I've watched voltages from pretty early on - batteries get replaced when they get weak. FICM is '07 original and I don't carry a spare. If I start seeing something off, then I'd likely go to Ed and have mine gone thru.

Primary thing is most folks don't realize how important start-up and alternator capacity and battery health play into FICM life, and then injector life - cascading issue...

Or is it just me that cares...

If I was worried about half the stuff I read of on here, I'd dump the truck.

Scott

 

:

 

My spare is sitting on Ed's shelf, I went for the lifetime warranty when he rebuilt mine.

My experience, unless you are dragging a complete truck with you all the time you will never have the part you need.

 

Even a lifetime warranty can leave you on the roadside 300 miles from home on a sat night.

 

Very true, along with a bunch of other parts, right? I mean how far are you going to get if even your alternator craps out (well, Randy will get farther than the rest of us... )

It's a valid point and I wonder how many folks, that monitor their voltages (and everything else), has had an FICM just suddenly fail -- with no warning whatsoever. I'd be interested in hearing some stories about that situation.

Heck, I only recently started taking a fuel filter set on road trips... Now that is something basic that can go wrong with just one fill-up...

Scott

 

i had a alt go out at 3am in la,headlights on and flatbed liteup,made it about a hr to a autozone,bought a alt, if fuel filters go bad you can pull them out and run it to a store, but what if you leave home with a ficm at 48.5 drive several hrs at 48.5 then on way home its at 35 and heading down,cant make it home or a parts store,no junkyards around, thats what im talking about,i guess you have to weigh the effects it will have on your situation,close to home ok but few hundred from home,may be bad.

 

Mark, it is your thread so I'll bow out -- your point is a valid one and could even be broadened to other hard to find parts. We know there are a number of our 6.0 brothers that either do major cross-country vacation travel, or hotshot work, etc., that carry a bunch of spares and tools for the exact reason you are stating.

I remember a thread back when Anthony was hot-shotting and just the number of tools and parts, along with his ability to diagnose and fix stuff in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere...

My wife and I have learned a bit about towing policies/companies and have purposely gotten two, from different and well respected companies, that completely overlap. Because as good as they each are, they both have had issues in parts of the country. We're starting to Motor Home more, and there is no way I'm attempting to do anything major on that monster out on the road...

Take care,
Scott

 

I had my FICM go out suddenly on a vacation trip. I was monitoring codes and voltages and knew what it was immediately. Fortunately it failed just a few miles from a Ford dealership and the emissions warranty was still valid.

The SA didn't want to believe me when I told him the FICM went out. Then, after determining it was the FICM, he wanted to charge me. I had to pull out the manual on the emissions warranty, and even then it took some insistence.

 

You're just trying to scare me into dumping my truck!

(but you aren't getting your spare FICM wrapped in a low mileage '07 that easy)

 

Scott did you forget this one too?

This cap blew without any warning at all. When it went it also took out the 50A fuse.

 

I don't remember that one Sean, but I do remember watching someone touch all the solder points on theirs... I was kind of hoping the later FICMs had better mounting isolation...? I guess that'd be a question for Ed: whether any are more reliable across the years...

In any case, with my luck I'd break the FICM connectors or bend a pin, while trying to put in my spare FICM 300 miles from nowhere...

 

What got me on that mess was the 50A fuse. I was in a hurry and did the one thing I tell everyone not to do that says a fuse "LOOKS GOOD"
I went by looks. It seeems that the little ball that is the sensing element of that fuse had bounced back into place. Drove me nuts for a week. I was tired
of fighting to find what the problem was and started at the top and rechecked everything wu=ith the meter and fund the dead fuse. When I pulled it out
I gave the fuse a good hard shake and the internals rattled around.

Here is the thing that hid the open fuse. I would turn the truck on and no pre-start clatter and the voltage would start out at 48VDC and quickly bleed
down to nothing. That is why I took so long to check that fuse again. I found that the system could carry enough power to bring it up to 48VDC when
you first turn the key on. Lesson learned. Check fuse with meter because you can get 48VDC even with a bad fuse.

So I don't even know if that blown board would still of let me limp it home if I would of stuffed a new fuse in or not. It might of.

So I think I would be more inclined to carry a n extra 50A before I packed a FICM or even a power board.

 

Good point Sean. I got plenty of the little fuses in the glovebox but none of the big ones. I need to put a couple of those on the shopping list for next trip to the parts store.

 

Dang,theres another part for the spare parts box.

 

Fuses are on the small side so they might justify there own little clear box in the tool/parts bag.