Jim Warman

E-bay is likely the "best" place for a VCM... Be aware that each VCM has a unique electronic serial number... While laptop support is limited to very few brands/models, that doesn't mean you will have troubles using pretty much any mainstream laptop as a host. Aftermarket support and sales for the software will come from motorcraftservice.com. I would highly recommend keeping your subscription current since it will include access to all current module calibrations... Added bonus... you will have the finest scan tool for use on Ford vehicles.... You can purchase subscriptions to add other marques to your repertoire (IIRC Mazda, Navistar - quite possibly Jag and LandRover, as well - caution... this is an assumption). While the subscription may seem spendy - I am reminded of the usenet group 'rec.woodworking'. One of their mantras is "buy the best and only cry once".... the alternative would have one cry every time a poorly thought out tool purchase is used.. DAMHIKT. On edit... I missed one very important observation..... It is OK to "fire" a customer.... I have done this in the past.... Wednesday was my most recent event.... There are a lot of people out there that appear to be destined to make your life a living hell.... You don't need them.... Editting the edit.... When you purchase your software, someone will probably try and sell you on a VMM... I wish I had made some recommendations before we got ours.... The VMMs only claim to fame is it's help files... but even they can't be called "great". I would dearly love to have a scope like Bruce. The odd thing... used to be you could use the PVT (pressure/vacuum transducer) connected directly to the WDS - a tool we all grew to hate in some manner.... A PVT ships with the VMM.... What was Ford thinking?

Dwayne... I did a little research for us.... TSB 08-26-3 supercedes TWO TSBs... one is the cold stiction, inductive heat TSB... the other an older FICM diag TSB. If we recall, 04-18-6 was short and sweet... when we see a TSB like this, we can assume that Ford thinks we are all abject idiots and they are trying to reduce the number of flat rate diagnostic errors... These would be the ones where someone changes a module - THEN finds the open circuit/pushed out pin and quietly fixes it... adding that the module failure is "intermittent" on the RO.... TSB 07-5-4 is all about inductive heating. I can't find the text of that TSB... BUT, I do have some old WSM DVDs around that should have it... (Ahh, time is such a commodity). I do recall the mention that if the inductive heat flash didn't fix a cold start/run and the truck ran fine when warm that the concern likely wasn't a fuel injector... we've seen the fallacy in that on occasion (source would be - from memory) some sort of FordStar broadcast (dieseltalk IIRC). By this point in time, one would expect that stiction is no longer an issue - but this is assuming that there are no idiot owners left... we are still at the mercy of poor service habits coupled with an action called planishing.... this doesn't do the term justice and neither does this. Two surfaces can become so mated, that stiction is going to happen.... replacing the fuel injector is the only cure simply because of the "raw" state of the new surfaces... but even these will eventually planish/polish themselves into a problem... Part of that problem is 'ONLY' 48 volts (lets compare the 115 volt end of a 7.3 injector to the two coil wimpy 6.0 injector). The real comparison between the 7.3 piece and the 6.0 piece is going to involve a gaussmeter and we will need to consider the physical properties of the injectors.... this is way beyond my comprehension but I can see it as influential. So... where does that leave us.... not only do we need to fix these engines... but we need to report the repair in such a fashions as to ensure our remuneration. If you are going to read a document... any document... WSM, PC/ED, TSB, SSM I don't care what... take off the ball cap and put on your powdered wig (this is a Canadian lawyer thing). Any of these documents are important for two reasons... first, for what they DO say.... next, for what they DON'T say. SO.... I do not recall replacing an E-box FICM.... I don't recall cold start/run complaints on an E-box (all of ours would be ambulances or other garaged vehicles - Sheriff, LEO... what have you). Used to be, ignition modules would be bolted to the side of the distributor bowl... or hung on a fender well... or inside the distributor bowl... These are sealed units... By my guess - what is going on INSIDE of them may be harder on them than what is happening OUTSIDE of them.

My best suggestion is to go back to IE 6 and try again.... Now that Ford has some "monetary security" one would think that they could improve their software performance.... I know it would make me feel better about SYNC and some of the other packages they offer.

inford.com is a Canadianized FMCDealer.com.... You are much further ahead WITHOUT access.... If you want to see a TSB - you have to wait until it is translated to Froginese... We aren't allowed to read stuff if people that speak French can't read it... I am waiting for the day that Irdu, Hindi and Lesbianese join the list.... At least you don't get Ernies smug grin.....

