no pics again but been a productive week at this point.
1. Exhaust studs replaced, 1 helicoiled
2. Remflex manifold gaskets
3. fixed trip computer
4. carlson quietglide brake clips and lubed up all the slide pins (they were fine, but i was in there)
5. used my grease zerk adapter and added some grease to my front hubs that have 10k on them now. did about 20-25 pumps per side, didn't want to push in too much, not sure if i did, if it pushed out it is inside the hub now.
6. touched up some paint in a few places that were down to bare metal, and the stupid paint on the roof is chipped again in about 8 places, really should just have it stripped and repainted but for now spot por15 seems to be working. need to find some mud flaps for it.

tomorrow, reinstall inner fenders and drive it. it sounds so much different w/o exhaust leaks.....

 

Found the source of my radiator leak and ordered parts:






No cracks in the inlet that I could find. My analysis is that the crappy hose clamp used by the shop has a large blob on the inside diameter, a result of crimping the screw housing onto the band. It protrudes quite promenently onto the clamping surface... notice the divets in the hose. Probably too tight there, too loose the rest of the way around. Could crappy clamps be causing the cracking of inlet tubes? It seemed the screw was tight enough, but one might be tempted to crank down on it to stop the leak, and overstress the inlet in that area.

Solution:





That should spread out the load more evenly. I'll know for certain on Tuesday - I just hope that's the only leak...

 

 

Spring clamps are my fave. But I couldn't find the right size on Amazon today, said screw it and got these.

 

Maybe I should buy a tool. Those spring clamps are the first thing I throw away after they twang my fingers a few times getting them off without the proper tool. Ouch!

 

 

Used it to drag home another project. I had been half *** hunting for a small truck the last few weeks. This guy popped up yesterday on craigslist 45 mins away. Talked him down to $375 Runs fine, he only stopped driving it because they wouldn't pass it for inspection. He said he bought it new back in 02 and that his son got drunk and hit a tree

Now I'm on the hunt for a silver hood, bumper, and fenders (can probably pop the dent out of the drivers side, pass is fubar)

 

That'll learn you!

 

 

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I worked in a small body shop. Often, when looking for used parts for a collision repair, we would buy from a salvage yard that was just outside of Boston. When we would call looking for parts, they always asked what color we were looking for. We always kinda figured they would find cars to sell parts off of 'to order' …… if you know what I mean.

 

Thanks WE3ZS, but I have been running the 89 octane fuel to match the tune and have been purchasing fuel from different name brand stations.

 

rear wheel setup:


front wheel setup:

 

It's ok Michael, we'll take you back. Just make sure it's as clean as you last one was. It gave a lot of us something to look up to.

 

Folks, It has been a while, but my Excursion is finally back up and running. I got to drive it home yesterday night after 2 months of troubleshooting and fixes due to a dead PCM. Here's a quick rundown on the work done by the Ford Service tech.

- The PCM being unresponsive was the primary issue that we were dealing with. It was removed and sent to DTC (noted in prior posts) and came back as a perfectly working unit. But, after putting it back, we had made no progress and were still trying find the cause.
- Prior to taking the truck to the dealership, I had replaced all the fuses and relays in the fuse panel under the steering wheel to troubleshoot. One fuse was blown and that did bring power back to the OBD port, but there was no comms from the PCM.
- Tech pulled out a PCM from another F-Series and was successful in getting it to power up the PCM. Every test done was pointing to a bad PCM. So, decided to pull the trigger on a replacement PCM.
- This PCM powered up fine and started chattering and throwing out codes. Now we were able to take the next step in the right direction. The IDM relay blew immediately. A couple of electrical tests came back negative. Now, the dealership's electrical guru stepped in and started a hunt for potential broken wires, chafing, bad grounds etc. He did find a couple of cracked insulation, but nothing alarming. As a precaution, he did cleanup all the ground wires in the engine cavity. Now, after all of this, the last piece of the puzzle was a shorted out Fuel heater. Replaced that and the engine started up immediately on the first crank. The short apparently did a number on the PCM by back feeding ground through the IDM circuitry.

As part of all this troubleshooting, I did ask the techs to replace the major sensors that were potential culprits as pointed out in earlier posts - ICP, CPS etc. and provided them with Motorcraft spares in case they needed them. But at the end all of those spares are now back home and will go on the shelf as spares for another day.

I want take the time to thank @Nicmike and @Toreador_Diesel for keeping me sane as they guided me through all this. It has been a little over 2 months and I had forgotten what the door codes were on my EX and what it sounded like. But the almost daily chat with them would reassure me that I just needed some patience and trust on my tech to get this EX running again.

Also, I want to give shout out to Joey (Service Manager) and Chris (Technician) at Koons Ford in Sterling, VA. They persevered through all this along with me and worked diligently to troubleshoot each of the existing and potential problems. If you are in the Northern VA area and are looking for a tech that knows his Diesels, talk to Joey and ask him to have Chris work on your truck.

 

Snow this morning, salt truck just went by, another year in the books. I love my excursion!