Fredsvt

For the price, it doesn't do everything on a Ford, but it copies the IDS very close in many ways, is the Autel Maxidas. I have one, it has power balance, I see the last update added PMI, but I didn't go into that menu yet. It connects similarly to the IDS, where you have to wait at the initial connection. It also does nearly all Euro, Japanese and GM/Chrysler. It's NOT a replacement for OEM tools, but works well for the price.

Hey, oil costs money you know. How much do you think they save per unit on not using oil. Probably like how we've found bunches of 2008-2012 GM C/K and SUVs with the rear diffs at least a quart low on oil at their first service, just to get the level to within the 1/4 inch of the fill hole. I wonder what they pay? GM lists their syn 75w90 at $46 per quart.

Jasper, please, don't make me laugh. A long rant coming.... I had to do an outside warranty at our shop at the time we were Jasper "preferred". This was a T444E in a IH school bus. The bus company could only start it with ether to get enough cranking speed. ICP was too low on normal crank to get it to activate the injectors. I found cylinder 3 injector shooting oil from around the upper oring on regular crank, it would make it about 20' across the shop. I pulled the injector and the head was pitted, like it had been in a junk pile. No amount of new orings would seal it. They sent us a head, and the head they sent had a chunk of wire from what looked like a wire brush stuck between the head and an injector cup, it was sticking out into the chamber area. Sent that one back, and got another. Put that head on, made it to the last two bolts on the final torque pull and the threads pulled. Jasper wouldn't pay to pull the motor, they let it run as it was. Nice. It didn't last long anyway, as it had nearly no base oil pressure hot. It came with one of their "dyno" tested to make 190 hp, etc, oil pressure, yeah, yeah. That was the second to last junk we ever did for them. This was after we sent a '57 TBird Y block to them to rebuild on their "special" line. We get it back, wonder why it seems low on power and it would constantly run hot. After tons of parts and their "experts" it got sent back, and who or whatever put it together didn't know the cylinder numbering sequence and put the wrong pistons in wrong holes, so it ground the rods up and scored the bores. They, without telling us, found a used block and built it up again. The other engine was original. The customer was PISSED. Add to that, the motor that finally arrived, with wrong block, had tons of DIRT embedded in the paint they put on it. The last one, a 4R70w in an Econoline that slammed downshifted and sometimes flared. (on first test drive out of the shop) They had us replace nearly everything electronic, from a properly operating sister van, nothing changed it. We ended up after blowing so much time and money, buying a Ford trans, and lo and behold, it worked just fine.

Sounds as good as the guy who was in our shop about two weeks ago, '08 6.4, had a "quacky lube" fill it with "synthetic" Mobil 1 "turbo diesel" oil, 0w30. For what he paid for the service, something sounded really fishy. Needless to say, when we told him Mobil 1 makes NO oil suitable for his 6.4 he wasn't happy, he had us change it with a motorcraft filter and replacement lid (junk aftermarket filter) and Motorcraft 10w30 diesel oil. I had to print out a sheet for Mobil Delvac 5w40 synthetic, but at $50 a gallon, he may think twice. He got an expensive engine flush...

I forgot to mention, in freshman year of high school, we had a substitute bus and driver. (we had a private bus company for our route) Walking out at the end of the day is a white and blue, covered in chrome and stripes, my best guess would be 50's or 60's era bus, rounded nose, roof and back, much lower than the 80s buses. It appeared very "aero" in comparison to the current buses. It was a Chevrolet. What made it stand out was the 4" side pipes coming out ahead of the rear tires. Once we were all in, the guy driving us, I'd say barely 30, fired it up. Holy crap. Lopey, lopey, thumpa thumpa and LOUD. He blipped it a few times and the whole bus rocked side to side. It got the attention of the kids and teachers in the lot. Us guys into cars asked him what's in this thing. He said it had a bored and stroked 454, aluminum heads, headers, dual 4 bbl carbs. When he shifted that sucker into 2nd and not low to take 35 kids home, and got on it right out of the lot. HOLY CRAP. I've never ridden in a thing THAT large THAT fast. This guy was no slow bus driver. It made for one interesting memory of riding the school bus.

