read that as company policy states don't spend money if there's a chance that it can make it past warranty). In this case, the FSE said that not cleaning the tanks can lead to bad things (as in repeat failure). I am also told that the tech that performed the repair has, in the past, avoided replacing fuel rails and FRPs. Fuel, and any contaminants, will eventually make its way back to the tank.... I think the tank(s) should be dropped and cleaned but, while I have diagnosed this condition in the past, I have yet to repair it personally.

Defeating emissions controls is, in most areas, just plain fucking illegal... in all areas it is just plain fucking immoral. If you are to break the law (and pretend to be doing it as a "professional"), at what point do we stop being conscientious and start being criminal? Pollution isn't an opinion, it is a fact of life - and one question that bears asking is where does any one person get off deciding that he or she is above the law and therefore has free reign over the air we all share. Look at it this way.... let us say that some dork throws a paper coffee cup on your front lawn. No big deal, right? Now let us say that everybody that passes your yard throws an empty paper coffee cup on your front lawn.... This is going to get real old real quick. I see you are right on the ball.... I would never have thought to blame ITEC for some of the EGR concerns brought upon by placing a valve at the cold end of the EGR system - and I certainly wouldn't have thought about blaming customers for idling their trucks for extended periods of time - I do hope you understand "sarcasm". But the whole core of your post is wrapped around doing WRONG THINGS. We are the keepers of the public trust when it comes to making sure that the vehicles on public roads are 'clean' and safe. We do not own this planet.... we are borrowing it - FROM OUR CHILDREN.

One would have to tell me why replacing the secondary filter (a second time) cures the condition. I admit that I haven't taken the time to inspect the primary filter, but the concern has been cured without touching it. Yes, I have seen this condition SEVERAL times - once after the filters were replaced in our shop.

One would first need to know what your local ambulance authority considers "nuts with maint". (I'm not an asshole but I play one in real life). One of the things I'm going to ask here deals with engine hours.... As for "stiction" becoming a reality, I must suggest that we read up on planishing and consider how it may affect the spool in an injector. As a sidebar, I have many sockets that are plain worn out... they aren't broken (though I could be dishonest and physically break one), but they are not warrantable because they have reached the end of their expected service life. Bottom line... if there was some miracle shit that any oil company could drizzle into their product that would make it better than the other guys stuff, you wouldn't need info-mercials. Scientists would be all over it and it would be "this is the way of the future". I know, skepticism impedes advance ment - right?

Cut to the chase.... looked inside the secondary filter housing and saw sparkleys... did a debris test on the right fuel rail and saw sparkleys.... This truck previously had a P0088 and the TSB performed (I hope I mentioned this at some point) but the tanks were never dropped and I am unsure if all the necessary parts were replaced/serviced properly.

It is what it is... we can either (at least) survive what we do or we can flourish at it. A day or two ago, I was frustrated enough to tell a nameless face in the shop that I was <THIS> (holds index finger and thumb nearly touching) far away from running away from home - I get like that sometimes. I was frustrated because some of the posturing ("we" tell customers things they like to hear just so they will stop phoning) was attempting to swallow me alive. I threw my purse to the ground, took off my bra and got back to the task at hand.... Now, I gotta admit that I might be pretty "lucky", while I no longer own the title "shop foreman", neither my duties nor pay scale have changed (straight time trumps flat rate)... but I didn't get here by sitting in the back row whining to myself. FWIW, nobody is indispensable, but if someone has a question, if the answer is "better ask Jim", you have a leg up on the situation. Anyway.... we each have a great amount of power over our own lives. I'm not saying that we can easily change our situation (when I got this job, I wasn't even looking for one) into something we like, but the situation we have is..... errrrmmmmmm, the situation we have.... if we can't learn to like it, we at least owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to learn to accept it and deal with it. This is easy for me to say because I live in the Alberta oil patch... And the Alberta oil patch is a lot like sex. When it's good, it's great - and when it's bad, it's still pretty good. This is, of course, in an "am I keeping busy?" context. A wise man once declared that the three key factors in running a successful business are location, location and location. If you are in the wrong location (and I wont pretend to understand the way Americans conduct their politics), change it. For some, it might be a difficult decision, but one of these days I'll post my timeline and you will see moving vast distances isn't all that bad..... So... where the fuck was I???? Instead of wallowing around in some pit of misery, do something. Either learn to accept that life isn't the grand thing you hoped for (and it isn't - I turn 62 this year [mike, the instant you say "I can't do that" is the instant you begin to die] - not only do I relish working on 550s, I rarely ask for help moving "heavy stuff"), or change your situation.... Again, I can't speak for the way Americans do business, but "the land of the free" don't sound all that free (at the risk of alienating some folks, that seems to be "living a lie"). FWIW, I like our political model better than yours... just sayin'. Bottom line... if your job ain't about to change, you either need to change the job or the way you look at it.... You only get one trip on the merry-go-round we call "life".

