Matt Saunoras

The guy who buys most of our wholesaled used cars got a black lariat with a 6.7 last week. He doesn't like it so far. Said the truck feels a lot bigger on the road than his 16 and doesn't feel like it has as much power. We got one gasser in but I haven't looked at it yet

We see tons of these. A purge valve is actually one of the three parts we stock. I diaged one on a 13 explorer today. Set a DTC P0456 for a small leak. The bleed up rate was out of spec until I pulled the purge valve out and stuck my finger over the end that fits in the intake. Then suddenly my leak stopped. Most of ours fail like yours where they won't draw a sufficient vacuum but they also will not seal completely and cause an excessive leakdown.

Got a 16 F-150 2.7L ecoboost here with oil consumption issues. I see this concern popping up on the fmc boards. Waiting to see what hotline says but I think I'm going to have a look at the plugs in the meantime. #4 and #6 plugs soaked in oil. Compression and leak down are okay. Update - it's getting a left head. Would anyone consider a cab off for this job?

For reference here is the duct I'm referring to and here is a VGT solenoid wiring I found. That is a 7.3 injector connector

I've had a real head scratcher here for a couple weeks. I spent quite a bit of time on this thing for a relatively easy fix I wish I would have heard about before. This school bus came in for a loss of power while accelerating up a hill and wouldn't upshift. When they told me about it over the phone I was thinking I'd nail injectors on it and be done. No one wants to do E-series injectors so I got them on nearly every one that came in sooner or later. This was a fresh bus I'd never worked on with about 120k miles. I get the bus, check all the obvious stuff like power balance, DTCs, FICM voltage etc. Nothing. Go for a ride and it runs okay. Hit the throttle pretty hard up my diag hill and as soon as the 3-5 shift completes it falls on it's face and I have to turn around and head back. It didn't smoke, didn't miss, didn't stumble basically ran fine except boost dropped to zero. Actually boost dropped below zero which I found weird (MGP said zero but MAP went lower than KOEO). EBP didn't skyrocket like a plugged CAT and fuel pressure didn't drop even a little. I could accelerate for a bit and it would be fine until it hit a certain point, usually after a shift, and it would just bog and I'd have to stop to regain power. I drove this thing up the hill no less than a dozen times trying to wrap my head around what was happening. I figured it had to be VGT related so I dug in a little bit, found the VGT solenoid wiring hacked all to shit and thought for sure I found it. The only thing I really found out was that someone tried to fix this thing before me, infact it came directly from another dealer that gave up on it. That didn't make me feel too great. So I fixed the VGT solenoid wiring and much to my surprise that didn't do anything. Put a known good VGT solenoid in it, that didn't do anything either. Re-ran turbo boost and EGR KOER self tests with no avail. Checked the air filter which was new and finally I pulled the EGR valve out and found it to be exactly like the known good one I have. I'm nervous at this point. I didn't really think it was EGR because my EBP was consistently higher than my MAP..... BUT my MAF did start to dive before the boost started to drop. I knew it was something air intake related but I just couldn't put my finger on it. When I had the intake duct out of the way I found about a 4" long piece of hard plastic floating around near the compressor wheel, I thought maybe that it was jamming in the wheel but that wasn't the case. I couldn't imagine where it came from or what it was. I then borescoped the hot side of the intercooler which wasn't one of my better ideas but I was desperate. Didn't find anything. Today I was ready to pull the turbo and I was feeling pretty sick about it because I knew deep down I wasn't going to find anything. I grabbed the long intake duct to pull it over the cold side cac tube and it felt squishy for a lack of better terms. I knew right away why as soon as I looked down the duct. I've never once thought about that duct or even looked down one. There's a hard plastic shell inside to keep the thin middle part from collapsing. Well guess what this bus had missing, about half of that shell. Whoever broke it and removed the inside pieces really needs an ass kicking. That's where that piece of black plastic came from that was near the compressor wheel. So after all this I'm still not convinced this simple ass find is going to fix it, a new duct is 2 days out and I really didn't feel comfortable waiting (aka wasting more time). I had a seat for a minute with the brain hat on and it hit me, the towing company down the street has junk 6.0 ambulances in their yard (ones that I basically put there ). Made a call, grabbed some tools, climbed over quite a few cars and found one out of sight that still had a usable duct. I sweated my ass off getting that duct out while laying on the hood of another car jammed right up against it. I couldn't have been happier walking into the shop with a perfectly good duct ready to proceed with my findings. Slammed it into my short bus and away it went. The damn cat was so loaded up with soot I thought I still had something wrong but eventually it cleared itself up and ran great. It felt so good to make that shift at the exact point it would act up every time and not have to turn around. So all in all it was the rubber intake duct collapsing once I hit a certain load due to someone breaking the hell out of the inside. Very simple fix that couldn't possibly happen on an F-series.

