So Sunday my wife is leaving the house to take Emily to the clinic in Searcy, she makes it to the end of the driveway and I get a phone call. "The van died and it won't go forward"
- Instantly I'm thinking "Oh lord, as if I had an extra 3 grand to spend on putting a tranny in this thing"

She managed to get it into reverse and backed it the 500ft or so back to the house, got my car and went ahead to the clinic. I pulled out the Superchips and pulled the codes..P0715 and P0717
- both of which refer to loss of communication with the Transmission Speed Sensor. So I look it up at Autozone and have the wife stop and get one on her way home, about $28 so not a bad gamble.
I put it in and cleared the codes, no difference, the codes came right back and the issue persisted.

Then I found a TSB where Ford had identified an issue with water getting under the cowl and into the pcm and the connector. So I decided to pull all of that apart.. where I didn't find any water,
but there was an oily residue in the connector which I attributed to some sort of die-electric grease.

I decided to go ahead and pull the pcm apart and check for water damage while I had it all apart. When I got it out, I realized that there was a dried puddle of the oily residue on top of the pcm.
(which is inside the car, with the connector sticking through the firewall)

My best guess after seeing this with desktop computers is that a mouse pissed on top of the pcm and it ran down into the connector where it eventually dried and caused an issue on the TSS pins.

I cleaned all this up with some electrical contact cleaner and got her back together last night.. took it for a test drive and she shifted out fine, no codes

With only 80k on the van I'm guessing it had sat for a good while at some point as there was no evidence of any damage from mice otherwise..

Long story short, yes the van was taken down by ****, mouse **** none the less.. at least it had the courtesy to die at the end of the driveway.. and not when we were in Mississippi at Christmas.

It's worth the trouble, just for the hard times I can give the wife about leaving cheese in the car

 

Wow. Great story. I guess you don't need my freestar service manual.

You know it's not March until tomorrow right?

 

Lol, yea but I couldn't see posting such a long story only to start a new thread tomorrow..

I had already, uhmmm well managed to find the 2005/2006 Ford Manuals online.. very very handy those things are..

 

I would have offered mine up sooner, but they are hardcopy, and on the shelf. Forgot they were there. Oops.

 

When you started to describe what went down, I was thinking you were fixing to have the same torque converter issue a certain power hungry 7.3L skinner had with his soccer mom chariot last year. Glad it was only some "moisture" and not something more pricey that would have required shop time in that fancy shop of yours.What he isn't saying is he wanted to get a jump on the rest of the clowns that give him a load of grief about starting the monthly thread...not that any of have ever done that.

 

Don't know if you guys saw this : https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...6-on-sale.html The regular Rotella is on sale too.

 

So is there anyone that hasn't had this years bug? It jumped on my Saturday and still hasn't turned loose. I'm over the aches and congestion mostly......but this damned headache won't quit! It's starting to pi$$ me off.

 

So far I haven't. Knock on wood


Emily had strep a couple of weeks back but we caught it before everyone in the house got it.

 

That's cool! I still have a headache. Starting to think is diesel withdraw.

 

Gees, this early in the month and it's dead already?Don't you just love the public school system? Since December I'm pretty sure we've managed to make the pharmacists' MKS payment every month. Maybe I should at least to get a ride...if not drive that little bad boy.Fuel or exhaust?

 

Plenty of fuel, just no exhaust at the moment.

It's funny the side effects that one little mouse can cause after it forced me to drive the truck for just about a week... I've already ordered a new stereo, and I'm thinking a new chip might be in the not too distant future..

 

This weekend I scored (10) 4' Troffer lights like would go in a drop ceiling... I think they will work out pretty well hanging about 10' or so in the shop.. I'm going to pick up at least 10 more this evening..

$8 each including bulbs... that leaves that much more for tools.. and beer

 

Just sniped a new 6.0 tranny cooler on ebay... one more PMS part for the pile.. I better start stocking up on beer soon.

 

Well I guess after eight years it's time to replace the battery in the scooter. It won't hold a charge. Should I write a letter to Suzuki and complain?Since I put new running shoes under the truck two weeks ago...last weekend we took it to Tulsa. Yeah I paid through the nose for those Michelins (got 68k miles out of the old set)...but in the down pouring rain the traction was outstanding. One of the few things I miss about the weekly commute to Missouri was the 2 hours of PowerStroke therapy the drive was allowing me to enjoy.Isn't that almost as bad as dropping a 350 into a FoMoCo car/truck?

 

Well I must say that the wife and I got lucky! We had the house up for sale for less than a month and someone put a contract in to buy it! Everything will be final next month and Jackie and the girls will have to be out of the house by the 10th. We are excited and scared at the same time. Her and the girls are looking into renting an apt till I get back and then we are going to head south! This is rolling fast!!