Just so you know.... the first thing I would do is yank the chip. Not to be repetitious but "I have seen more grief come from these than you can shake a stick at". I'm not writing this just to see if my keyboard works. I been doing this shit for 40 years and every time I say "that can't be it" I am proven wrong. If you have a steady miss and no injector kill box, you can use an infra-red thermometer to help identify the cylinder... or, you can unplug each injector in turn (remember that these are 115 volt!!!!) to locate the cylinder. Once you do this you can perform a compression test and/or swap injectors to assist in diagnosis. Just an aside... this truck doesn't sound like a helicopter, does it? Just askin'.

Justin... I can be an absolute dick at times... and you must be able to tell what is coming. Take no offence, this is just me. "It's fixed". We all rejoice when a contributor can say this... but it would be delightful to know what we did to fix it. Taking a number of suggestions and keeping them secret doesn't really add too much to the knowledge base. "when the turbo is engaged" is a disconcerting statement... the turbo is always "engaged". You can use your scan tool to read MGP and EBP along with manipulating VGT duty cycle. Using a length of rubber tubing as a stethoscope will help localize whatever noise you are hearing. The early trucks were prone to wire chaffes at the left wheel hose liner. The affected harness contained the wiring from the APP to the PCM (FWIW, there are few codes that say "replace <THIS>"... we may assume pattern failures at times, but if you are to bypass "normal" diagnostics for unfamiliar codes, you are in for a world of hurt. We all offer what assistance we can... but you are the eyes and ears on this project. If there is a loose marmon clamp, you are the guy that determines this.. from my chair, I can't tell. FWIW, we all screw up and leave shit loose at one point or another... developing a routine to avoid this will reduce the chances- but it wont eliminate them. "The "fuck up fairy" comes to visit when she/he feels like it.

This Tuesday will be the 1st anniversary of our two week odyssey. New homes are being built at a break-neck pace - most being larger than the homes they are replacing. Some of these are going up for sale as soon as they are completed. Most of our doctors lost everything in the fire and many of them are moving away, back to cities. My doctor, been seeing him for over 30 years, is staying but he is semi-retired. He lost his house to the fire and, when the rains came and Sawridge Creek swelled over it's banks, he lost nearly half of his lot to the flood - no there is an insurance nightmare.... I was one of the lucky ones (aside from bouts of survivor guilt) and the whole episode was more inconvenience than life altering. Yet so many of my friends and acquaintances lost everything. Tuesday, I will give thought to those, the world over, whose lives have been changed by natural disasters, yet still move onwards... and also to those emergency workers and volunteers and donors who help to make things even just a little better.

Use a length of hose like a crude stethoscope to help localise the noise. Certainly the ebv wont cause a rough idle, but there IS the possibility of having more than one concern... especially on a truck that's nearly 13 years old. Step the first... peek under the dash and make sure that there isn't a chip hanging out the back end of the PCM. I have seen more grief come from these than you can shake a stick at. Don't remain saddled to the IDS if you have a NGS handy. This is a very effective tool for the 7.3 and will give you the same amount of info. Good luck.

There are more "special interests" than you can shake a stick at. That guy doesn't want wind farms because he makes his money off fossil fuels. The other guy doesn't like tidal generators. Another guy says that making hybrid batteries causes more pollution than burning fossil fuels. Some guys defeat emissions controls thinking that reduced mileage is a sign of more pollutants.... and on and on and on. We are gonna be swamped with opinions of all sorts and, unless we search for the facts for ourselves (it MUST be true - I saw it on the internet)- and even then we may cloud our own judgement with our pet picks. Having said that, I can remember the 50s. When we landed in Canada at Quebec City, we boarded a train bound for Ontario. Now, I cannot remember all the details, nor can I imagine the time frame... but there are those things that stand out in a young childs memory. I can remember getting a needle in my bum in an English hospital and I can remember little "flashes" of being on the rolling deck of a steamship in the mid-Atlantic... And I can certainly remember the train passing through a tunnel and the burning, choking smoke that somehow made it's way into the train car. I can remember the smog warnings on the evening news in the 50s and 60s. Los Angeles, Tokyo and other large cities had smog advisories and would even recommend that people stay indoors or wear masks. Thanks to the efforts of scientists, engineers and designers, we are in a far better place than we once were and things will only improve if all of us, ALL of us, endeavour to reduce the size of our "footprint", carbon or otherwise. Removing EGRs and DPFs are NOT the way we accomplish this end.... One thing that we do have to remember is that many of these are new technologies using new processes and new materials - there are bound to be some failures and there are bound to be some dead end streets. All we can do is to be vocal about our preferences. Contact your politician. Ask tough questions. Don't accept non-answers. The world is heading to be a better place and science is going to show us the way.