Always the spoiler..... "flat rape or hourly" is a tiny question in a big pond..... I have flat rate guys that made well over $100,000 last year... without selling flushes.... without any dubious shit going on.... There is no "best system".... but anyone and everyone will try to take advantage of what is there... At this time, I am shop foreman... I am paid straight time with OT as per government requirements..... Flat rate is a fond.... a very fond.... memory. Ford has made it hard to have flat rate be profitable... In that light, it is important that a tech knows the system and develops the ability to work within it.

Even now... I am still catching techs reprogramming without removing the FICM relay in our store.... And I harp on about stuff like this. Imagine how many times this relay isn't removed for repogramming purposes elsewhere? Could this have a bearing on the fate of the FICM? Could a session like this be the beginning of the end for the module? For a while, it seemed like winter was the hinge pin for FICM failures... but we just came through a summer chock full of FICM sales.... What seems odd is the nature of the failure.... it always seems to lie in the ability (or should one say 'inability'?) of the voltage regulator/converter to deliver or maintain 48 volts. Most of the ones that I have seen will undergo voltage changes as the FICM is left powered up (and it's internal temp changes????)... One would think that too much something is going to be too much something and an open is going to be the result????

What Steve said.... There is a plug in module available for elevating rpm (plugs into the APP) that can be the source of any number of concerns.... V-Mac installers seem to like this.

He's getting "THE" idea... Let's say Ford goes under tomorrow.... WWWAAAYYYY under.... Ford will leave behind a lot of capital equity... A LOT!!!! Buildings, robots, parking lots, chain link fences, assembly lines, file cabinets.... Oooooh, file cabinets, you say? What corporate and technical "secrets" may be in them? The idea is that this isn't going to be like when that greasy spoon at the end of main street shut down... This isn't going to be a small thing and it isn't going to be like someone snuffed out a candle.... Most of us will hardly feel anything at all.... Or does anyone believe that if Ford ceased operating as Ford - millions of people would stop driving? Relax guys... get back to the business at hand.... The sky isn't falling.... If GM ceased to be at dawn tomorrow, all those people that drive GM vehicles will still need to drive some fucking thing.... I'm going to let you in on a little secret..... Ford engines run on a secret principal.... " suck - squeeze - bang - blow"..... These are the same secret herbs and spices used in Japanese engines... Look at it this way.... you fix what is known as the "OttoCycle" engine.... (if you want to get pissy, diffs all work about the same and auto transmissions all work about the same... ain't no big thaing, Princess). If Ford bit the big green wiener before tomorrow AM or GM became none existant.... you are mechanic... you can fix.... or you should have the skill set... But... for shits and giggles... let's say that by tomorrow AM, some astounding breakthrough was made with fuel cell technology.... nuclear FUSION on your coffee table became a reality.. This is the stuff that should worry you.... You guys are spending so much tiome worrying about the badge on the hood that you have lost sight of the fact that lifting the hood could turn you into a dinosaur.... Can we please... PLEASE get back to the task at hand.... Detroit is going to go where Detroit is going to go.... If you feel you deserve to take it up the ass so various bunches of schmucks can continue being overpaid, please make sure that MY needs for reasonably priced transportation are also met...

Bruce... your thinking is on the right track.... Older speed density systems didn't matter too much for "unauthorized" air... Here is our engine rpm... here is our manifold absolute pressure... here is our throttle angle... "POOF!". Mass air flow engines... well.... Is the unauthorized air upstream from the throttle plate? Is it a "vacuum leak" and located downstream from the throttle plate... Is the MAF wearing a "fur coat"? There is a TSB for vacuum leak diag using the scan tool.... if, for some reason, the diesel engine ever begins to sport an "active" throttle plate, this may be pertinent. MAF system or speed density sytem... the IAC will rarely be at "rest".... When we are driving, the IAC will move to full open to provide "dashpot" action should the throttle be closed abruptly. There are ever so many things that are, in reality, useless to us.... but they can be so fascinating....

An apprentice on flat rate???? My Gawd.... Rule number one... let them get good before you try to make them get fast... Rumours are rumours... if you haven't heard a good one by 10:30 - start one... You are gonna have some serious egg on your face if you rip your warranty wench a new asshole and later on find out it is a third person jerking your chain. Simply remind those that need to know, that the final decision was made by an SA.... Avoid theatrics and tantrums...