I remember riding in both Internationals with the 345 and Chevys with 366s, the old chevs, had a yellow "engine overspeed" light. When I was in 3rd and 4th grade, I remember the old lady driver used to make that light come on real bright coming down a couple of the hills around here as she downshifted. I can also remember that unique smell from the exhaust, esp from the Chevs as they were shifted and that puff of blue smoke came out. I also remember, when in HS the first 9.0 liter Internationals, dog slow, noisy as hell, and when the downpipes off the manifolds broke off, they were REALLY loud.

Don't give Osama any ideas, please... Questions, I looked at the list... If you do the following, do you pay multiple amounts? Alignments, brakes, general service, electric/electronic, cars, light duty to hd trucks? Since some of us do do more than what each is classified at in their list, it sounds like they would.

If all power is removed from the trans, as in pull the solenoid plug You should have reverse and 3rd only. 4L60 and 4L80 are the same in this regard.

The old E vans went to 399999 and back to 300,000 again. It was a pita to keep records, especially for DOT when they did that. When I was at the limo/car company we had about a dozen gas vans that went to 399,999 3 times. Most were 1994 with the 5.8, untouched internal engine and transmissions. The older Merc GMQ 6 digit analog odos in the '95-'99s would go to 999,999 before re-zeroing. I saw too many of those to even think about. Nice thing was after 1995 model year, I stopped having to do in car valve stem seals. And, only 1 car ever needed timing chains.

Hyundai/Kia service information, well... sucks. It was/is free to access on the internet for anyone. Once I went through some of it, I know why. Very poorly translated Korean, no theory, next to no testing information and their model codes, unless you're Korean, it's damn hard to figure out. They don't go by name, by internal model code. Much like Mercedes and BMW.

'03 very rusty 4.0 Exploder: transfer case back half, jiffy lube overtightened drain plug cracking it rear axle seals, oh the joy of rust left valve cover leaking oil water pump, belt and fan clutch

On a DIT, glow plug light is meaningless as far as how many GPs actually work. The PCM turns the light on for the amount of time IT wants, regardless of whether there's power at the plugs or not, or if there's any burned out. The light can come on, and the PCM may not turn on the GPs if warm enough, or the lights out, when cold and the GPs stay on for up to 2 minutes. If you have no buzz, the injectors are probably sludged up. And yes, even though they make no noise, as long as they are electrically connected to the IDM, they will show a "pass". If you use a starter button w/koeo, from under the hood, when ICP builds, can you hear the injectors "click". It's very obvious when they are turned "on" by the IDM w/enough ICP voltage. If you hear them click and no attempt to fire, and no smoke, they're probably no good, not delivering fuel cold. The "gas like" misfire/hesitation at 2200-2500 rpm, loaded or unloaded, usually with a bunch of blue smoke, I've found is indicative of injectors that are borderline, as long as base engine is ok.

Visit www.spaceweather.com scroll down to the chart and see 2012 DA14, set for February 15 2013

Knowing Jasper, probably some tin foil, or pieces of soda can. I've gotten stuck with 2 warranty 7.3s from them, one with so much blowby it blew the oil cap off the valve cover on a gen 1 (1997) The other,in a stupid school bus, no ICP build during cranking, found 1 upper injector oring leaking horribly, cylinder head had "divots" where o ring sits, like the had rusted so bad, they cleaned it up and tossed it on. Pulled that head, only to get a replacement with what looked like thick wire brush material stuck between injector cups and combustion chamber, sticking out where the injector would come out. Sent that one back for another head. They sent me one. I put it on, and the last two head bolts PULLED FRIGGEN THREADS out of the block on final torque. The bus went back to the school district it came from, with the pulled threads/loose head bolts so they could put another engine in it on THEIR dime. My boss refused any more warranty work from them.

