Jim Warman

Is this thing gas or diesel?

A trip to the mahindra website is quite revealing.... a small truck is shown in a manner that would have us consider that Renault would be involved in a light truck effort. This is worth a read, too.

"sounds to be firing into the intake" is a critical part of your statement.... Some time ago we had about an 06 with a concern on the B2 head... Given the right conditions, you could hear this thing popping in the intake. I checked the head closely and found nothing I could blame - but the engine had to be warm to cause grief... We replaced the head... and, as I recall, the new head came pretty well "dressed". This was the cure.

OK... just to prove you wrong I went back and did something a bit more involved than flat rate reading... WOW... the emissions performance warranty is less than the BtoB warranty.... I see 8 years/80,000 miles is still good to go on "select" emissions parts.... When things get this complex, consumers tend to look at us "funny".... and the lawyers have us sounding more like lawyers than the lawyers do....

is this thing gas or diesel? Whoops!! One large step backwards... this is an 05 and RFI should not be an issue... even though the wiring diagrams show 519 and 523 as a twisted pair. When I am faced with these things, I go right back to the beginning... The tech you took over from may see it as an insult.... Too bad, so sad... "The beginning" is going to include checking sensor polarity... The beginning means that we are going to look at this thing with our mind and our eyes wide open... Do not ask the other tech what he checked nor how he checked it... it doesn't matter because you need to see for yourself. We all have a profound ability to make mistakes and overlook important things... The chance that two of us will overlook the exact same thing is only there if we place absolute faith in everything that has been done to this point. Since the danged thing ain't fixed, we begin from the beginning. FWIW.... if I am handed the keys to something, there is a very good chance we already have too many hours into something. I'm not "good"... but I try to be thorough.. question everything.. trust only your own eyes.

Sadly, things like this are no longer "utterly stupid"... This is the way of the world... the new "accepted industry standard".... If the thing can be coaxed into startint, then start it. If it can be coaxed into moving, then move it. It isn't broken until it acts like a poorly rendered birdbath - bereft of any and all motion or noise. Once the operator has made sure that it is well and truly broken, he can now wonder why vehicle repairs always cost so much and take so long.... On our last trip to Edmonton, we saw a pick up snarling traffic at rush hour - every last exhaust hanger was broken and the tail pipe was firmly wedged under one rear tire.... It wasn't until the truck went from "moving" to "non-moving" that it made the transition from not broken to broken... Taking this a step further... one would think that the only 'proper' way to attend ones doctors appointment would have us be delivered to his office in a coffin. The main reason I go to work is because I want to see what happens next....

Joey, you may want to dig out your warranty guide (should be in the binder with you owners manual and such). Failing that, you can download a copy at motorcraft.com or myford.com. Pages 13 1nd 14 indicate that the EGR system should be covered. Perhaps you might want to wave that under somebodies nose?????

Toyoda-Koki (no, not toyota) is the current owner of the Torsen diff. A marvelous differential, they are still far from the "best in every case".... This distinction could very well go to the the down and dirty welded spider gear. Back when it was Zexel Torsen, there was some really good tech stuff (even some animations) on the web site.... Toyoda hasn't seen fit to be so generous with details. It's been a long time since I last visited the place and some of the details have gone a bit sketchy. You can check out http://www.jtekt.co.jp/e/products/drive03.html

Well, we aren't hurtin' for work though we are only booking a few days in advance rather than a more usual 2 weeks... OT is there to be had if you want it... They took me back out of the schedule again which may affect scheduling somewhat.... but I'm still doing 15 to 20 OT hours a pay period...

The hot water by itself is more than adequate.... the only problem is that it is rare for anyone to use enough hot water.... It takes a LOT of flooding to dilute the acid run-off to the point where it will no longer be a factor.... In true old timey guy fashion, you could simply make a slurry of bicarbonate of soda and water and slather this over the battery. Let it sit for a while and rinse.... The bicarb will neutralize the acid....