Sheeit.. 'bout time you surfaced.... What happened? Dog eat the keyboard? Don.. what breed of remote start is it? We farm all of ours out now. Could it be that the "honks/flashes" are trouble indications? The Code Alarm remotes will give flash codes if they encounter an error....

Shamelessly lifted from the monkey house... where grampyjim is once again banned but kodaman runs free. No start after glow plug relay replacement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Occasionally, my 2001 F-350 will start very hard and momentarily blow white smoke when it does start. It seems to happen more often when it is 40 degrees and below and the engine runs great once it is started and warmed. I just found the block heater last night after thinking that it did not have a cord installed so I plugged it in first thing this morning and am waiting for it to warm up now. After reading some posts, I thought it sounded like a GPR so I got a Niehoff RL51301 from Schucks as a replacement. I installed it after having to drill a new hole in fender wall as the new GPR posts are 90 degrees off and my cables wouldn't reach. Unfortunately the truck then wouldn't start at all - no starter run. Can anyone tell me which GPR posts do what and exactly what the GPR does and what all it sends power to (GPs obviously)? How bad can I screw things up by getting the wires hooked to the wrong posts? The replacement unit has two large copper posts and two small silver posts. I put the old GPR back in and the starter runs fine but the batteries are low and the truck still won't start. I am charging the batteries and letting the block heater work right now. Thanks. Lance

Here is David Leonhardts wage breakdown.

The people that are being asked to give up wages and benefits are already being paid more than they deserve.... The people that put tab A in slot B get paid a lot more than you do... And they don't have to figure out what is wrong. If you feel that you belong to the same group that assembly line workers belong to... I feel sorry for you. Assembly line workers have nothing to do with you.... get used to this very real truth.... One wrong will never make a right... neither will two wrongs, three wrongs or a dozen wrongs.... If you feel a union will make your life better... might I refer you to the condition of US auto manufacturers...

I'm still looking for emperical evidence... rockbroncos pic shows a cover that appears to have suffered in more ways that one.... Some of the marks suggest a failed impeller - certainly corrosion or cavitation played a role... but gold coolant with dye in it can look green.... Gold coolant life expectancy appears to be a moving target... depending on what advice you read, life span may or may not be 160,000 kilometers (I will chalk some of the problems up to the US' reluctance to adopt the metric system). After the magic 160K kms.... we are told to cosnider the lifespan of the replacement gold coolant to be the same as good old green... which, BTW, is significantly cheaper than teh gold.... diesel additive not-with-standing. Oh... we just have to love - AKKKKK!!, my old man memory can't even remember the good word for it, now .... 'unproven observation' help an old man out... Anyway.... we have a lot of truck riggers that just can't seem to read.... Trucks with hundreds of thousands of clicks on them... all with a mixture of gold and green coolant... scroll compressors, pickers, service bodies of one sort or another (oil patch band aids, Xray trucks, you name it). These trucks are modified and some cretin puts antifreeze in the system... "DUH... da package sed auntyfriz... I pud id in..." Now... if we look at the WSM, we see we are supposed to be using distilled water.... I don't know about you.... but I can't see distilled water in the chemical catalogue, anywhere... and Ford doesn't like to pay for "non-Ford" items unless they are forced into it (lap up the simple green TSB while it lasts). And the only similarity between your tap water and mine is that both "should" contain at least some H2O. After that... who-eeee. We need something definitive on coolants.... NASCAR uses straight water because glycol is slippery.... antifreeze changes the rate of latent heat absorption... antifreeze changes the surface tension of the carrier (water).. Years ago, Smokey Yunick wrote several paragraphs on cooling systems and what he learned during the development of Chevys 396/427 engines during the NASCAR horsepower wars (it was about this time the hemi was banned and Dodge said "fuck you France"). And what the Smoke wrote about cooling systems was an eye opener.... This business is complex.... and some of the systems that should be very simple, become the most complex.... If we can't answer a question with another question... perhaps we are remiss.... We have coolants... red - gold - green.... Somebaody tell me WHY... We couldn't use MerconV in place of Mercon... no... WAIT.. yeah... use MercV for Mercon (this week it is OK)... but now we give you Merc SP and MercV and MercLV and CVT fluid and - 'you will be assimilated' - now, every time we want to put a key in an ignition, we get the feeling we need to consult the WSM to see if there are special requirements. The crux of the matter is.... if you are to tell me I cannot use <this> <there>... have the decency to tell me why..... without using the word *MAY*.