With what happened Tuesday... I thoroughly expect, Hurricane, earthquake, fire, flood, blizzard, which we already had. Just two more to got, locusts and pestilence...... Friends north of the border have said that the results of Tuesday reinforce the notion that Americans are stupid. Somehow, I agree....

Now they're saying it's gonna snow w/60 mph winds tomorrow. Oh joy....

I'm so damn bored! And financial panic is starting. Been out of work since Sandy hit. No power at the shop, so no work. I'm going to apply for the disaster unemployment assistance. They still haven't restored power. If they don't restore it today, I heard from the shop's secretary that we won't get power for at least another week. They are removing the crews starting this evening. Ugh.

Finally got gas for the truck and gas cans today. Couldn't get gas anywhere over the weekend. 4.26/gallon. They weren't following the odd/even gas rationing either at the station I went to.

No one is gouging now in my area, but we are running out rapidly. There's barely a handful of stations open, with up to 10 hour waits. I needed fuel for the truck and my yard equipment to keep cleaning up. No dice. One station was having people park and leave their cars, they'd "call" when the delivery came. All the others I saw (4) were in long lines with no guarantee that there would be fuel when you got to the pump. They are giving people with fuel containers priority, in a long, long line vs cars, with even longer lines. This is gonna get bad, as I'm hoping to be back to work, but with only a weeks worth of fuel left in the car(s), I don't know what I'm going to do at that point. I hope power is restored all over and the fuel deliveries are taking place by then.

I just got power back this evening. Lost it Monday at 6:45pm, it came on, oddly at 6:45. The power in most of our area, I found out, was deliberately shut off once the poop hit the fan. I suffered NO house damage, and with only 2.5 inches of rain here, no water at all. Luckily. I had 1 50' 20" diameter oak branch come down at the rear of my yard, and another 150' tall oak lost a third of itself, the huge branches are stuck in midair, hanging in other trees. I won't walk under those puppies. I just saw some of the pics of the shore and Raritan bay front in Monmouth county, holy shit! I haven't been at work all week either, no power there, and from what I've been told, there's no direct route to the town I route in, as there are/were too many trees down to access the town. Now, hopefully I can get gas, so I can continue to clean my yard and fill the vehicles. They were gouging at $24/gallon in our area early this week.

I need to hit my head on the wall. I put off spending the money for the standby natural gas powered whole house generator. Damn. Already have done the pickup all the stuff that can't get wet, cleaned the gutters (eavestroughs for those north of the border) twice and pulled out the sump lines to the back of the yard.

Dark doesn't bother me as much as water. No power.... no sump pumps.... no pumps, there goes about 30k in hvac and other appliances, plus a ton of woodworking tools and stuff.... UGH. I hope there isn't too much rain from this..

I so brutally remember the Contour/Mistake cars. We had a bunch of customers that had them. I think they are basically the Ford Mondeo straight from Germany, correct?

Mercedes don't need my help with that. They all have biodegradable wiring insulation. Problem is, most degrade while still on the car. It'll only be a matter of time. Two people down the street from my house have lost cars due to the harnesses degrading, shorting out and burning to the ground. The one neighbor, she almost lost her house, as the car was parked about 4 feet away. The fire dept managed to save the house, the siding and eaves were melted right off.

That could be a good thing. As I have one of those eurotrash things on my lift at work (old, 1993). What a pile of crap. Stupid rubber drive shaft couplings took a dump, but center u joint is frozen. Have to get a damn shaft, $1200, less the couplings. I then found frozen rear calipers and frozen parking brake cables. I've never seen such a stupid setup. Tiny hidden pins that are buried that hold the cables to the friggen shoe actuators. Makes IRS explorer rear e-brake shoes look like super gravy.