Warning.... this is long and, for some, potentially tedious... Dwayne poked a stick at the old hound and he's tugging at his chain.... I wasn't done but I had to stop somewhere... You might learn a bit about the Canadian system.... If nothing else, I hope it is entertaining. Well.... Canada is fucked... and it's been fucked for a long, long time... Don't get me wrong, I am proud to be Canadian... even though certain bureaus of the federal government make it hard for me to actually "be" Canadian... a long and somewhat amusing story... While the Liberals have enjoyed the most time in a position to screw this country up, the Progressive Conservatives haven't done much better... on a federal level, anyway. Ralph Klein has cojones the size of wheat pool cars and, with his majority provincial governments has made some tough decisions that dragged Alberta out of debt.... something I'm afraid Stelmach is trying to undo... But, I digress.... On a federal level, The PCs have been just as big a joke as the Liberals... Prior to 1962, the Canadian dollar was worth a dollar and seven cents ($1.07) US.... John Diefenbaker was a conservative and he was Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963... In 1959, after 6 years of developement, the Avro Arrow project was cancelled... three years later, John Diefenbakers PC government devalued the Canadian dollar. We can spend a lot of time debating the factors that lead up to that travesty... but the salient point is that the PCs were minding the hen house and they screwed the pooch. It didn't take long for Canada to make their next choice... and that was the Liberal government of Lester Pearson.... In a bid to appease the Quebecois, he took away our flag and had us flying what looks like a cocktail napkin.... He stole away the flag that Canadian men and women died under.... And then he unified our armed forces... One might think that this would be a "good" thing.... It was a cost cutting measure that did nothing to improve the lives of our military personnel - indeed, today we have members of the armed forces having to resort to food banks in order to make ends meet. The FLQ... Front de Liberation de Quebec (be sure to pronounce it Kebec... we wouldn't want to piss off any fr..... fro.... French Canadians)... This handy little group brought all manner of patriotism to Canada.... bombings, hostage takings, killings - all in the name of a free Quebec... a Quebec that would leech all of Canadas benefits for her own.... demand that she would be a sovereign nation... and expect that we would still let her enjoy those lop-sided transfer payments she collects from Ottawa (western Canadas money feeding separatist values). The FLQs lunacy peaked during what has been called the October Crisis... Pierre Elliott Trudeau invoked the war measures act... basically, this gave him supreme power.... not even our assholes in the senate could veto any of his decisions during this time... As it stands.... had you or I committed the crimes wrought by the FLQ, we would have been charged with treason on top of any and all criminal charges... As I recall, few FLQ leaders were ever brought to trial and fewer still ever experienced any meaningful punishment... But Canada isn't a stranger to curious goings on.... When I went to school, history taught me that Louis Real was a treasonous bastard that "needed killin'"... My son learned, in history class, that Louis Real was a national hero fighting for the rights of aboriginals... Not bad when you can rewrite history to suit yourself.... The maximum time between federal elections is 5 years.... The Prime Minister is the leader of the winning political party. His only "real" requirement is that he wins a seat in the House of Commons... If we are stupid enough to keep voting for his party, he can be PM for many, many, many elections (there is no limit to how long he can serve if we are willing to let him). Looking back through recent history, let's see how close we get to that magic 5 years.... Some standouts.... Kim Campbell. Canadas first female PM... Four months in office in 1993. Jean Chretien once quipped that "she 'ad a summer job, once...". John Turner.... three months in 1984. Joe Clark.... 10 months 1979/1980... We've been screwed up for a long time... folks are just starting to notice now.... We have a multi party system... The three biggest players are the Liberals, the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP (socialist bastuhds that they are). Bad enough... on a federal scale, the NDP never really accomplishes anything other than keeping us from ever having a majority government of any stripe... But, just for good measure, we usually have the communist party, the "green" party, the "rhinoceros" party - who can forget the Bloc Quebecois... they want to separate from Canada... (well, except for the free shit, remember?) and expect to gain house of commons seats in western canada? I can't think of anyone that is willing (or stupid enough) to do the Canadian equivalent of wear white sheets and burn a cross in a black neighburhood... And the aforementioned "short" parliaments were all victims of minority governments faced with choices that needed a majority government to make... WTF... the Canadian taxpayer loves whatever a federal election costs... I don't care what country you live in... the only way to tell if a politician is lying is to check and see if his lips are moving. Let's not forget that a good politician can tell you that your mother is ugly and, if you get upset about that, he'll tell you that you took his words "out of context".... The sad, sad truth.... we Canucks are still soft and cuddly.... we rarely take ourselves too seriously, eh? And we usually take bad shit in stride... Cheer up - things are never so bad that they can't get worse....

Twice now, I have been instructed by hotline to go into the area you mention (Special Function/Update)... Both times, I was instructed to enter a five digit code - like yours, a five digit code - that "feels" like a hexidecimal memory address. On both of these occasions, a screen of information appeared - I'm having trouble remembering the exact format... but I recall some lines having multiple characters and (it seems to me) that some lines expressed themselves in binary (don't laugh - you'll get old some day... you'll find out that the first thing to go is the ahhhhhhh... the first thing you lose is your ummmmmm. damn, I can't remember what it is...). In both cases, engineering was able to determine that the concerns I was addressing were based on internal faults in the PCM....

