Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) to North Country Ford for some repair work. It runs rough
when I poke it hard, stutters and hesitates. They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up. But I like the Ford dealer because they've always
treated us fairly and I did *not* want the experience of going to
Abdul's Fairly Decent Auto Repair and paying him interminably to
blindly try things that don't help.

Hokay, so they had the car yesterday, overnight and some today,
called around midday to say it was ready. We went to fetch it. Mary
dropped me off and then went shopping or something. I wrote a check
for $906, collected my car and left. Once on the somewhat rural road,
I poked it hard. It's better than it was, but it definitely is not
fixed. I popped a U and went right back. Told Brad the service
advisor that it isn't fixed. He called the lead technician who would
take it for a ride. I jumped in because I wanted to make sure he'd
experience what I had. Once out on the road he accelerated gently,
as one might do with a senior customer in the right seat of his car.
Wouldn't wanna rattle the old fella and scramble his pacemaker or
something, right? If he only knew.... my implanted device is not a
mere ****ant pacemaker, it packs 750 volts of POW. But he didn't even
know I'm packing one. It's a very concealed carry.

I mentioned that the problem occurs under conditions of low engine
vacuum, as with wide-open throttle whilst in perhaps one gear higher
than might be optimal for present speed. Mm! He tried a little of
that. Oh yeah, there was some hesitation and missing. He popped a U
at the same place I had, but he went into the rather extensive (and
nearly all vacant) parkinglot of a big furniture store.
He apparently was no longer worried about having a Nervous Nellie in
the right seat because he proceeded to put my good ole Green Bean thru
its paces. There were a coupla times I wondered if he was gonna
brake in time, steer in time or hit a bigass snowdrift. Fortunately,
I am not a nervous passenger. Hell, it was fun! But then, I even
think this would be a fun ride:
http://tinyurl.com/bca97r

Back to the dealership. He noted that these older models don't have
as much diagnostic stuff aboard as the newer ones. With newer ones
they can set a laptop on the seat and stress the car on the road. I
just smiled at him. I am obviously old enough to know that they were
fixing Fords long before the computer was invented, and so is he. He
said it might be ignition wires. Why, yes it might indeed! Now
he's thinking like a mechanic and diagnostician rather than a computer
operator rotely going thru a checklist. It could also be a fouled
or cracked plug or distributor cap but they'd replaced the plugs and
I'm not sure engines even have distributor caps anymore. It takes
more pop to fire a plug under low vacuum (higher in-cylinder pressure)
so weak wires may spark to ground rather than fire the plug -- and
those wires are 14 years old.

I'm not supposed to lean over running engines lest the electric fields
from ignition screw up my ICD, but aside from that the freakin' plugs
are invisible on that V-6 crammed sideways into no space. That's part
of why they're expensive to replace. They shoulda replaced the wires
while they were in there, and a thinking mechanic would have done
that. The wires are cheaper than the dang plugs, nevermind the labor
to get in there. I'm not fault-finding here, I'd bet large that the
same thoughts were going thru the lead tech's mind.

I got to shootin' the breeze with Brad -- the service advisor,
remember him? I remarked at the price of the new sparkplugs, over $8
each. Geez, I never paid more than 2 bux for sparkplugs back when I
was wrenching on cars, were these platinum or som'pn? "Yup, platinum
posts. The double platinum jobs I use in my snowmobile are $14
each." "Oh yeah, I now recall that the fancy plugs my outboard wants
were pricey." "Yeah, but the plugs in my outboard seem to hold up for
at least 3 years." "Mine too, whut kinda outboard you got?" "Johnson
Quickstrike 115 on a Ranger boat." "NO ****! I'm also runnin' a 115
Quickstrike on a Ranger, how 'bout that!"

So then we started swapping fishin' ... uh ... data. We both learned
a coupla things. I learned that Pelican Lake, just outside of
Glenwood and maybe 6 miles from my cabin, can be a walleye mine. Oy
din't know that! I'll bet that's the best kept secret in Pope county
-- and it shall not become less so because of me! It's a small lake,
modest gravel launch, looks like it might have some panfish, bass and
northerns -- but walleye? It does have clear water and some deep
holes in it. I've never fished it. Yet. Stay tuned! Great place
to get out of the wind when Minnewaska blows up rough as it does from
time to time.

