Kyle E. Grathwol

Not to be nosy, but why won't IDS run on XP home? Do you need to log into a domain with IDS? Will IDS install on home but not run or will it not even let it install? I am obsessed with computers and have a side business repairing them. Maybe I can help.

Being a fleet shop, to have these plugs on hand, I would have to buy them. I will check with the local dealer here to see if there are any junk ones laying around. If not, is anyone interested in sending me some old used ones? I will gladly pay you for your time and shipping.

Thanks for the info Gary.

YES!!! That is the picture. Do you have any details that you want to share about these tools?

One of the photos had a light bulb wired into an injector plug. Does this Ring a bell?

Thanks for the input guys. I am going to see if I can locate different components to try to bring the price down. Thanks again for your time and input.

Quote: Would it be cable of reprogramming from our IDS systems? We all have a pretty good idea of how many recallibrations have been released for the sick litre in the last five years. 350 maybe? It would have to be capable of replacing our VCM and be cheaper to be attractive. But hey, I like the idea. Whatever you can do with a laptop, my device will do it. In fact, if your shop laptops are being used, you can plug a wireless receiver into it and use it over the shop WLAN inside the shop and connect to it from any computer in the company. It is very durable as there is no hard drive involved. Quote: After considerable snafus, upgrades in software, ironing out all of the wrinkles and glitches, you finally have a product which not only has a practical purpose, but also a market. You are proud of your achievement, and rightly so. Thanks Bruce for taking the time to give a very detailed response. I am currently using this system on one milling machine successfully and will be installing it on 2 more as soon as all the parts arrive. The bugs are all worked out. To be very honest, the only variable is the quality of wireless broadband coverage in different areas. I have been talking with Mike Tighe at AATEC because I really like the AutoEnginuity diagnostic software but I could load anything the customer wants. Would you be interested in demoing a unit if I can scrape the cash together to build you one? I have 2 kids in college so extra cash is non-existant. Yes I agree it is time to update my library. I would be very interested in attending your seminar. Hopefully all 5 of us will be able to attend. On a side note. My latest obsession is CAN. I have a device and software to sniff CAN messages as they are broadcast across the CAN bus. This is raw CAN data but I have been able to identify the messages I need for my application. If you suspect that there is info on the bus that the OEM's are not releasing, we may be able to grab it, scale it and use it. Just a thought.

Let me preface this post by saying I AM NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU ANYTHING. I want your input. I am a Equipment Manager for a highway construction company. We specialize in highway milling i.e. grinding asphalt off the roads prior to paving. Six of our machines are very sophisticated and have 5 on-board PLC type computers. I developed a remote diagnostic system for our machines. This system allows me to connect to these machines and troubleshoot the PLC's from anywhere I have an internet connection. A colleague of mine connected to a machine working in Columbus Ohio from his home in Germany. We work in several states so remote diagnostics will be very valuable. This is where I need your help. I can modifying this system to do the same thing with automotive diagnostics. This would allow a shop owner to place a 8"x5"x4" box in a vehicle with intermittent drivability problems and collect data. The shop owner can run the diagnostic software from his shop or the vehicle owner can call the shop when the problem is happening and the technician can view live data from the shop. A "good customer" could call a shop owner at 8:00pm with an intermittent problem that is occurring and the shop owner could connect to the car from his home computer and view live data. When you are connected to the vehicle it is just like you are sitting in it with your laptop connected viewing live data. Do you think there is a market for such a device? To make any money, I would have to sell it for about $2,000. Does the value justify the cost? Please be brutally honest with any input or advice. By the way, we have 9 Super Duty trucks with the 6.0L and I had the opportunity to personally replace a HPOP in an early one. I have a whole new level of respect for you guys working on the 6.0 on a daily basis.

There were some photos of home made diagnostic tools posted on the old forum. The ones I remember were injector harness plugs. Does anyone remember these pictures? If so, can you provide a link to these pictures?

