Adventures in Truck Repair

 So, Bruce (as my wife and daughter like to call it) the big brown Ford F250 that hauls around us and our travel trailer decided the week before a major trip was the perfect time to through a little tantrum. Not a major one mind you, but just a small wobbler that was a bit of a puzzler too. 

I started noticing just a touch of hesitation and rough running on our way back from church recently. I thought I imagined it or that it was road vibration since we do live in a county that believes road maintenance is for uppity city people. Then, The Queen remarked that it was running rough too, and I had to admit it was not a figment of my imagination. 

Out comes the code reader for a quick diagnostic…or so I thought. 27 codes later, I was left with a case of “Where oh where do I shoot the parts cannon first?” Knock sensors? Please, not that. They are buried in the valley under the intake manifold. EVAP valves and purge lines? Something else not listed in the codes pulled? 

If you guessed something else, give yourself a cookie. 

As I dug into the question of what to fix first, I started ordering some parts. As I dug deeper, I discovered that the mysteries of the Ford 6.2 liter gasser are very nuanced and hold several potential false trails for the unwary traveler. 

Case on point. Coil arcing. 

What is that you might ask?

Modern engines run on ignition coils. Used to be you had a single coil that led to a distributor cap that fed however many spark plugs wires you had for the number of cylinders you had. As engine technology progressed, bright eyed engineers ditched the distributors in favor of direct connections from the ignition coil to the plugs. Then, they decided that wasn’t good enough. So, they made each cylinder have its own individual ignition coil. 

On my truck, there are 8. And they ain’t cheap. If you go to AutoZone, they want $150ish for a Denso coil (which is the OEM manufacturer on my truck). I generally shop at Amazon or Rockauto for parts where I can get the same parts for roughly half what AutoZone wants for them. When I have the time to wait for shipping that is. 

Sorry for the digression, but back to our story. 

On the 6.2 liter V8, the coils eventually start to wear out and can start to arc electricity through the coil boot to the cylinder head. To diagnose this, start your truck up at night or in a dark shop. The darker the better. Be sure to pull your hood down until the hood light goes off. Now, take a spray bottle with water and spritz a little water towards the base of the ignition coils. If you see a tiny little lightning storm under the hood, you have coil arcing and the coil(s) need to be replaced. 

A new coil looks something like this:

Fortunately, Ford engineers didn’t make it too difficult to get to these as they sit on top of the engine with the fuel rail conveniently bent around them to aid in access. 

So, when I did the water spritz test, all was nice and dark until I got to cylinder number 8. For the uninitiated, cylinders are numbered 1 to whatever from the front of the engine to the back and the left to right. The front of the engine is where the water pump is. So, on the 6.2, number 1 is the front cylinder on the passenger side of the engine which makes number 8 dead last in the back on the drivers side. Number 8 lit up brighter than a summer thunderstorm. 

Little known fact. All that voltage leaking out of the coil can play merry hob with your other electric components and sensors and throw false codes. Maybe.

On The Queen’s Navigator with its 5.4 liter 3 valve engine, that would have me mumbling curses to Ford as the position of that motor in that vehicle takes a little bit of contortionism and a fair bit of blind luck and feel to successfully remove and reinstall a coil in the back of the engine. The 6.2, however, required no such foreplay…or so I thought. 

Removing the coil should involve a simple twist and pull to remove in one piece as shown above. When I attempted to perform that simple task on number 8 coil, it promptly disintegrated into two pieces. Not. Happy. Making. 

Fishing out a coil boot from a spark plug well was not high on my to do list, and it took a minute to find the right set of needle nose pliers that would get the right amount grip to size ratio to fit in the limited space to pluck the now junked coil boot out of its hidey hole. 

To add insult to injury, I discovered (much to my dismay) that I had ordered the wrong replacement coil. There is a right side coil and a left side coil. Left side don’t work on the right side and vice versa. Whichever one I ordered, I needed the other. I looked at the description carefully and thought I’d ordered the right one. No such luck. Fortunately, AutoZone (an hour away) had the correct coil in stock for a hefty premium over what I paid for the incorrect one. Grumble. 