Then I mentioned that we enjoy the little range at Morris. WELL!
Turns out half the guys at North Country Ford are shooters, so we got
into a conversation joined by others about rifles, bullets,
calibers,1000-yard ranges, AR-15's and M-14's and all manner of good
stuff. Brad said he has a buddy that makes ammo for them. He's an
engineer at Medtronics, likes all those numbers and stuff ya know. I
couldn't help grinning at that. "Ohh...you're an engineer, aren't
you?" "Nah, I'm retired" ... but I couldn't stop grinning. He
finally started grinning too. No offense taken, ya know. I know I'm
an engineer and I've come to accept it. It's not curable but it's not
as bad as it might seem -- and hey, I make some pretty good ammo yoo
betcha.

I'm not chagrined that my car wasn't completely fixed. **** happens.
They said the 'puter said it was all better and they did do a road
test, but the 'puter just caught the obvious stuff and the road-tester
probably didn't punch it. Some customers might object to having
their rides punched. I think these guys will treat me fairly when I
return it on Monday for them to have another go at it.

"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) to North Country Ford for some repair work. It runs rough
when I poke it hard, stutters and hesitates. They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up. But I like the Ford dealer because they've always
treated us fairly and I did *not* want the experience of going to
Abdul's Fairly Decent Auto Repair and paying him interminably to
blindly try things that don't help.

Hokay, so they had the car yesterday, overnight and some today,
called around midday to say it was ready. We went to fetch it. Mary
dropped me off and then went shopping or something. I wrote a check
for $906, collected my car and left. Once on the somewhat rural road,
I poked it hard. It's better than it was, but it definitely is not
fixed. I popped a U and went right back. Told Brad the service
advisor that it isn't fixed. He called the lead technician who would
take it for a ride. I jumped in because I wanted to make sure he'd
experience what I had. Once out on the road he accelerated gently,
as one might do with a senior customer in the right seat of his car.
Wouldn't wanna rattle the old fella and scramble his pacemaker or
something, right? If he only knew.... my implanted device is not a
mere ****ant pacemaker, it packs 750 volts of POW. But he didn't even
know I'm packing one. It's a very concealed carry.

I mentioned that the problem occurs under conditions of low engine
vacuum, as with wide-open throttle whilst in perhaps one gear higher
than might be optimal for present speed. Mm! He tried a little of
that. Oh yeah, there was some hesitation and missing. He popped a U
at the same place I had, but he went into the rather extensive (and
nearly all vacant) parkinglot of a big furniture store.
He apparently was no longer worried about having a Nervous Nellie in
the right seat because he proceeded to put my good ole Green Bean thru
its paces. There were a coupla times I wondered if he was gonna
brake in time, steer in time or hit a bigass snowdrift. Fortunately,
I am not a nervous passenger. Hell, it was fun! But then, I even
think this would be a fun ride:
http://tinyurl.com/bca97r

Back to the dealership. He noted that these older models don't have
as much diagnostic stuff aboard as the newer ones. With newer ones
they can set a laptop on the seat and stress the car on the road. I
just smiled at him. I am obviously old enough to know that they were
fixing Fords long before the computer was invented, and so is he. He
said it might be ignition wires. Why, yes it might indeed! Now
he's thinking like a mechanic and diagnostician rather than a computer
operator rotely going thru a checklist. It could also be a fouled
or cracked plug or distributor cap but they'd replaced the plugs and
I'm not sure engines even have distributor caps anymore. It takes
more pop to fire a plug under low vacuum (higher in-cylinder pressure)
so weak wires may spark to ground rather than fire the plug -- and
those wires are 14 years old.

I'm not supposed to lean over running engines lest the electric fields
from ignition screw up my ICD, but aside from that the freakin' plugs
are invisible on that V-6 crammed sideways into no space. That's part
of why they're expensive to replace. They shoulda replaced the wires
while they were in there, and a thinking mechanic would have done
that. The wires are cheaper than the dang plugs, nevermind the labor
to get in there. I'm not fault-finding here, I'd bet large that the
same thoughts were going thru the lead tech's mind.

I got to shootin' the breeze with Brad -- the service advisor,
remember him? I remarked at the price of the new sparkplugs, over $8
each. Geez, I never paid more than 2 bux for sparkplugs back when I
was wrenching on cars, were these platinum or som'pn? "Yup, platinum
posts. The double platinum jobs I use in my snowmobile are $14
each." "Oh yeah, I now recall that the fancy plugs my outboard wants
were pricey." "Yeah, but the plugs in my outboard seem to hold up for
at least 3 years." "Mine too, whut kinda outboard you got?" "Johnson
Quickstrike 115 on a Ranger boat." "NO ****! I'm also runnin' a 115
Quickstrike on a Ranger, how 'bout that!"

