JSHTech

And hopefully they gathered enough information from that to make this calibration accurate for real world applications. I guess I'm still a little skeptical on this.

And that's my point. It's an uncommon test at the end of the listed diagnostics that most technicians don't often perform. And those are always the ones that burn us aren't they? They only reason I did it was becasue I was following the book to the letter on one of my first big ticket jobs. And to be honest I haven't done it since. Where as you had a concern (hard start, no start) you've dealt with many times before, and had experience leading your diagostics, so it's understandable that you wouldn't be reaching for the gauge set first.

That and the plastic drain plug for the oil pan. How many times can that be opened and closed before it a) breaks, or stops sealing?

Sounds to me like a wild goose chase through a minefield would be more pleasant. I've seen similar readings on the crank case pressure test though. Lucky for me it was when I first started working, and in my naivety I believed that ALL the diagnostic tests in the PC/ED were meant to be followed and performed religiously, and regardless of the concern. I checked the pressure on a 6.4 that had a lacks power concern, even after I pretty much determined it was the LP turbo, and to my surprise I saw 40 inches of water at WOT. Upon disassembly I found 4 cylinders washed down. Had I not checked it could have turned ugly.

But in all seriousness. People somewhere are buying this product. And using it. Probably often. Or else they wouldn't keep comming around with it.

Sounds miserable. Were you required to replace all the rubber hoses in the system also?

I've actually had fair luck by locking a pair of vice grips on the wire as close to the broken connector as possible and then givin her a good yank. This is on the actual wire, with the sheathing pulled out of the way. Done several this way and they've all come out.

Don't you love that. I'm sure it's something like, "Remove 8 bolts. Remove exhaust manifold."

2003 F250. Customer had complaints about engine temp running too hot. When I test drove it originally ECT wouldn't go over 178F, but EOT went up to 195F. I knew that was too low for normal engine operating temp after a 20 mile test loop. Put a thermostat in it, now ECT runs 188-192F, and EOT runs 199-203F. During my second test drive the greatest variation I saw was EOT 14 degrees hotter, not as much as my first drive with an open thermostat. This truck has 105K and orignal oil cooler. Once both temps leveled off they would fluctuate together. If the cooler were partially plugged would it still allow the temps to semi - mirror each other?

Haha, what are the odds. I would have loved to see that guys face, watching the environment deteriate before his very eyes.

Not long ago I had made a post on the Ford Message boards about doing head studs one at time, with out pulling the head. That turned out some very interesting replies, but anyways, I got a call from an engineer in Dearborn. He told me, that at one point in time Ford had taken head studs and done some extensive testing with them regarding clamping force on the head opposed to clamping force from torque-to-yield head bolts, and how that force was spread out. Because Ford was considering doing an updated head gasket kit with head studs instead of bolts. He said that in the end, the results they found was that the 6.0 block is simply too weak. You can apply as much force as you want to the head, but the block just cant handle the stress, and they saw just as many gasket failures with studs, as they did with head bolts. Because they didn't have a large enough difference in preventing gasket failures, they decided against using the head studs. This is what I was told from Dearborn. I know this probably goes against what a lot of you think, and it really raised more questions for me than answered. But I just thought I would throw that in there, and I'm curious how you guys feel about this.

I want to know. Who out there has seen this or experienced it. Personally I haven't. But we did have one take off in our parking lot. It was a farmers truck, 6.0L, and it had been tipped onto it's side in a ditch, or something along those lines. They failed to mention that during the write up. Customer just stated that the truck wouldn't start (because it didnt after they put it back on its own four feet). This was when I worked at my dealers other branch and there were other diesel techs there at the time. The tech who took the job, went out and the truck started fine. Ran a little rough but started. Little did he know the CAC was full of oil. So he went to leave the lot and see how it would go down the road. As he came to stop, she ran away, and just before he was about to pull out into traffic! The brakes werent long holding. He ended up throwing it in neutral and bailed out. The engine finally siezed but didn't blow or anything spectacular. When it was all said and done there was a small burn out and a whole pile of soot in the trees on the edge of the lot. All that excitement and I missed it! So lets hear the stories.

I've had luck doing it with and with out the pullers. The old style puller was junk and the first one I ever did I ended up using an air chisel. But the updated puller seems to work decent. Just have to take it slow and tap the valve/bowl while adding pressure to the puller. What really gets me about all of this, is why would the engineers design this component to have such a tight clearance. They had to have realized that this system builds up carbon. As was clearly seen with the 6.0L. So lets make it fit nice and snug so that the first bit of carbon will bind it up tight!

I think in that case ignorance received it's just reward.