Truck purrs like a kitten now though. 

Update: got it out on the road this morning for a quick test drive, reran the codes and, VOILA, the 27 codes are gone changing that one coil. So, moral of the story is don’t assume the codes point to the problem. The codes never even hinted that the coil was bad (which is a P030x code for cylinder misfire). The coil was firing just fine. It was just lighting up pretty much everything including the plug. 

Special Just for Cederq

 

Thought you would appreciate this one after your comment on the recent post. 

Saturday Afternoon Tomfoolery

 

This is no joke. It’s either a monsoon or an oven set on broil. There is no middle ground. Either way, you marinate in your own sweat.

This REALLY needs to happen. 

The Queen is guilty as charged. It really annoys me sometimes as she inevitably asks a question that the movie addresses in the next five minutes. It got to the point I had to make a rule that there is no talking in movies we haven’t seen. On movies we have seen, I hit pause, say “wait for it” and restart the movie.

And a bar…can’t forget the bar. 

I need this in my life at least once a month.

For those of you who have never experienced Pancho’s, it’s really not about the food. You go to Pancho’s to raise the flag and have MORE food brought to you until you can’t eat anymore. Except sopapillas and honey. There’s always room for warm sopapillas and honey.

Adventures in Car Repair - Part I Lost Count

 So, a week or two ago, The Queen gets a message from her dad, Opa, that his Jeep broke down. A brief digression if I may. Opa is closing in on 82, and his driving skills are bad enough to scare combat veterans. I flat out refuse to ride with him. He’s the only person who has ever made me car sick. We won’t let him drive anywhere with M&M. Period. We’ve been trying to talk him into hanging up the keys, but his narcissistic pride won’t hear of it. “God will protect me.” It ain’t you we are worried about you stubborn twit. 

He backed into a tree recently. A tree that had been growing in that same spot for the last half century at least. When asked how he backed into a tree (after he tried to gaslight us about the damage), he said “I didn’t see it.” When we pointed out he lives on a property where tiny humans roam around and that his failure to pay attention could result in harm to one of his great grandchildren, he got quiet (which is his way of refusing to discuss it further because he knows he’s wrong but can’t admit it). 

In recent years, I have backed away from being his mechanic because I don’t have the time for it and I really get pissed off when he ignores every bit of sound advice I give him about taking care of his car. That said, when The Queen got the text, I offered TO HER to go check it out for her piece of mind because she bears the brunt of his insanity if he is without transportation. 

My brother in law and his oldest son made a game attempt at diagnosing the problem, but their guesses didn’t mesh up with the symptoms described. To whit:

Sitting on the side of the road at my nephew’s house idling (in 100 degree Texas heat which I have told him NOT to do) when all of a sudden there was a loud pop and water and steam spewed out the front. 

BIL and nephew guessed water pump as they claimed there was still coolant in the radiator. I was dubious. So, we packed up the truck and drove the 45 minutes to an hour over there to see for our own selves. 

I took my time and went over inch of the cooling system. No leaks apparent in the hoses. That’s good. The AC condenser had radiator coolant all over it which was odd but consistent with “water and steam” coming out the front as the condenser is mounted directly in front of the radiator. The coolant reservoir tank did indeed show that it was “full”; however, taking the cap off the radiator showed that not to be the case and the hoses were not full either. Hmmmm….something is definitely amiss. The thermostat didn’t show any leaks at the hose connection or gasket. There was no sign of coolant leaking from the water pump weep hole. So, I was dubious of the diagnosis of a bad water pump. Since nothing was super obvious, we decided to swap out the old, worn out radiator cap for a new one, add some coolant and try to see if we could figure out where the leak was. 

Snerk. 

I started pouring coolant in to the radiator filler neck only to hear it pouring out.

Astute observers might call this a clue. 