So then we started swapping fishin' ... uh ... data. We both learned
a coupla things. I learned that Pelican Lake, just outside of
Glenwood and maybe 6 miles from my cabin, can be a walleye mine. Oy
din't know that! I'll bet that's the best kept secret in Pope county
-- and it shall not become less so because of me! It's a small lake,
modest gravel launch, looks like it might have some panfish, bass and
northerns -- but walleye? It does have clear water and some deep
holes in it. I've never fished it. Yet. Stay tuned! Great place
to get out of the wind when Minnewaska blows up rough as it does from
time to time.

Then I mentioned that we enjoy the little range at Morris. WELL!
Turns out half the guys at North Country Ford are shooters, so we got
into a conversation joined by others about rifles, bullets,
calibers,1000-yard ranges, AR-15's and M-14's and all manner of good
stuff. Brad said he has a buddy that makes ammo for them. He's an
engineer at Medtronics, likes all those numbers and stuff ya know. I
couldn't help grinning at that. "Ohh...you're an engineer, aren't
you?" "Nah, I'm retired" ... but I couldn't stop grinning. He
finally started grinning too. No offense taken, ya know. I know I'm
an engineer and I've come to accept it. It's not curable but it's not
as bad as it might seem -- and hey, I make some pretty good ammo yoo
betcha.

I'm not chagrined that my car wasn't completely fixed. **** happens.
They said the 'puter said it was all better and they did do a road
test, but the 'puter just caught the obvious stuff and the road-tester
probably didn't punch it. Some customers might object to having
their rides punched. I think these guys will treat me fairly when I
return it on Monday for them to have another go at it.

I have more respect for a top mechanic than a doctor. I feel for the guys,
they are in a production situation rather than the true art it is.

A new Marble-Eyes hole! I have a couple of award winning recipes I will
send you. I had my buddy that is a charter captain install my laminate
floor in the new condo since he wasn't terribly busy. I held his nuts to
the fire to do a great job and do it on time. I just hope my fishing
invites don't suffer. (The floor looks great!)

Don Foreman wrote:

Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) to North Country Ford for some repair work. It runs rough
when I poke it hard, stutters and hesitates. They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up.

Ouch! A couple guys at work have been borrowing my ODBII scanner so often lately that
they talk to each other before asking for permission to transfer to who is borrowing it.

I was just going to mention that I liked your writing style and move on but you reminded
me of moms Datsun B210.

She would complain that it was missing, I'd drive it and not find a thing. Then
eventually it didn't run at all. Each time it turned out to be the ignition pickup.

Finally I realized that mom is a light foot. I'd get in, give it a healthy bit of
encouragement to the squirrels in side and it ran fine.

The leads into the pickup coil tended to break inside the insulation jacket and at
moderate vacuum, had the worst connection. Idle and near WOT (my driving style at the
time ) made a better connection. And yes, I rode with mom to see if she could
duplicate the problem but with two adults in that econobox her typical driving style with
the extra weight changed the vacuum enough that it ran okay. That vacuum advance coupled
with the conductors breaking sure drove me nuts until I figured that out.

Wes

"Buerste" wrote:

I have more respect for a top mechanic than a doctor. I feel for the guys,
they are in a production situation rather than the true art it is.

A good doctor is a level beyond a good mechanic. Sadly, the variance between good and
mediocre is such that a top mechanic with two years of medical training might be a better
doctor than the median imho.

Wes
--
"Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect
government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home
in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

On Feb 12, 9:55*pm, Wes wrote:
Don Foreman wrote:
Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) *to *North Country Ford for some repair work. *It runs rough
when I poke it hard, *stutters and hesitates. *They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? *It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up. * *

Ouch! *A couple guys at work have been borrowing my ODBII scanner so often lately that
they talk to each other before asking for permission to transfer to who is borrowing it.

I was just going to mention that I liked your writing style and move on but you reminded
me of moms Datsun B210.

She would complain that it was missing, I'd drive it and not find a thing.. *Then
eventually it didn't run at all. *Each time it turned out to be the ignition pickup.

Finally I realized that mom is a light foot. *I'd get in, give it a healthy bit of
encouragement to the squirrels in side and it ran fine. *

The leads into the pickup coil tended to break inside the insulation jacket and at
moderate vacuum, had the worst connection. *Idle and near WOT (my driving style at the
time ) made a better connection. *And yes, I rode with mom to see if she could
duplicate the problem but with two adults in that econobox her typical driving style with
the extra weight changed the vacuum enough that it ran okay. *That vacuum advance coupled
with the conductors breaking sure drove me nuts until I figured that out.

