Matt Saunoras

Still working on that 02 C3500 dump on and off when I get time. The ABS false activation was caused by rust jacking under the front wheel speed sensor mounting location on the hubs. I wound up replacing the RF sensor and cleaning the LF which totally took care of the concern. Today I was screwing around with the tail lights. As I found out GM uses a rear junction block to control the lights. Brake and Turn are on separate circuits so a standard 3 wire truck light will not work. After hours of searching around on the internet I came up with a Rubbolite 8002 which must have been what it came with originally from the upfitter. Had the customer order some and they came in yesterday. The right light is plug and play but the left is pinned differently. To use a right light on the left you have to de-pin the connector and move some circuits around which was not an issue. The right rear light bracket was bent to hell. That's the closest I could get it to being straight.

The truck is an 01, I pulled up perdels but none of them were up. All zero percent which I thought was odd.

They are rated for household applications and so far so good. Tried it on the truck with low compression today, worked flawlessly. Killing 2 and 5 made the least difference in the way the truck idled.

Simple task of machining front rotors using the on-car lathe on an 09 Escape. Cut the first rotor and while moving the machine to the other side the base just fell apart. It was kind of comical, I was holding on to the head and the whole thing just slowly started heading towards the ground, it laid down in slow motion while in my hands. So what now? I get commissioned to MacGyver the old bench lathe back together to make a pass on the second rotor. The bench lathe hasn't been used in at least 3-4 years since we got the pro-cut. Most of the pieces are all rusty or got lost during the move but it managed. I need some parts though if we want to keep using it as a back up. This is all after yesterday when the tranny flush machine blew an internal line on our asset kid during a flush. Both these incidents happened in the bay our oldest tech just retired from. Voodoo perhaps?

I know it's a little late but I finally made a 7.3L injector kill box. I've had the main harness connectors stashed away for years but never had the motivation to do anything with them. Every time one of these pigs came through the door missing I wished I'd made it. The truth is I was raised on the power balance test. I really take for granted how invaluable it is and every time I work on a 7.3 it's like my favorite tool has been taken away. It's really one of the reasons I dread doing 7.3 driveabilty, that and the lack of familiarity. What finally pushed me over the edge was the truck I'm working on now. 225k miles, customer just did injectors, cups, glow plugs and UVC harnesses. The truck starts and runs somewhat okay but fuel smokes pretty badly for the first few minutes of a cold start. The oil is a few quarts low but it's not in the fuel, it's leaking out of the crankcase breather on the left valvecover. It puffs out the oil fill cap like a train but I can't get it to register crankcase pressure on the fancy rotunda gauge bar. The blowby to me is suspicious but the damn injectors are from Pensacola diesel so they can't be ruled good either. #8 flags on the contribution test every time but that also isn't any useful information. When I started this truck yesterday I thought I'd be looking at an injector issue I wouldn't be able to pinpoint. So I had a look at the compressor wheel and it's also extremely suspicious as it's quite dusted. Sold the customer a compression test which I did late today. #8 is 150 psi, all the rest are between 180-220. I even double checked it with another gauge because I'm used to seeing high 300s on other diesels. As for the kill box it's not perfect but should manage okay for what I need right now. I may extend and flatten the harness to reach in the cab at a later date. I'd say I've got about $100 in materials in it, about half I paid for myself. There's over 50 wire splices involved and 48ft of wire just to extend the box out 3 feet from the harness. I am most concerned about the switches. They should be up to the task but I don't know for sure yet. I know the IDM puts out a pretty high voltage but I'm not sure how much. Also I'd estimate it took about 6 hours to make, I ran out of tape today I'll finish that part up tomorrow.

I have never seen injectors with the seals eroded away. Any theories on what causes this?

The guy I work next to has a masters, I have a classic triple bay and a heritage single. His drawers are deeper but I have more tools

I use nothing but distilled here at the shop when mixing my own coolant. If the truck is getting an extensive chemical flush I have no choice but to use tap water though.

We have sold exactly one hybrid in the 7 years I've been here. The best part was it was a former shop foreman/tech from our Lincoln store who bought it. Aside from class that is the only one I've ever seen.

Absolutely. I would never recommend any of my customers run anything other than what is specified by the manufuacturer. Doing so one would assume I know more than Ford, which is not the case here. Some of these customers make their own decisions though, and I am okay with that in this instance if it is done properly.

I did have one that set p2263 KOER but drove okay and didn't set any actual cel. Had to let it go at the time but a few months later the high pressure turbo let loose. I think I made a thread about it

I think too there are more issues with mixing coolant types and incorrect concentrations than the actual coolant types. Like Buddy said the International versions of the past ford diesel engines use red ELC. Whether they experience more or less failures remains to be seen but I don't see any harm in running a red ELC a diesel engine which it wasn't originally equipped with. I keep some jugs of Rotella ELC here at the shop just for a few of my customers that do happen to run red. I have not seen any 6.7s run on red but if the system is flushed properly and mixed properly with distilled water then I couldn't imagine any failures directly related to coolant type. Ford's choice of coolant makes me scratch my head though. Both Gold and Orange seem to leave the cooling system internals coated with a crusty residue. edit - also when I say "red" I mean CAT EC-1 spec coolant which Rotella ELC is.

Got an 02 Chevy C3500 dump here with some weird issues. It's got intermittent fuel gauge and abs false activation problems. Also the rear lights are all hacked up, customer didnt realize there's a rear junction block that controls them. Gotta find out why I have no voltage going into the module along with locating some plug and play lights.

In PA you're not allowed to idle a diesel powered vehicle over 10k lbs GVWR for longer than 5 minutes in any 60 minute time frame. Most if not all businesses have a sign posted somewhere in the parking lot

43 psi would be absolute, think of the 6.7 turbo like a 6.0. It's not capable of any more pressure..... At least reliably

I suspect the shortblock I just did was a maintenance issue also. Last oil change was 6100 miles ago but the oil life still showed 19%. These were read off the IDS pids. Seems excessive but the owners manual says go off the oil change reminder rather than mileage or hours.

Drill what?

6.4 bolts are definitely ferrous, even though they're stainless they still have an iron content like all steels. I've extracted quite a few with my MIG and you can still weld them using normal carbon steel methods, it doesn't really affect anything (like Buddy said). What you do have to watch out for is accidentally welding to the head.

Yeah we're in the same place, lots of tools need updated but management won't spend the money to hire techs that can make them money. We're in a hard spot right now, the shop just isn't producing. Our old guy here was certified back in like 2000 but as long as I've known him he hasn't held one cert. Recently he let his emissions license expire and I thought they were going to fire him. Didn't happen though.

There's a lot of "can't" and "won't" being spoken in the shop lately. As in "I can't do that" or "I won't do that" I replaced an active torque coupling solenoid in an 08 escape today. It was a used car and no one would touch it because we didn't have all the special tools. All I needed to find were the damn puller fingers and the rest I made due without. Also our oldest tech retired today. It was about 5 years too late but he's gone for good, that makes me the longest standing tech in the shop. ​

What are you doing to the 14 escape? I'm turning into our tranny guy again and got a 13 here that whines in 2nd and has a bad 2-3 shift. Pulling it in today I lost reverse

Damn Chinese rims on that truck, I searched for hours today trying to figure out what they were or where they came from. No discernible markings anywhere except one little logo which I can't match up with anything.

This one was towed in yesterday. I believe the guy hit a jersey barrier. I get all the suspension work then it's off to the body shop

That makes sense, my koeo readings were spot on but engine running and driving was where the differences were.

Yup the booster is full of oil which apparently ruined all the seals.