This is a view of the drivers side of the radiator as viewed from the drivers side fender. Front of the vehicle is to the left. The area circled in yellow is the radiator side tank. It’s made of plastic. For those who payed attention in class, plastic becomes brittle with heat. Texas heat plus engine heat = brittle plastic radiator side tanks. This radiator is 7 years old. I know this because I’m the one who put it in 7 years ago. 

Once removed from the vehicle, we can see the problem much more clearly:

That 10” or so long crack in the side tank does NOT aid in cooling. Quite the opposite in fact. 

The Jeep has a new radiator installed which will last until Opa finally gives up the keys or wrecks the car (please, Dear Lord, do not allow him to take anyone with him). Unfortunately, I have to go back out there to finish the repairs because the transmission cooler lines refused to let go their death grip on the radiator fittings and kinda got destroyed in the process. So, a new set of lines was ordered and delivered this week. 

The things I do to keep my wife sane….

Saturday Memes and Stuff

M&M and I are animal sitting for my cousin and his wife the last few days. This handsome fellow is Indiana who has apparently claimed me as his emotional support human.

I admit to a bit of a cluttering habit. The Queen is a stuffer. So, if my clutter is missing, I have to figure out where she stuffed it. 

My cousin’s cat, Salem, apparently lost the custody battle. So, now he engages in “crime hour” twice a day.

Blue Bell has lost their damn mind….

Best friend and Number 1 Follower is doing Uber and Lyft as a side hustle these days. This kicked over my giggle box, but it’s also true.

I learned how to make my own memes. This is our youngest cat Tiny putting her taint all over my freshly washed large skillet.

Yeah…that’s not the way that works at all. I did manage to get a shadow ban from a friend who took down an entire comment string because I apparently had the temerity to play devils advocate and question how he defines rights and which rights exactly he thinks he doesn’t have (he is in the LGBTQ+ community) and why it’s the government’s business to “fix it” in the first place. 

Late one night, I was taking a friend home driving through the tiny town of Pantego, TX. At the corner of Bowen and Park Row is a gas station where 3 Pantego PD cars were parked. This is like 1 or 2 AM. I made a crack about “Hey look, it’s the Donut Squad.” Yep. You guessed it. I got pulled over by the 4TH Donut Squad member a couple hunderd yards down the road. He wrote me a ticket for “35 in a 49” which the judge refused to throw out. The worst part is I wasn’t going 49. The cop was parked at the bottom of a hill, and I was going up the hill. He radared a car coming down the hill but pulled me over.

The Olympics memes were absolute fire this year.

Our dog Snow posing for a great meme.

I want this. I don’t care if it’s not practical. I want it  

 

Quite with the Teasing AI!

 I know this is an AI generated image…but I kinda want to see that flavor in stores. 

I was born and raised in Texas. Dr Pepper (don’t be gauche and a “.” after Dr) is home grown here in Texas originally made in the little town of Dublin. In certain part of Texas you will find people who refer to it as Texas Coffee. I grew up drinking DP, and it is still my favorite soft drink with grape soda a close second. I’ve not to my recollection tried the flavored versions of DP, but I do like me some Bourbon and everyone knows how Bourbon goes with Coke like peas and carrots. So, I’m game. 

Sunday Silliness

 

The Queen recently decreed that we should cut out carbs from our diet. She wants us to stick to meat and veggies. I won’t live without carbs. The dinner menu tonight: homemade nachos with beer. 

My demons aren’t that stable.

Despite a bucket list item to fly the killer egg (Hughes 500D), eggbeaters are unnatural death machines. 1000s of parts made by the lowest bidder flying in close formation held together by a Jesus Nut. Not confidence inspiring. 

This is so true. I am so far out of currency that my PPL has grown mold on it.

I am probably one of the few people that likes the looks of the Cobra II Mustang, but it needs a serious horsepower transplant.

Texas NEEDS this.

The last week has been unseasonably cool for Texas. We even got rain which is unheard of.

One of our resident roadrunners.