Wes

I wonder if that was what was wrong with my college girlfriends
Datsun. It would stop running for no apparent reason. You'd sit there
for a while and finally it would start.
Karl

Don Foreman wrote:

Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) to North Country Ford for some repair work. It runs rough
when I poke it hard, stutters and hesitates. They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up. But I like the Ford dealer because they've always
treated us fairly and I did *not* want the experience of going to
Abdul's Fairly Decent Auto Repair and paying him interminably to
blindly try things that don't help.

Hokay, so they had the car yesterday, overnight and some today,
called around midday to say it was ready. We went to fetch it. Mary
dropped me off and then went shopping or something. I wrote a check
for $906, collected my car and left. Once on the somewhat rural road,
I poked it hard. It's better than it was, but it definitely is not
fixed. I popped a U and went right back. Told Brad the service
advisor that it isn't fixed. He called the lead technician who would
take it for a ride. I jumped in because I wanted to make sure he'd
experience what I had. Once out on the road he accelerated gently,
as one might do with a senior customer in the right seat of his car.
Wouldn't wanna rattle the old fella and scramble his pacemaker or
something, right? If he only knew.... my implanted device is not a
mere ****ant pacemaker, it packs 750 volts of POW. But he didn't even
know I'm packing one. It's a very concealed carry.

I mentioned that the problem occurs under conditions of low engine
vacuum, as with wide-open throttle whilst in perhaps one gear higher
than might be optimal for present speed. Mm! He tried a little of
that. Oh yeah, there was some hesitation and missing. He popped a U
at the same place I had, but he went into the rather extensive (and
nearly all vacant) parkinglot of a big furniture store.
He apparently was no longer worried about having a Nervous Nellie in
the right seat because he proceeded to put my good ole Green Bean thru
its paces. There were a coupla times I wondered if he was gonna
brake in time, steer in time or hit a bigass snowdrift. Fortunately,
I am not a nervous passenger. Hell, it was fun! But then, I even
think this would be a fun ride:
http://tinyurl.com/bca97r

Back to the dealership. He noted that these older models don't have
as much diagnostic stuff aboard as the newer ones. With newer ones
they can set a laptop on the seat and stress the car on the road. I
just smiled at him. I am obviously old enough to know that they were
fixing Fords long before the computer was invented, and so is he. He
said it might be ignition wires. Why, yes it might indeed! Now
he's thinking like a mechanic and diagnostician rather than a computer
operator rotely going thru a checklist. It could also be a fouled
or cracked plug or distributor cap but they'd replaced the plugs and
I'm not sure engines even have distributor caps anymore. It takes
more pop to fire a plug under low vacuum (higher in-cylinder pressure)
so weak wires may spark to ground rather than fire the plug -- and
those wires are 14 years old.

I'm not supposed to lean over running engines lest the electric fields
from ignition screw up my ICD, but aside from that the freakin' plugs
are invisible on that V-6 crammed sideways into no space. That's part
of why they're expensive to replace. They shoulda replaced the wires
while they were in there, and a thinking mechanic would have done
that. The wires are cheaper than the dang plugs, nevermind the labor
to get in there. I'm not fault-finding here, I'd bet large that the
same thoughts were going thru the lead tech's mind.

I got to shootin' the breeze with Brad -- the service advisor,
remember him? I remarked at the price of the new sparkplugs, over $8
each. Geez, I never paid more than 2 bux for sparkplugs back when I
was wrenching on cars, were these platinum or som'pn? "Yup, platinum
posts. The double platinum jobs I use in my snowmobile are $14
each." "Oh yeah, I now recall that the fancy plugs my outboard wants
were pricey." "Yeah, but the plugs in my outboard seem to hold up for
at least 3 years." "Mine too, whut kinda outboard you got?" "Johnson
Quickstrike 115 on a Ranger boat." "NO ****! I'm also runnin' a 115
Quickstrike on a Ranger, how 'bout that!"

So then we started swapping fishin' ... uh ... data. We both learned
a coupla things. I learned that Pelican Lake, just outside of
Glenwood and maybe 6 miles from my cabin, can be a walleye mine. Oy
din't know that! I'll bet that's the best kept secret in Pope county
-- and it shall not become less so because of me! It's a small lake,
modest gravel launch, looks like it might have some panfish, bass and
northerns -- but walleye? It does have clear water and some deep
holes in it. I've never fished it. Yet. Stay tuned! Great place
to get out of the wind when Minnewaska blows up rough as it does from
time to time.

