There is no heavy duty thread so i will just post this here. I bought my JD 17G for 40K plus tax. I was interested in one with a cab instead of just a canopy in the same size as mine. Only ones to do that are Bobcat E20 and Cat 302CR(which is 4" wider then my machine). The bobcat E20 with a cab is 50k plus tax, the Cat 302CR is 60k plus tax. The next size up in the JD is the 26g and the price for that is 62.5k plus tax. Fuck me why would anyone ever by the cat.
I wouldn’t buy a Deere on principle, unless you have bootlegged diagnostic software - your locked into there service system forever. Hard to argue the price difference though, I have had little problems with Bobcat at work.
I am not even sure there is much to diagnose. My hour meter stores the hours, it just doesn't display them. My hour meter got moisture in it and fogged up and they had to change it. They said they couldn't pull the hours form the machine they were going to try and dry out my old meter and see if they could plug it in to a machine they had up there to read it. Good to here on no issues with Bobcat. One huge upside to JD here is that there is enough of them in town that the service guy is down here regularly, and i dont have to wait for them to come down or trailer it 1.5 hours one way to them.
2013 Ford Explorer 3.5L non turbo Problems - remote start doesn't work, but the car starts if you are in push the button. - low battery warning, it shuts down my info system. Been charging the battery it reads almost 13.5 volts. It starts absolutely no problem. The battery was low this morning just under 10 volts. It has been sitting for a few weeks in the cold 2 weeks waiting for belt/tensioner. I charged it before it sat so it shouldn't of dropped off that much. Any idea?
Was the hood popped open while it was waiting on parts? Some of the Explorers will keep the interior fuse block powered up if it doesn’t see the hood closed. I’m fairly certain Ford spec for a parasitic drain is 50mA or less - it’s been awhile since I’ve worked on one.
It was closed but it might of not been latched. As in i could of opened it without pulling the hood release inside the car.
Okay guys, for those of you paying attention out there in Idiot-land, I've had two (relatively) recent automotive developments: 1) My father-in-law GAVE us a '90 square-body Chevy Suburban (which promptly blew a head gasket two days later) 2) My current daily driver, a cammed, 5.4-swapped Mercury Grand Marquis developed a coolant leak that led to hydrolocking one cylinder, putting it out of commission for the foreseeable future. I had been slowly working on a heads/ cam swap on the Suburban, but with no daily driver anymore (I've been borrowing Li'l Bandit's truck this past week), I've stepped up the pace on it. I used some 305 TPI heads off of an '88 Firebird that I had for parts. They have smaller combustion chambers, which will give about .5 of a point of compression (should be about 9.5:1). They've also got smaller intake valves (1.89" vs. 1.94") but I don't think this will amount to anything; with the cam I'm putting in, it will be done making power by about 5K rpm. While it was apart, I decided to re-seal the whole thing, and that inevitably led to me deciding to change out the main and rod bearings and oil pump, since everything else was already apart (it's important to note that the engine never came out of the truck). Here's a basic shot of the engine with one of the heads already installed, just to give you some kind of idea of what I'm working with: Spoiler The heads I'm using (081 heads, for those of you up on Chevy part numbers) had sat with water in them for a while, and as such, one of them had some rust pitting around a couple of intake ports. This could cause an internal vacuum leak that would be a bitch-and-a-half to track down. Spoiler I thought about my options, and I decided to fill the pits in with JB-Weld, and then sand the surface flat. Spoiler Mostly finished product: Spoiler More pictures to come.
Last thing for tonight is the wiring. Those of you who know me know that I actually enjoy wiring, and I HATE bad wiring. GM did a really ugly, sloppy job of wiring on these trucks to begin with, and after thirty years, the wiring on the truck looked like shit. Spoiler Just about all of the wire-loom had cracked off (where it even had it to begin with! GM played it fast and loose with that stuff in the '80s and '90s!), and it was soaked with oil and road grime. That's not going to do for me, so I unwrapped the few sections that still had insulation, cleaned the wires off with solvent, and re-wrapped MOST of them with new wire loom. Like I said, GM did a really sloppy job, and there are a lot of extra wires, and wires that could have been routed a lot more cleanly; I may or may not open the harness up again when I've got more time and make some cuts and splices for a cleaner look. But for right now, I just rewrapped it the way GM had it. Spoiler The questions/ comments/ criticisms may begin.
Great work dude… thanks for sharing. Closest I’ve come to turning a wrench in the last couple of years was when I dropped the new truck off for a recall job yesterday. I almost had to wash my hands when I was done.