Yes some ZA releases were buggy especially when they tried to be an all in one utility. My version is an older Pro version and works well. You mentioned pop-ups and ActiveX.I highly recommend the Mozilla Firefox browser. Quote: Security isn't a one point deal.... we have to be careful every inch of the way... You said it all right there Jim.

The issue was probably with your firewall. I use Zone Alarm. When I set up a network and I want to map a drive to another machine, I have to shut Zone Alarm off or else I can't hit the drive. When using an aggressive firewall I usually set everything up and then launch the firewall. When it detects the network I put it in the trusted zone and don't have problems after that. Make sure all of your machines are in the same workgroup. Are any of your machines running Windows 2000 Pro? W2000 is a very good, stable and SECURE operating system. Consequently it can be a little finicky to set up a network. As far as safe wireless is concerned, this is what I do. 1. Change the default password and SSID for the router. Changing the default password is very important. 2. Turn off the SSID broadcast. 3. Set up WPA or WEP encryption. You can only use the encryption level that all your devices support. 4. Enable the MAC filter in your router. You will have to manually add the MAC address of every device that you want to allow to connect to your router. To find your wireless mac: start>run>type"CMD">enter>type"ipconfig/all">enter and your mac for your wireless card will be visible as the PHYSICAL ADDRESS. Be sure to select the wireless mac because your ethernet mac will be listed also. It will look like 00-01-A0-AB-03-A0 but you may have to enter it into your router with colons 00:01:A0:, etc. Even with a mac filter you need encryption. Your mac is broadcast with every packet and can be sniffed and spoofed to gain access to your network. Encryption encrypts your mac. Remember that a wireless device connected to your LAN is the same as having an ethernet cable plugged into it. It is local and not coming in through the internet.

I apologize to you as well Keith. It is very hard to tell someone's attitude in a post. It appears as though I took yours and Pete's post the wrong way. I'm sorry. Unfortunately I have dealt with many machines from good people who have lost their data or been hacked by little punks with nothing better to do in life. This causes me to preach computer security to everyone. Go ahead with your next question and I would be honored to author a sticky in this forum.

My statement that you question about the firewall. I thought for sure Pete was referring to a hardware firewall in a router because within a network the Windows built in firewall does not block communication between PC's, which leads to my next statement. I hate to break the news to you Keith but the reason you can't see your machines is because you don't have a network set up. You are sharing an internet connection-that's all. Again, Windows firewall does not block that type of communication. Turning off file and print sharing STILL will allow you to see the other machines in the domain or workgroup. You need to run the network setup to have a network and see the other machines. Your statement of dropping port requests refers to REMOTE machines/servers/networks trying to connect to yours from the internet. Machines connected wirelessly are LOCAL not remote. This is starting to p*ss me off. All I did was offer Jim some advice and it is turning into a geek pi**ing match.

WOW. You are wrong. 1. Antivirus has absolutely nothing to do with wireless security-period. It does nothing to protect you from intruders. 2. Firewall? If someone is on your wireless, they are behind your firewall. They are on your network. 3. If you do not encrypt your wireless transmissions then any little meathead can read your e-mail, passwords, credit card numbers, etc. They can read EVERYTHING going across the wireless. 4. Without security on your wireless it is no different than someone connecting to your network with a LAN ethernet cable. Always remember...THE INTERNET IS A HOSTILE PLACE.

Hi Jim, You may have already done this but I strongly encourage you to secure the wireless in your shop. Change the default password to your router, turn off the SSID broadcast and use 128 bit encryption. A MAC filter alone is not good enough as anyone sniffing packets in your parking lot will get your MAC addresses as it is broadcast with every packet sent accross the wireless. They can spoof your MAC and connect to your network. When I'm not wrenching at work, I am doing computer work. I do it as a side business. You would be suprised as to how many kids drive around and look for unsecured wireless networks just so they can screw with people.