Then I mentioned that we enjoy the little range at Morris. WELL!
Turns out half the guys at North Country Ford are shooters, so we got
into a conversation joined by others about rifles, bullets,
calibers,1000-yard ranges, AR-15's and M-14's and all manner of good
stuff. Brad said he has a buddy that makes ammo for them. He's an
engineer at Medtronics, likes all those numbers and stuff ya know. I
couldn't help grinning at that. "Ohh...you're an engineer, aren't
you?" "Nah, I'm retired" ... but I couldn't stop grinning. He
finally started grinning too. No offense taken, ya know. I know I'm
an engineer and I've come to accept it. It's not curable but it's not
as bad as it might seem -- and hey, I make some pretty good ammo yoo
betcha.

I'm not chagrined that my car wasn't completely fixed. **** happens.
They said the 'puter said it was all better and they did do a road
test, but the 'puter just caught the obvious stuff and the road-tester
probably didn't punch it. Some customers might object to having
their rides punched. I think these guys will treat me fairly when I
return it on Monday for them to have another go at it.


Ain't it sad Don that we've been reduced to fixing our cars with our
checkbooks instead of those lovely tools we've added to our collections
over the years?

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when my car passed the state
vehicle inspection. It was running great, but I was worried that the
car's computer would tattle about something I didn't even know was wrong
and I'd be "in for it" again.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

Wes writes:


I was just going to mention that I liked your writing style and move on
but you reminded me of moms Datsun B210.

She would complain that it was missing, I'd drive it and not find a
thing. Then eventually it didn't run at all. Each time it turned out
to be the ignition pickup.


I drove two '210's into the ground -- one 1978 B210, one 1982 210. From
1980 until 2006; they were the only cars I drove; about 380K miles total
I guess. I never replaced any electronic ignition parts (just wires caps
& plugs) or any starters. No water pumps besides the ones I did during a
valve job.

The internal alternator regulators were an issue; after 2 replacements,
in rcm style, a friend gave me an old MOPAR one; I wired it in & mounted
it on the firewall.

Mufflers... well the 78 would backfile while warming up and spit a foot
long flame out that tiny tailpipe. Nearby cops would dive behind a car
and draw their weapons. But I had the first one done at Speedy Muffler
King, and they did the 2nd, 3rd ... 6th ones for free.
--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

So then we started swapping fishin' ... uh ... data. We both learned
a coupla things. I learned that Pelican Lake, just outside of
Glenwood and maybe 6 miles from my cabin, can be a walleye mine. Oy
din't know that! I'll bet that's the best kept secret in Pope county
-- and it shall not become less so because of me! It's a small lake,
modest gravel launch, looks like it might have some panfish, bass and
northerns -- but walleye? It does have clear water and some deep
holes in it. I've never fished it. Yet. Stay tuned! Great place
to get out of the wind when Minnewaska blows up rough as it does from
time to time.


I've got me a few walley gators on Pelican. went there a couple times
when the wind was too much on Miltona. Very nice smaller lake.

BTW, milady snagged another grouper today. This one is only 29" long,
not the monster I sent the pic of last week. Its really nice to have a
lady that brings home the fish.

Karl

Jeff Wisnia wrote:

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when my car passed the state
vehicle inspection. It was running great, but I was worried that the
car's computer would tattle about something I didn't even know was wrong
and I'd be "in for it" again.

A good ODBII scanner can give you the status of I/M readiness. Depending on your state,
that may be all they check.

Wes

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:28:43 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

He
said it might be ignition wires. Why, yes it might indeed! Now
he's thinking like a mechanic and diagnostician rather than a computer
operator rotely going thru a checklist. It could also be a fouled
or cracked plug or distributor cap but they'd replaced the plugs and
I'm not sure engines even have distributor caps anymore. It takes
more pop to fire a plug under low vacuum (higher in-cylinder pressure)
so weak wires may spark to ground rather than fire the plug -- and
those wires are 14 years old.


Assuming the sparks come from three dry potted coils with each coil shared
between 2 cylinders, there is a non-trivial chance that one coil has a crack
in the insulation. A plug chop would identify the culprit.

Mark Rand(long tale of woe on GM/Vauxhall/Opel V6)
RTFM

"Wes" wrote in message
...
Jeff Wisnia wrote:

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when my car passed the state
vehicle inspection. It was running great, but I was worried that the
car's computer would tattle about something I didn't even know was wrong
and I'd be "in for it" again.