Alright, here's some more updates. Last night, I started putting on all the engine-management stuff on the top of the engine. Remember when I said that GM did an ugly job with the wiring on these trucks? This is what I'm talking about: Spoiler Where the hell do I begin? 1) That's the MAP* sensor, used to detect engine load, and thus the amount of fuel and ignition advance required for a particular throttle position. On the trucks, it's got its own little stand back there, and makes it difficult to get the valve cover off. On the F-Body twins, this is mounted remotely on the firewall. 2) That's the ESC** module. Back in those days, GM didn't have the PCM control everything spark-related, so they used this mini module, and an ignition control module inside the distributor. As with the MAP sensor, it gets its own stand, which just clutters up the look of the engine. It's only wires going to it (as opposed to the MAP, which has a vacuum line), so they could have put it ANYWHERE. The F-Bodies had it on the firewall, near the brake booster in most applications. 3) This whole leg of wiring did not need its own route; this is the wiring for the alternator, and they could have run it on the other side, with the rest of that bundle, and just crossed over on the front of the engine by the thermostat housing. 4) Why the hell did they make the wires for the TBI unit so long? They could have eliminated about a foot of wires by just routing them to exit right next to the ESC module, but they didn't. *Manifold Absolute Pressure **Electronic Spark Control Anyway, two of the rocker arm studs were stripped out on the donor heads, so I pulled them out and installed some screw-in studs. The problem is that the new studs sit higher than the originals, keeping me from adjusting the valves on those cylinders. If I could go back in time, I would have had the machine shop cut those rocker bosses down, but the heads were already installed when I discovered this. What I decided to do was to grind down the studs (and bottom of the rockers) until they would fit. Spoiler It worked, barely. Here it is installed. Note the clearance at the bottom of the rocker vs. the others, and also the height of the stud compared to the rest. Spoiler I forgot to mention that I did a pressure-check, resurface, and valve-job at the machine shop, and did all of the porting, measurement, and assembly of the valves/ springs myself. New intake valves, and new Vortec/ LT1 valve springs.
On one hand, I am amazed at some of the stuff you make work, but on the other hand, if I opened a motor up and saw that, I'd think "What in the Sam Hell is going on here with this?" lol
Anyone seen the press release stuff for the new Porsche Cayman GT4 RS? The 500hp NA GT3 engine stuck in the Cayman. That would be a insane track car.
I thought I read years ago the only reason Porsche didn't add a turbo to the Cayman was because it was thought it would outperform the 911 GT.
Probably. I always loved how small the cayman is. The boxter was already a well handling car then you make it into a sports car, i can only image how well it handles. I like small cars. Right now my semi attainable dream car is an audi rs3.
The Cayman is the better race car platform. Perfectly balanced, super rigid, just down on power intentionally so as not to piss off the 911 purists who paid a premium for the flagship car.
Okay guys, Suburban update: I got it running last week, broke in the new cam, had wonderful oil pressure (50 psi at idle, warmed up - new crankshaft bearings and oil pump will do that), and best of all, NO LEAKS. Bad news: The cam I got was a wee bit too big for the factory computer settings to handle easily, so the idle speed surges, and sometimes stalls. The cam I picked was a copy of this one: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-1102/make/chevrolet This is very slightly larger than a Vortec truck cam, which itself is very tame. Also, this cam was advertised as being "computer friendly;" it DOES start up and drive, so I guess they're mostly correct... I'm going to have to have a custom chip burned to optimize things, but I think I can still drive it in the meantime; I've got plenty of experience tuning engines beyond the factory specifications... I also want to mention one extremely maddening "feature" on this Suburban: You can only start it when the shifter lever is in the "Park" position. And by that, I mean that the ignition switch will NOT go to the "start" position in any other way. I've never seen this on any other GM vehicle, and I've driven a lot of them. Normally, you can put it into the "start" position in any gear, but it will only actually engage the starter in "Park" or Neutral. I know some of y'all are thinking: "But Bandit, what difference does it make? You're not going to try to start it in "Drive," are you?" Answer: Since this thing is currently prone to stalling, there is a very real likelihood that I will need to restart the engine WHILE the truck is rolling. Sit down for a second and let me learn y'all something: As most of y'all know, I'm a mechanic, and that means that when someone brings a car to me, there's PROBABLY something wrong with it. There are times when: A) I'm test driving a car, and the engine dies in traffic, and I can't easily pull over. Put that bitch in neutral, and try to restart it. This usually gets you back to the shop. Repeat as necessary. B) Car overheats out of nowhere, and I can't easily pull over. Turn off engine, coast for awhile, then restart long enough to get up to speed to get back to the shop. Repeat as necessary. C) I need to isolate a noise, and make sure it's not coming from the engine or accessories. Shift to neutral, turn off engine. If the noise goes away, it is not a wheel/ suspension noise. D) Any other reason I can think of. If this was just an electrical issue, I could easily bypass it, but I'm physically locked out. This will not stop me, however... More to come.
Congrats on getting it running (Like we had any doubts) I'm assuming you can't just find the Park safety switch and pigtail to a neutral lead? I know you said mechanical but what physical part tells the ECU/Key position that it's not in park? *disclaimer- I know very little about cars. I know even less about late 80's to early 90's GM "safety" features.