In my opinion, yes. If I remember correctly that bolt has a flange that bottoms on the head and once it is torqued it would take more resistance to break it loose than if it wasn't bottomed.

Is there an aftermarket equivalent to Mercon SP? What is the difference between Mercon V and SP?

White smoke=Low compression. This engine is either out of time or has bent valves or rods. If it cranks erratically I am betting on pistons contacting the valves. If it wasn't iron related, it would have run on ether. I know you said that the rear 4 were low on compression but I would think that all cylinders are affected or else it would try to start on the other 4 and belch white smoke out the pipe from the 4 low ones. Did they give you any history when they dropped it off? Was the bus just pressure washed? Serviced?

Our fleet is predominantly Caterpillar and they are factory filled with the red coolant. To comply with the extended warranty, it had to stay red. The research that I did at the time indicated red was the best way to go for the entire fleet. If I remember correctly, the Ford Gold isn't a true LLC and it is based on old technology (I know what you are thinking right now and it will take me a while to dig out that documentation). I spoke personally with the engineer and patent holder from Shell (Mr. Rich Armstrong, now retired) who invented the product before I actually made the switch. If you could see the cooling systems on a disassembled engine, especially our Mercedes V8 twin turbo engines, you would be a believer. Radiator tubes plugging due to silicate drop out are no longer an issue either. It is documented that the reason Caterpillar made it factory fill is because during the test phase, warranty water pump failures dropped off. The cold leak issues aren't a significant problem. It is actually an indicator that silicate rocks aren't circulating and pounding the water pump seal. HOWEVER, I do know that Cummins had serious issues with the red. Compatibility issues with o-rings in their engines caused major leaks. I think this has been resolved. I have several C series Cummins and had no problems. I think it was the bigger engines that had problems. I will price the Ford Gold against what I am currently paying for the red and let you know what the difference is.

Hi Keith, I would be happy to share my experiences with the red LLC. But first I have to say that I have a whole new level of respect for you Ford dealer techs. I have been a diesel mechanic (mostly heavy) for 24 years and I have never had a more difficult engine to work on than the 6.0 in a F series. My hat is off to you all. I converted my entire fleet (70 units total) of highway milling machines, tractor trailers, straight trucks and pick ups to the Texaco red LLC several years ago. It was definitely a good decision for us. Water pump failures went down and there is much less erosion/corrosion on aluminum components such as thermostat housings. Shell (who is the patent holder) claims that engines will run cooler with it as it provides better heat transfer. I really have no way to confirm this but everything else they claim about this product has been proven to be true. I use the heavy-duty mix which has additives for diesel engines that the Dex-Cool does not. I buy it pre-mixed with de-ionized water. The heavy duty is bright red and the automotive (Dex-Cool) has more of an orange tint to it. When we pull an engine down for overhaul, the coolant passages, liners, anything that contacts coolant looks brand new. As soon as the 7.3's were out of warranty, I converted them to the red LLC and I put it in a 6.0 this week. The coolant performed excellently for years in my 7.3's and I have no doubt the same will be true for the 6.0's. The only negative other than the cost is this coolant seems to leak out of places much easier than conventional coolant. My guess is because of the very low silicate. Silicate drop out has a leak sealing characteristic which is actually a negative. We have alot of cold leaks at hose clamp joints in the winter. Thanks Keith for allowing me to join your on-line community. I learn something everytime I check the forums. Kyle Grathwol

Nevermind. I just saw that Navistar factory fills the 6.0 with LLC.

Nevermind. I just saw that Navistar factory fills the 6.0 with LLC.

Is there a certain mileage range that you would recommend pulling the turbo and taking a look? I just finished up a high pressure oil pump job on one of our vehicles with 143,000 miles. After reading this article, I should have pulled the turbo.

Any ideas as to how an overboost can consistently damage the same cylinder?

Does anyone have experience/opinion on using the red Texaco long life coolant in the 6.0? I have used it in the 7.3 for years without any problems, in fact, my water pump failures went down. Thanks for your time.