This is one I always love and I always rib whoever in our shop utters the phrase. Most of the guys I know have never even seen a trans with a rear pump, but the term has become ageless...

I do, Dwayne... but I am only one voice in a sea of voices. And ours is only one store in a sea of stores. I don't know if I am unique in this business... my friends are my customers and my customers are my friends. Most of these people have known me since the 80s. I drink beer with them, burn dead animals with them (we call that barbecue, I guess), go to their kids grads.... People have come to trust my word - and, thankfully, because of how I am perceived, my mistakes are forgiven quickly. Without my integrity, I am nothing. I could probably do quite well if I abandoned my scruples. Now that Den has built his mancave, I probably could - open a store dedicated to making black smoke.... But that ain't me. I feel strongly about many issues - clean air being one of them....

Kudos, Mike.... You have been asked to perform acts which could only be considered fraudulent (illegal) and/or inappropriate. A simple "No, I wont do that" should suffice. Yes, you could put something into writing and send it upstream. Sadly, there is no assurance that those higher on the food chain aren't in bed with the fucktards and life could get tough - but I'm willing to bet that Ontariariario has the equivalent of Albertas Labour Relations Board and that a wrongful termination suit could get real messy for the people involved. This is where you need to gauge the prevailing winds. "We just screwed that guy"? Ummmm, wasn't he trying to screw Ford? There's a difference? Fraud is fraud - doesn't matter if the receiver is you, me or the sign out front... I can't remember how deep I went into this truck when I posted about it.... This is one I did an Out of Province inspection on. It had spacers betwixt the hubs and wheels - a flat out no-no. I flunked the truck. Now... you and I both know that this truck was going to have the wheel spacers there after the inspection process was complete. That is beyond my control. But if I am going to call this truck roadworthy, it is NOT going to have wheel spacers when I call it roadworthy. There is no sense in trying to appeal to my "decency" and "pretend" the spacers weren't there. If I am to lie FOR you, there is every chance I will lie TO you and I have now made myself untrustworthy. We are judged by our actions... if we act like liars, we will be branded liars. If this idiot asks you to lie and sign off on your lie, his ass is clean and clear ("I did no such thing" can be stated with a suitable amount of righteous indignation while your ass is getting keel-hauled), he is bad. If you comply, it will be you that is bad. I'm not entirely positive that there aren't some things happening around here that might give me pause - but I am sure that there are things that they know better than to ask of me. I WILL lay in a snowbank at minus 30 if that is what it takes to please a customer... I WILL NOT sacrifice my integrity to achieve the same end. IF.. IF this bimbo told you to sign off on a problem vehicle and you refused.... and IF he overstepped you and went to your manager, what are they to discuss? "That prick, Chan, wont tell lies for me. Why the fuck do you keep hiring honest people?". If this bimbo asked you to sign off on a problem vehicle and you complied and then something went wrong, you KNOW you'd get a good look at the bottom of the bus they throw you under. Stick to your guns, Mike..... if you sign off on something wrong and it goes bad, looking in the mirror is how you will find the fall guy. They wont even bat an eye as they watch that fraudulent son-of-a-bitch get hauled off in hand cuffs. "We're an honest dealership, now that we no longer have him.... Now serving number 35..... I have this mint condition truck over here... certified by our 'honest' tech....". I'm sure you catch my drift.

Lived in Montreal for a bit in the 60s..... glad to see it hasn't changed much.....

You are right about that part, Dwayne...but it a "checken or the egg" kind of argument. Every one will swallow or gargle on command because everyone believes that the guy down the street will do it. Nobody wants to blink first. And you wont convince me that we, as techs, aren't part of the problem. We are all waiting for the store to grow some balls but few of us are willing to participate.... Me? I get to be a little bit ballsy because I have a better understanding about what is acceptable and what isn't under the hood of a car. What too many techs fail to consider is that, should something horrible go wrong, you will be held accountable. Audreys Escape popped a brake hose. An apprentice ordered one brake hose... until it was noticed that the other three were cracked... And what is shameful is that we do all her oil changes. This isn't some "pimp at the top"s doing. We are all guilty and nobody wants to move first. You wouldn't have pimps is if you didn't have hookers and you wouldn't have hookers if they'd keep their legs together. We need to stop trying to assign the blame everywhere but at home and accept that, as part of the problem, maybe we should become part of the solution.

