Wow, sorry to hear this Tom. I know you will figure it all out.

 

Thanks Scott, we have a Plan A, B and C at this time. We will be OK and this will just be a new chapter in our lives. Lots of younger guys at the plant with young kids and big mortgages are not in the same shape as we are, I feel very bad for them.

 

Back from our Bear Lake trip and man-o-man was that fun! Please excuse the minor book that is written below........


.......Glad I decided to forgo wasting good money on a rented boat. Put about $750 into my classic and I couldn't have been happier I did. Spent a day washing/waxing it, but couldn't really find a product I liked. Its a 50yo boat and the gel coat was gone a long time ago. Was repainted by my grandfather at some point, so commercial marine products don't really work on his cheapo automotive paint job. I scrubbed it with scotchbrite and a mixture of Simple Green/vinegar to clean off the grime, old bearing grease, and attempt to remove the oxidation. That left the hull with dull orange hue that I had hope the marine wax would shine up. It didn't. So, I dug deep into my Army boot camp memory books and used the "ol' stand-by." When you don't have time or energy for a glossy shine the RIGHT WAY, you use Mop 'n' Glow. Yup, I raided my wife's cleaning closet and stole her MnG for the boat. I'm happy to report back that my fingernails are just as shiny as the boat is. After spending the day cleaning and shining her up, I installed a fresh bimini courtesy of Amazon Prime. Lemme know your thoughts on my MnG shine job:



Now that the boat is looking all purty, the trailer really stands to use some love. I'll paint it black to match the bimini and wheels that are coming. Not wanting to lose another boat to a roll-over and fire, I replaced the 50yo axle with new one, inluding hubs, bearings, and marine grease. The original drop axle was square tube with about 4in of drop. I couldn't find an exact replacement in the weight capacity and dimensions I needed, so I ordered a straight tube axle kit that I could weld up myself and keep it spring-over (factory) or under as necessary. Either I measured wrong, remembered my specs wrong when ordering, or they sent me the wrong axle! When compared next to the original, the new axle was 5in narrower. Whoops! No time to send it back and I couldn't do anything with my old axle or trust it to make the 800mi round trip journey, so I went forward with the "mistake" and made it work. After triple measuring the correct spacing for the spring perches, I welded them onto the axle with my angle finder getting them perfectly level. Once painted and installed, it looks factory other than the wheels/tires are a little closer to the frame. Speaking of, the original wheels are only 13in and look tiny on the trailer now that I'm not using a drop axle. My Ex is taller than stock, so having the new axle configured as a SPOA, I gained about 4in of lift on the trailer. To fill the wheel well, I decided to order some new wheels, 2in spacers to make up for someones's goof up, and some new tires. Here;s what I ordered off Ebay as dealer take-off's for a measly $62.50 shipped:



Glad to say that the trip was uneventful as far as problems with either the boat or the trailer. Weather was a little cloudy and windy at times, but we still had a blast. Got a call 30min before leaving Montana that the motel people double-booked our room and would comp us 50% off our entire stay if i was willing to squeeze us into a smaller room for the first night only. Sold!!! We settled in nicely to the vacation lifestyle, gorging on raspberry shakes (a local tradition, apparently), fries, and anything else that looked good. North Beach on the Idaho side was sandy, warm, and really shallow. We could wade out 200yds and only be waist deep. Fun for playing on the beach, soaking up some sun, and BBQing a marinated pork loin. But I came here to go boating! All in all, it was a fun trip. Here's a few pics that remind me I need to buy some vacation property down there and relax a bit more....

 

Towed our travel trailer loaded to about 9500 lb on a 230 mile trip to the Jersey shore using our new Equalizer WD hitch. It performed beautifully, no sway even with 18 wheelers alongside.

 

It's a pleasure when the stars align... good job!

 

How did the tunes/tuner work out for you?

 

Hi Tom, it worked much better, thanks for asking. I didn't have any pinging even in the 92 degree heat uphills. Still think there's need to tweek something as with the tow tune it pulses at idle varying about 250 rpm (+/- 125 rpm) that it doesn't have with the stock tune.

 

Ahhh...the old Mop-N-Glo trick...fun times. Looks good to me!! The other thing that works really well for gelcoat (provided it has a decent wax on it) is that Formula 2001 stuff in the bright green bottle. Wash the boat, spray it on, and leave it. It even hides gelcoat stress cracks pretty well. I wonder if that would work with paint as well

 

Took a trip out to Boston area a few weeks ago. Everything went great until I was on the way home. About an hour or so into the trip, the serpentine belt broke. I didn't realize right away, until I was going around a bend and realized there was no power steering. I looked down and saw the temp gauge shooting up quickly. By the time I shut off the engine, the coolant had started boiling out... Fun time replacing it on a hot engine on the side of the freeway. Good news was that I had the tools and belt to wrap up the work. Bad news was there was no shoulder, so it was a bit scary, having to worry about someone coming around the bend and rear ending the trailer.