Wouldn't starting a new session give that result? (Having a tough time remembering some of the stuff I don't get to do anymore). FWIW, if I'm replacing a module for any reason, I don't trust any data that may be inhaled from the old module... I recall being told that some modules contain a VID Block with system data in it... but I can't really recount the times when this was made apparent. For my 06 (sorry I never posted what the final fix was), all I had to do was perform a PMI... Where I was having some concerns was in trying to identify the truck manually from the opening screen. What finally got me to where I needed to be was to allow the IDS to misidentify the truck and then select <NO> on that screen.

Not sure if everyone has noticed... for quite some time, as built data has been freely available on OASIS. Simply generate an OASIS report for a VIN and there will appear an "as built" link near the top of the page. I may have been a little confused but I have yet to need any secret code to program a module with as built data.

Not YET....

A buck 41 per liter... and we live right over top of it.... This is most confusing.... crude is dropping in proce but now a far away hurricane is affecting the price of gasoline EVERYWHERE?!?!?

What an interesting document.... Yes, I can see that these new quieter engines can allow us to hear things that we previously couldn't.... Now - if they could only come up with something a little better for the customer that says "....but, HIS engine doesn't make the same noise as mine.... MINE should be as QUIET as HIS...".

Well, then. If nobody files a GCR (whatever was wrong with a EDSR?), then these things must be good and the sales slump is just overactive imagination...

Aaron... some of what you write isn't a bunch different from what I experience (where we do differ is interesting and we'll get to that in a bit)... For thing concerning guidance and instruction - where the F@#K is your shop foreman? Where the F@#K are the shop manuals? And why haven't these wieners taken the appropriate WBT courses? Used to be that my productivity was called to task many times a week... It's been several months and this is allowing me to concentrate on things that matter.... Instructing those less experienced on techniques... learning techniques myself... quality control.... the list is actually quite extensive and I feel that once you get up to about 5 shop employees, you HAVE to have some sort of a straw boss.... As far as working on anything that doesn't have a work order - be it mine, a relatives or a friends - that is between me and my employer.... I use my hoist and the shops equipment to work on a very good friends cars.... (currently the 69 Charger, the 06 'Vette and the SRT10) - these are jobs the shop will never see otherwise... This same friend has a 08 SooperDoodie.... Can we say "retail" boys and girls? This same friend is regional supervisor for a service rig outfit.... and can influence the purchase decisions of dozens and dozens of rig hands. Petty whimperings will always be nothing more than petty whimperings. "I don't like it when <so and so> makes coffee... it's too strong". Well, then - you make it... "I don't like to make coffee - I only like to complain about it". Suck it up, princess... lifes a bitch and then your folks turn your old bedroom into a den. Aaron, it doesn't sound like you are getting much for your $60 per month. Especially since the government of Ontario should handle most of your grievances, anyway. If someone wants to "act the princess" - he will eventually run upside of me.... I am the anti-shop-steward.... My allegiance is to my customer.... I do not abide anything that will keep this team from producing happy ones.

Steve... I wasn't insinuating that Boeings workers were unskilled.... But I was asking how skilled you need to be for assembly line jobs..... I AM considering your post in a rhetorical, "what about onions?" vein rather than a "what about Boeing?" vein. Either way, it boils down to trade unions.... collective bargaining agreements.... These are, at the very least, Marxist in principal.... We are all reduced (or elevated to - point of view, I guess) the same level regardless of our skills, talents experience or any of the other factors that influence how good we may or may not be perceived at what we do... I know many onion members.... most are overpaid, performing what are intrinsically simple tasks that require little in the way of cognitive thought process... For many of these, integrity is at least as important as skills (in that the task is simple enough for most people to perform.... but integrity is required to ensure that the task is performed completely and properly) - and a man without integrity isn't much of a man.... I firmly believe that whatever branches of US government that deal with labour laws should look at Canadian labour laws for the baslcs.... After that, it is up to me as an individual to become proficient enough to achieve my personal goals and to function and interact in such a manner as to become a valued member of our stores staff (a TEAM member, if you will). FWIW..... driving around with an "I'm on strike" sign in the back window reminds me of an old saw - be sure that the boot you are pissing on today isn't attached to the ass you'll be kissing tomorrow. Driving around with that sign in the back window tells me he doesn't care about those that didn't want to strike.... I am a free citizen and I can make up my own mind without taking it to a vote...