Quote: 3 - We can all agree that many of the emissions devices on our cars and trucks today have drawbacks and undesirable side affects but they are there for a reason, a good reason. Clean air! I like what you reminded us of Jim, "News reports from the 50s, 60s and early 70s were full of smog warnings. People in the Los Angeles basin were warned not to venture outside. It has been proven that emissions controls work." 4 - The impropriety issue is an interesting one and as far as I am concerned EVERYONE is failing on this. Not just the technicians and mechanics that inspect, or fail to inspect vehicles or choose to look the other way, but the laws that regulate emissions seem to lack enforcement with any integrity. Despite the presence of warning labels on vehicles and disclaimers in the packaging and documentation of products that defeat emissions devices and other non-certified emissions compliant products it is just too easy for us all to look the other way and unfortunately most of us do. Cough! Recently, I performed a CVIP (commercial vehicle inspection) on a near new F450. The truck was in pretty good shape, all things being equal, but I failed it for non-compliant headlights. The truck was fitted with HID conversions. These are a 'no' in Alberta for sure and in Canada (I am lead to believe) as a whole. I have to point out that the CVIP program is funded by tax dollars. The owner of the truck took the truck to another facility and the truck was summarily paased and a certificate issued. Report the offending station? Right..... "Oh no, sir. It had stock bulbs when I checked it". The odd time that this truck passes over the weigh scales, the scale masters pay little attention to the trucks headlights because the inspection program is supposed to catch those (which, I suppose, is a lot like Catch 22). But we can see that the program isn't going to work unless we all participate. This isn't a failure of the program... it is a lack of honesty and integrity on the part of individuals. Sidebar, one place that our system does fall down as far as I am concerned - TPMS systems are mandatory on certain vehicles in the US - this is one of those areas where CMVSS and FMVSS disagree (DRL headlights is another). In the past, you would be safe in saying that if a vehicle had a safety device, it had to work. Today, my Out Of Province inspection manual states (from memory) that there is no requirement that TPMS should work. For those interested, I have attached a copy of the OoP inspection criteria.

You aren't quite totally right, Dwayne... there are things that they will not give to me as far as jobs are concerned and there are things that they do not ask me to do. You are confusing my willingness to lay in a snowbank at -30 chasing a temperature sensitive concern with a willingness to do anything for a buck. Do I modify play toys? You bet your fucking boots I do... PLAY TOYS, not daily drivers. Do they get driven on the streets? You bet. Last year, the '69 Charger went 0 miles.... the '67 Coronet went 0 miles... the '66 Chevelle was driven for something less than 4 hours total. Do I work on vehicles previously modified? Yes. Does that matter since it wasn't my choice to modify it to begin with? I have a pet 550 with a DPF delete. Chasing a running concern, I reflashed the PCM back to stock. Later, much to my distaste, I returned the Edge programming - I did not say I was about to have my career commit suicide - and noticed that three times.... THREE TIMES... the programmer issued three warnings (that's nine warnings in total - even in metric). FWIW, my decision to reinstall the programming as a convenience to the customer (who owns MANY F550s) still plays on my mind from time to time. Look at it this way... if we want to eliminate prostitution, do we get rid of the prostitutes? Or do we cut off everybodies pecker? You and I both know that Alberta has to come up with some anti-tampering legislation and the penalties need to extend to DIYers. There isn't a politician out there willing to commit political suicide (not even my old buddy Pearl who got back in not because she is good but because the wildrose party is a bunch of radicals with dangerous thoughts). Here-in, we need the public to take a stand on emissions compliance and to show our politicians that they stand a beter chance of being elected if they support the idea. So.... Chad bought a 2013 Mustang - what the fuck does that have to do with me? A friend of mine has a Shelby GT350 on order.... number 137, IIRC. Not to be outdone, one of his relatives has ordered a SuperSnake. You must have missed all those times they call me to the front counter to answer queries about mods.... I can list downsides to everything you want to think of and I never fail to mention the legacy of my grandson. We do not own theis planet - we are borrowing it.... from our grandchildren. Before I forget, my sons 08 still has the Donaldson air filter AND the DPF intact and working.

I been listening to what some of the young guys play at work. I do have to admit that I might not "know music".... I also have to admit that I know shit when I hear it.... Just sayin'.