I figured out the 6.0L school bus finally. I'll make a post about it. It really had me scratching my head, I knew it had to be something simple

I hear stories of pinholes forming in the top of the upper filter causing fuel to spray out. I have never actually seen this though. I did have a line pop off on me once post roadtest after replacing a fuel system. The truck did not smoke however, it just leaked a ton of fuel.

The torqshift left today, I will know tomorrow if it's all okay. I needed to put on a new set of the white Teflon pump seals. The seals in the overhaul kit would not size down correctly even after setting the old coast clutch cylinder on them all weekend. Had a spare set, put them on and the pump dropped right down in. The 98 7.3L van is good too. The tank sending unit socks were clogged and the black foot broken off. The tank is starting to delaminate but it'll be okay for a while, I sucked out all the loose stuff. A new steel midship tank is $1243 wholesale price. Customer passed on it for now. I also did a left manifold in a 5.4 F-150 today.

The PCM is most definitely on the HS-CAN network. I would not put a PCM in yet. HS-CAN pin fit issues have been frequently found in C210 and C212 under the dash.

Same here, I said thinner pinion shim instead of thicker

Doing a bench overhaul on a torqshift for a bus companies 13 E-450. Guess why it was pulled, broken coast clutch drum. They wanted a master overhaul kit tossed in due to the mileage so I agreed. Nothing was too bad but the direct piston was coming apart. Almost all back together and I can't get the pump to drop all the way in. I screwed around for a while pulling the coast assembly and O/D crap back out then back in. Had to give up for the night. I still don't know what's going on with the 6.0 school bus but I did find out it came directly from another larger dealer north of here that can't fix it.

Got a 98 e-series with a 7.3L lacking power at times. Checked fuel pump inlet restriction

I got another 50% on this months questions. I really do suck. The 14 F-250 question I was starring at PCV instead of VCV.

You wouldn't believe what I found. I won't post it yet because I don't want to jinx myself but I'm going back together to see. Nah that wasn't it. Found about a 4" long piece of plastic stuck in the intake duct right near the compressor wheel. You could see where the piece was getting hit by the wheel and the wheel has marks too. I have no idea what it is

Man I am stumped with a 6.0 e-series school bus that's here. Moderate acceleration it will hit 5th gear and just lose all boost. EBP will drop a little and VGT goes from 45% to about 60ish trying to regain pressure. Everything looks good pid wise and no codes. It will not boost again until you stop and accelerate though the shifts again. It's not always 5th but it seems to happen right after an upshift. EGR valve position never varies much from desired so I don't believe it's a valve sticking open. It never dies or stumbles just falls on it's face. Fuel pressure is great the whole time. Found the VGT solenoid wiring all hacked up and had a 7.3 injector connector wired in. Wired in a new connector, made sure my wire colors matched pin position, swapped in a known good VGT solenoid. No change. Checked the MAP with regulated air to make sure it was reading correctly. Ran the turbo boost and EGR KOER tests and both passed great. The weird part is when this happens MAP goes lower than atmosphere. Say my MAP was reading 1.2v KOEO, when the engine is under load and not boosting my MAP was reading .84v like it's pulling a vacuum. The only restriction in the intake would be the turbo but how could it just stop spinning or slow down so much as to cause that.

I did have it happen to me. Confirmed DEF in the fuel, customer wanted me to try replacing the filters first and I did so. I got about 3 miles away from the shop on the road test and the return line blew apart at the number 3 injector. Perhaps the DEF reacts with and swells the rubber fuel line. The truck ran totally fine until that point.

Swinging steel target for pistol shooting.

I made this after work today

6.0s and 6.4s with a cast iron head are very tricky.

Got a 75% on this months questions. No way I'm gonna be in contention unless a bunch of techs ahead of me decide to quit.

Nope. I asked hotline because I needed to erase one to blank path a PCM. They wouldn't give me any info but I don't even know if they knew themselves.

I know the 2 mechanics and the owner of SPE (the shop is about an hour from here). They do some pretty neat stuff down there, things we wouldn't even think about. The owner is a ex-senior master tech. They are a little snobby towards me, when I was building my custom 6.0 turbos they basically just laughed about it. The 2 mechanics are also ex-ford techs around my age. I have more respect for guys who make actual repairs rather than just "delete" everything that comes in the door.

All 8 of those studs were broke off 1/8" below flush and all 8 came out with the mig. They really were bastards though

I've been doing a ton of gasser exhaust manifolds lately too. Outside is a 08 V10 dump with 8 studs broken off. One of the manifolds is on backorder so I'm waiting for that to come in

Doing a damn 6.4 oil pan reseal. Weren't we just talking about this?