A good ODBII scanner can give you the status of I/M readiness. Depending
on your state,
that may be all they check.

Wes

it really depends on the car, and your particular personality. For example,
my main car reveals only the P-codes via the OBDII and not any of the other
stuff, and a few dynamic parameters. A scanner that will read the rest of
the stuff is hugely expensive ($25,000 plus a yearly rental) - but with what
my more modest scanner can read (the limited dynamic data really helps), one
can do a lot.

But, what is intersting, is that there seems to be two types of "stuff" one
can be comfortable with - that which you can see (machinery), and that which
you cannot (software, electricity, etc). There are folks here with amazing
skills on things you can see who are very timid with the invisible stuff,
and of course on other venues you can find the exact opposite.

So, taking this a bit farther from minnesota - I wonder if that is inherent
in our genes or personality, or if it is age and training, or what.....

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:28:43 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) to North Country Ford for some repair work. It runs rough
when I poke it hard, stutters and hesitates. They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up. But I like the Ford dealer because they've always
treated us fairly and I did *not* want the experience of going to
Abdul's Fairly Decent Auto Repair and paying him interminably to
blindly try things that don't help.

Hokay, so they had the car yesterday, overnight and some today,
called around midday to say it was ready. We went to fetch it. Mary
dropped me off and then went shopping or something. I wrote a check
for $906, collected my car and left. Once on the somewhat rural road,
I poked it hard. It's better than it was, but it definitely is not
fixed. I popped a U and went right back. Told Brad the service
advisor that it isn't fixed. He called the lead technician who would
take it for a ride. I jumped in because I wanted to make sure he'd
experience what I had. Once out on the road he accelerated gently,
as one might do with a senior customer in the right seat of his car.
Wouldn't wanna rattle the old fella and scramble his pacemaker or
something, right? If he only knew.... my implanted device is not a
mere ****ant pacemaker, it packs 750 volts of POW. But he didn't even
know I'm packing one. It's a very concealed carry.

I mentioned that the problem occurs under conditions of low engine
vacuum, as with wide-open throttle whilst in perhaps one gear higher
than might be optimal for present speed. Mm! He tried a little of
that. Oh yeah, there was some hesitation and missing. He popped a U
at the same place I had, but he went into the rather extensive (and
nearly all vacant) parkinglot of a big furniture store.
He apparently was no longer worried about having a Nervous Nellie in
the right seat because he proceeded to put my good ole Green Bean thru
its paces. There were a coupla times I wondered if he was gonna
brake in time, steer in time or hit a bigass snowdrift. Fortunately,
I am not a nervous passenger. Hell, it was fun! But then, I even
think this would be a fun ride:
http://tinyurl.com/bca97r

I've hit this, too. The insurance company doesn't allow the
dealership employees to drive the car aggressively, just in case they
get in an accident with a customer's car. Or the Owner tells them not
to, same liability concerns.

But you were there to approve and cajole him into romping on it, so
they did, and the problem revealed itself.

For the Dorf Van, they tried saying No Trouble Found. I had to say
"Get in the passenger seat and just watch, I'll drive" then I got on
the freeway and romped on it and showed them the mis-shift problem.

There isn't supposed to be a one second pause in the 2-3 upshift
under modertate throttle, with an RPM zing and a slam into gear...
"Want me to do it harder? I can probably break a U-joint if I stay on
the gas..."

(Hey, I learned on a Powerglide, and it would hold first as long as
you kept the loud pedal down, and upshift when you feathered the gas
and the modulator told it to. So feathering the gas to ease the shift
was second nature...)

Results: Brand new transmission at 8K Miles.

-- Bruce --

Jeff Wisnia wrote:
Don Foreman wrote:


I'm not chagrined that my car wasn't completely fixed. **** happens.
They said the 'puter said it was all better and they did do a road
test, but the 'puter just caught the obvious stuff and the
road-tester probably didn't punch it. Some customers might object
to having their rides punched. I think these guys will treat me
fairly when I return it on Monday for them to have another go at
it.


Ain't it sad Don that we've been reduced to fixing our cars with our
checkbooks instead of those lovely tools we've added to our
collections over the years?