One of the inherant problems with collective bargaining is the ability for one side or the other to play the bully.... Rarely will the employer get the opportunity and, if he does, the media would beat the crap out of him if he took blatant advantage... OTOH, the Onion.... The Trade Onion will claw every nickel it can for the onion members - locally, we see floor sweepers getting around $20 per hour.... Pardon me... I see sweeping the floor as an entry level endeavour.... You get your foot in the door and now you get the chance to move up the food chain as you prove yourself (Hey - it worked when I was young...). Now I don't know about anyone else, but there ain't a floor sweeper out there worth $20 per hour... Following a broom around just doesn't take that much talent and, if push came to shove, someone else could stop lifting his feet out of the way and start sweeping his own work area. <GASP> Blasphemy... And floor sweeping is only the tip of the iceberg.... The wieners that assemble these wonderful machines we work on (you know, put tab A in slot B - missed? Don't worry, they'll catch it on the PDI...) don't have to know anything about the finished product.... Tab A - slot B - might be a bolt or a screw involved and the operation may or may not go as planned (if it doesn't, the shop steward can save our sorry ass)... But these guys are way overpaid for the talents and knowledge that they invest in assembly line work. When a collective bargaining agreement makes a $5 per hour job worth $20 per hour... the price of what-ever the hell it is we are making has to go up to cover the costs.... Pretty soon... the onion has chased another job out of the country and straight into the hands of some labourer in a third world country that is more than happy to work for slave wages. If some mook wants to thrust his onion beliefs in my face, he damned well better make sure that everything he owns or uses has a "union made" label firmly affixed. A onion member driving a non-union made KIA? Why not.... it was a trade union that made KIA profitable... by driving jobs out of north America straight into Korea....... Obviously, I have oversimplified a very complex problem and I've still wound up with more words than many would prefer.... Hypocrisy is only one of many problems plaguing modern society.... The onion will get it's member raises they didn't earn and benefits they don't deserve.... Once you get used to being spoon fed - it's hard to go back to being self-sufficient.

I see the pop-up is back when we Canucks click into the ProTech website.... And, in true Ford form, the GCR links still don't seem to work right. Can someone click on the GCR Program link and then either the Submission Tips or Recognition Program links and tell me what you see (or what you don't see, as the case may be)? A multi-million dollar, multinational corp should be able to have links that work, spelling mistakes that aren't (broadcast message 1409) and typos that never were (broadcast message 1410). These bozos expect us to get the tough shit right first time, every time... and they can't even handle the simple stuff....

I did a CVIP (commercial vehicle) inspection on a 09 K3500 today... The Focus has more ground clearance than one of these POS' and the friggin' thing just kinda wallows down the road... The way I see it is I drive freakin' truck.... why wouldn't I expect it to ride like one? Give one of these a try.... you'll think that the crap Ford decided on ain't so bad after all (Yeah, I liked the leaf spring trucks better, too.... but the coil spring trucks do turn tighter...).

There ain't a day goes by that I don't piss at least one person of in a royal fashion.... occasionally, it is my boss (how's that for job security?) /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif. Irreverance comes naturally for me but sometimes I work a little bit harder at it than I might need to... For Ralphy-boy and his prissy little namby-pamby "Ooooh, the workshop manual didn't tell me common sense was required" thinking - I would hope that, in my absence, someone would step up to the plate and remind anyone that refuses to take their top extremity to work with them that they are wieners. Good techs will rarely make wieners look good... but wieners will make good techs look like.... well, like wieners....

This could become a whole 'nother topic as we discuss guys that 'can't' learn as opposed to guys that 'won't' learn as opposed to guys that are happy acting like either of the above.... I think I've mentioned in the past that I believe the system is upside down and it rewards the underachievers... I'm a grade 8 drop out.... I use words like ameliorate, obfuscate, emulsify and mitigate in their proper context. I have grade 12 graduates that can't hardly fucking read..... It isn't that I am so friggin' good.... But it is that THEY are so friggin' bad that a dose of the clap would look good next to them. It would be great if the public was privvy to the internal state of this trade.... Unfortunately, the best of us will always get painted with the brush meant for the worst of us. I'm going to stop for a while.... mostly because anything that discusses the human condition gets far too complex far too quickly. We live in a world where all of us want the right things done to us - but few are willing to do the right things to others in return... Isn't it strange that, in a world where we are all expected to hold each other in the highest esteem, the law of the jungle appears to be the way things are run. Except, in the case of the automotive trades, only the stupid will survive...