Overheating the manifold must have caused one of the plugs to loosen a bit (you know what's coming). After driving 6-ish hours with no issue, we pulled up to our overnight campsite, and I shut off the engine. I realized I wanted to move the trailer a bit, so I started it up, and the plug blew out. I unplugged the injector and coil the next morning, and we had an oh-so-pleasant 5 hour drive home. In case anyone wasn't aware, when the engine is misfiring, the A/C won't work. And yes, it was hot. lol I had a helicoil installed and now all is well again. I replaced the rest of the plugs and boots while I was at it, since I had just over 60k on the plugs.

Overall having 238k miles on the truck, it has been extremely reliable for me. Unfortunately 2 incidents on the way home from a trip this year. At least it wasn't on the way out. Oh, and the wife apparently thought it was a good idea to capture the lovely moment so I can always remember this fun ride home from Mass. lol

 

Jason, Glad to hear you got the trip in and just have this as another traveling adventure story now (with pictures too!). It is very rare to hear of a later model 2V V-10 popping a plug, but I guess your overheat did contribute to that happening. Just curious what torque spec you used on those plugs. And I need to look at replacing my serp belt, I'm at 125K miles now and we are on the road away from home if we are in the EX.

 

Apparently you passed your "anger management" test. Sorry about your problems, glad you were able to overcome them.

 

Glad you made it home safely. Do you plan on replacing that Heli coil? It's been my experience that's the beginning of the end. If I remember correctly Ford recommended not repairing those with Heli Coils. Long story short in my case a repair using a coil was made by the P.O. of my Ex and ended up destroying the cylinder head. It has something to do with the steel coil causing a hot spot in the aluminum head.

 

Correct. A threaded insert is the best way to repair the thread hole, not a helicoil.

Stewart

 

Our big TT is rated at 10950 GVWR and was delivered with a dry weight including propane and battery of 9482lbs. The yellow door sticker gives a CCC of 1468lbs. We knew from the start that we would end up overweight over time at least for our longer trips and we have, the first time I scaled it was with our normal load of kitchen, bed and bath stuff coming back from a 3 day weekend outing, so on the lighter side and that was 11,300lbs. That was without the bikes or kayaks or genny. We never carry any water in any of the 4 tanks (2 grey tanks), so if we are packed for a 3 week trip and had the fresh tank full we would be over 12K lbs. Doing lots of our travel miles in the weather beaten NorthEastern US the roads tend to get pretty bad at times and that has finally taken its toll on the rig after approx 27K miles. On a recent trip to OH upon pulling out of the CG we noticed that the rear tires were cambered out a bit and inspection showed some decent inner tread wear, bent axle, yay! Closer inspections revealed that the front axle was also beginning to show some abnormal wear too but not nearly as bad. The TT came with Dexter 5200lb axles from the factory, 2.5 years ago we upgraded from the factory 6 lug hubs to new 8 lug hubs (5200 through 7000lb axles share the exact same spindles) and new 16" high pressure wheels with Sailun S637 load range G tire's mounted, we were tired of the never ending ST tire issues. A heavy duty Mor-Ryd wet bolt and shackle kit was installed at that time. So with the latest axle failures we decided to finish up the suspension upgrades by going with new Dexter 7,000lb axles, new 7,000 springs, new U bolt and axle plate kits, and new Dexter auto adjusting brake assemblies and a pair of new Sailun tires to replace the prematurely worn out rear ones.
We cribbed up the trailer and removed the old axles and springs today and my Bride threw a coat of Chassis Saver ceramic paint on the new springs and hubs today. I need to sort out the gas solenoid in my welder to allow me to weld the spring perches to the new axles (new 7K axles are waaay heavier than the original 5200lbs axles) then we will get a coat of the paint on the two and the new brake backing plates. Then everything will get hung in place. We have a trip to NY planned for the 23rd and hopefully that will be our test run with the new gear. There will be pictures eventually, stand by. Now we are heading off to a party!

 

I have a feeling that one day I will be in the same boat.

We went to our Ford Dealer yesterday and purchased a new leftover 2018 Ruby Red Fusion, we now have 3 Fusions, the dealer is a long time family friend. Anyway, we started discussing F350s and F450s and the pros and cons. We decided that in a couple of years we will chose the 5th wheel first and buy the truck with the correct weight capacity to match.