Jeff

Speak for thyself , Jeff . I was just under the hood of my '86 GMC P/U to
finally figger out the fast idle prob . Turns out that when I rebuilt the
carb last summer I got the 'lectric choke set too rich and it was still on
the last step of the fast idle cam . Installed a set of new plugs last week
, and that cured the miss I'd been experiencing - it misfired only when it
was in OD at highway speeds .
Tomorrow , I'm going to see if I can repair/clean the EGR valve on my
wife's '02 Isuzu , it's set a code for the second time . "insufficient egr
flow" was what popped up last time (about a week ago) and I suspect it'll be
the same this time . Hopefully I won't have to replace it , them puppies is
over a c-note - with the discount my son the partsman gets . I'd hate to see
what full retail is !
--
Snag
every answer
leads to another
question

Bill Noble wrote:
"Wes" wrote in message
...

Jeff Wisnia wrote:


I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when my car passed the state
vehicle inspection. It was running great, but I was worried that the
car's computer would tattle about something I didn't even know was wrong
and I'd be "in for it" again.

A good ODBII scanner can give you the status of I/M readiness. Depending
on your state,
that may be all they check.

Wes


it really depends on the car, and your particular personality. For example,
my main car reveals only the P-codes via the OBDII and not any of the other
stuff, and a few dynamic parameters. A scanner that will read the rest of
the stuff is hugely expensive ($25,000 plus a yearly rental) - but with what
my more modest scanner can read (the limited dynamic data really helps), one
can do a lot.

But, what is intersting, is that there seems to be two types of "stuff" one
can be comfortable with - that which you can see (machinery), and that which
you cannot (software, electricity, etc). There are folks here with amazing
skills on things you can see who are very timid with the invisible stuff,
and of course on other venues you can find the exact opposite.

So, taking this a bit farther from minnesota - I wonder if that is inherent
in our genes or personality, or if it is age and training, or what.....



Bill, I'll admit that I'm probably less comfortable with the "stuff" I
can't see with my eyes, smell or even feel (exception-electrical
shocks), but I think for me it's more a matter of knowing I'd now have
to get a bunch of "translating" gear like scanners and specialized
scopes to turn the invisible into something I can see. Distinctly
opposed to the early 1950s when I first started crawling under cars and
the oft stated simplistic axiom was, "If the motor has fahr and gas
it'll run".

I'll be the first to admit that almost everything in cars from the tires
on up has become much more reliable during my lifetime, so reliable that
the idea of investing in diagnostic equipment to enable me to diagnose
the infrequent "invisible" faults in our two family cars is just not in
the picture.

My trusty Simpson 260 multimeter and Tektronix analog scope just aren't
enough to let me plunge very deeply into the electronics controlling
almost everything in today's cars.

Perhaps being a gearhead during high school and then graduating as an
electrical engineer 51 years ago puts me in the minority, but I'm not
very different from the OP Don, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting
FTF and whose background and career seem fairly similar to mine.

I'm pretty sure that I have a better understanding of the internal
fundamentals of automotive electronics down to the transistor level than
the average auto tech, but without the proper electronic instruments I'm
blind. That feeling was solidified by looking over the shoulder of my
youngest son while he recently went through a one year auto technician
course at a nearby Universal Technology Institute campus. Except for
learning some basics about series and parallel wired DC circuits, the
rest of the "electronics education" seemed pretty much like "plug in the
scanners and scopes and see what they tell you."

You may be correct in musing about it being a genetic thing, I'm
constantly being shocked, shocked at how SWYMBO, who's had a hugely
successful career in allied medical human services can become befuddled
by seemingly simple technical problems. (Ex: yesterday I had to show her
how to press the reset button on the GFI line cord plug at the end of
her hair dryer's line cord, to get it running again.)

In retrospect, I think my comment about having to fix my cars with my
check book nowadays is probably just another semi-gripe about my getting
older, along the lines of realizing that life, not unlike a roll of
toilet paper, seems to run out faster the closer you get to the end. G

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:47:53 -0500, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:


Ain't it sad Don that we've been reduced to fixing our cars with our
checkbooks instead of those lovely tools we've added to our collections
over the years?

Sad? Hell no! My well-used tools earned their keep for decades,
don't owe me a thing. I'd call it just another or yet another
passage. Life lurches on. I'm glad that I can afford to have others
do some of the things I'd rather not do anymore partly because I did
do for myself and family for decades.

I don't mind paying younger strangers fairly for their help if they're
competent and deal with me fairly. I've had no bad experiences in
that regard thus far -- but then, I'm in Minnesota. This rube might
not fare well at all in RedSox country.

Then again, one never knows, does one? G

Say hi to Judith for us, eh? You don't deserve that lady, but you
knew that.