OMG... Keith is starting to sound familiar.... "Back in the day" we would often hear a 'sound bite' (we never used to have 'sound bites' like the term 'sound bite') I called the NIMBY principal.... Not In My Back Yard - used predominantly when folks would talk about nuclear energy to create electricity. Everyone is for cheap, abundant electricity - few are for a reactor in their back yard.... This has evolved through time and generational metamorphosis. Everyone is for a safe car... nobody wants to sign the cheque.... everyone is for clean air... nobody wants to sign the cheque (you can see where this is going, right?). Let's bring on the clowns.... Sure the UAW has improved the lot of many workers.... by artificially inflating production costs - paying workers more than fair value for skills and effort, and offering a benefit package that few blue collar workers (that's us, bunky) experience. Maybe it is only the car companies that have been boning us for years... but the union has been holding our legs apart for them. I think that the requirement to move production wages into line with those offered at other plants is valid and fair. FWIW, I drove past our local golden arches last night.... they are offering $13 per hour for full time burger flippers.... and they still can't get enough people to run full shifts.

Haven't seen anything on the recall... I imagine we'll see a broadcast message or SVB on it soon.

Holy programming session, Batman.... it's going to take them months to translate all them...

I'm trying very hard to control myself.. I don't want to be a bad man. In your mind... what does "O.L. ohms mean". Bear with me... I wouldn't ask this if I hadn't seen a LOT of problems with the concept. I have seen techs think that OL (out of limit) means "no ohms"... just the same that a "real" zero resistance reading indicates "no ohms". Electrical is easy.... damned easy.... but nobody wants to let it be easy... We need to obfuscate the issue.... we need to add confusion where no confusion is to be had... we seem to be able to confuse infinite resistance with no resistance. I don't umderstand why... because electricity is the easiest, simplest thing you will ever need to understand. Whoops... sorry... another bad day. Think about what I said.... Electrical IS EASY. Grasping the concepts isn't hard....

Ford authorized funnel... this is the one for the capless fuel filler necks?????

I believe that it is the current crop of Sprint commercials. Ozzy is speaking as Ozzy will...... and he winds up having to text message his replies for people to understand.... You colonists have a hard time with it.... but at one point, I can clearly hear him state... "It makes me want to shave me bollocks". This man is truly in tune with our times....

Whoops... apparently...

Look for a wire chaffe on top of the left spring tower.... This would be on the harness that goes to the MAF....

AKKKKK!!! And Bruce and I both missd mentioning looking at sensor volts rather than the computed PSI reading....

I think you will find that there are conditions that need to be set before your scan tool will display the default ICP reading. Unplugging the sensor with the key on will not provie this on it's own.... Remember that this is a vague memory but I am reasonably sure that at least one key cycle (or start cycle) with a "bad" ICP reading is going to be required. Is a cylinder contribution test any help? I can't remember if that one has the test available (there are very few 7.3s left in our area) - if not how about an injector kill box. Does the engine seem to have a "regular" miss or is it more random in nature? You state that fuel pressure is good while this is going on so I feel that you shouild be able to rule out the base fuel pressure regulator. When you rev the engine up, is there an unexplained skip around the 1700~2000 mark? I've seen this a lot when injector O-rings are getting to the end of their service life... That "slight miss" on #3 would be gathering some of my attention, too... up until I had something concrete I could blame it on. I know I keep harping on about basics... One or more other techs have looked at this truck... those techs did not discover the cause of the concern.... Whenever I am given something that "can't be fixed", I usually find something that got overlooked or under-appreciated. Having said that, I am assuming that the truck has passed the oil aeration and low idle stability tests? Bruce... I am beginning to think that SIG_RTN is Fordese for "dedicated ground... with a splice in a bad place". Just to add to your post.... it is important to make ones first volt measurement a "baseline". Whether our electrical testing is done KOEO or KOER, we desparately need to know what our base voltage is in the appropriate case and we need to make sure that we are "in the park" at various times through our testing. I've watched techs trying to test volt drops with battery voltage < 9VDC. FWIW, Ma Ford will tell you.... the only good ground for test purposes is B-... the only good power source is B+.... works.