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:51:57 -0500, Karl Townsend
wrote:


So then we started swapping fishin' ... uh ... data. We both learned
a coupla things. I learned that Pelican Lake, just outside of
Glenwood and maybe 6 miles from my cabin, can be a walleye mine. Oy
din't know that! I'll bet that's the best kept secret in Pope county
-- and it shall not become less so because of me! It's a small lake,
modest gravel launch, looks like it might have some panfish, bass and
northerns -- but walleye? It does have clear water and some deep
holes in it. I've never fished it. Yet. Stay tuned! Great place
to get out of the wind when Minnewaska blows up rough as it does from
time to time.


I've got me a few walley gators on Pelican. went there a couple times
when the wind was too much on Miltona. Very nice smaller lake.

BTW, milady snagged another grouper today. This one is only 29" long,
not the monster I sent the pic of last week. Its really nice to have a
lady that brings home the fish.

Karl

Fresh-caught walleye is wonderful, but there ain't nothin' like
fresh-caught grouper. My favorite restaurant in the world is a
hole-in-the-wall on 41 in Naples FL that serves grouper sandwiches
made with fish that were flopping only minutes before.

I gotta get Mary in the boat on Pelican. Our pattern seems to be that
I find the fish, she catches them. Small team, right? She makes
Mary's Magic Lure du jour in the boat. I copy it and think I'm
fishin' mine the same way she's fishin' hers but obviously not.

Don,

Re. your exchange with Jeff:
What is a "walley gator"? Is there a Pelican Island in your area? The only one I know of for
certain is in S. Texas. Grouper usu refers to a large salt water fish. What kind of Minnesota water
critter have you yankees appended that name on?

Bob Swinney

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:23:49 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

Don,

Re. your exchange with Jeff:
What is a "walley gator"? Is there a Pelican Island in your area? The only one I know of for
certain is in S. Texas. Grouper usu refers to a large salt water fish. What kind of Minnesota water
critter have you yankees appended that name on?

Bob Swinney

It's a walleye, (sander vitreus), a sought-after sport fish in MN
because they're tasty. They are good, but I think very fresh grouper
and/or red snapper are better.

We do have pelicans in MN, and several lakes named Pelican Lake.
There's also a town named Pelican Rapids. Karl is in Florida catchin'
grouper.

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:22:59 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:23:49 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

Don,

Re. your exchange with Jeff:
What is a "walley gator"? Is there a Pelican Island in your area? The only one I know of for
certain is in S. Texas. Grouper usu refers to a large salt water fish. What kind of Minnesota water
critter have you yankees appended that name on?

Bob Swinney

It's a walleye, (sander vitreus), a sought-after sport fish in MN
because they're tasty. They are good, but I think very fresh grouper
and/or red snapper are better.

We do have pelicans in MN, and several lakes named Pelican Lake.
There's also a town named Pelican Rapids. Karl is in Florida catchin'
grouper.

Karl is wise. I hope to move back to Texas once my wife retires.

Pete Keillor

Thanks Don. I guessed "walley gator"was walleye and I musta got the messages crossed re. Karl's
grouper. I should have known Karl was sippin a cool one whilst his poor wife caught the fish.

Bob Swinney
"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:23:49 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

Don,

Re. your exchange with Jeff:
What is a "walley gator"? Is there a Pelican Island in your area? The only one I know of for
certain is in S. Texas. Grouper usu refers to a large salt water fish. What kind of Minnesota
water
critter have you yankees appended that name on?

Bob Swinney

It's a walleye, (sander vitreus), a sought-after sport fish in MN
because they're tasty. They are good, but I think very fresh grouper
and/or red snapper are better.

We do have pelicans in MN, and several lakes named Pelican Lake.
There's also a town named Pelican Rapids. Karl is in Florida catchin'
grouper.

More power too ya, Pete! I suppose an employed wife is better than living in TX but not much.

Bob Swinney
"Pete Keillor" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:22:59 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:23:49 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

Don,

Re. your exchange with Jeff:
What is a "walley gator"? Is there a Pelican Island in your area? The only one I know of for
certain is in S. Texas. Grouper usu refers to a large salt water fish. What kind of Minnesota
water
critter have you yankees appended that name on?

Bob Swinney

It's a walleye, (sander vitreus), a sought-after sport fish in MN
because they're tasty. They are good, but I think very fresh grouper
and/or red snapper are better.

We do have pelicans in MN, and several lakes named Pelican Lake.
There's also a town named Pelican Rapids. Karl is in Florida catchin'
grouper.

Karl is wise. I hope to move back to Texas once my wife retires.

Pete Keillor