What did you do today?

[adsm08 4,714]

Today at work our youngest tech (17yo) called me old. So I picked up a piece of pipe I keep around for various things, bent over, pretended to use is as a cane, put on my best old man voice, told him "In my day we respected our elder", then whacked him in the head.

[kpinnc 18,694]

2 hours ago, adsm08 said:

She's about 8 years late to that party.

 

I typically believe that the designs in service around 2010 were generally the last good ones.

 

Well I was specifically referring to the models we have now. My Tacoma is a 2011, and they were the same until 2015, and the Tundra was good until 2017. 

[adsm08 4,714]

15 minutes ago, kpinnc said:

 

Well I was specifically referring to the models we have now. My Tacoma is a 2011, and they were the same until 2015, and the Tundra was good until 2017. 

Yeah, that's kinda the same basic idea. Like I would buy an Explorer all the way out to 2019, because it's basically an 07 Edge with EPAS and a longer wheel base. 

[Blue Chips 793]

I'm still messing about with a pile of connecting rods, trying to come up with the best possible set of six for the machine shop to rework to what I hope will be better-than-new condition. I have a few more coming soon.

 

Today I finished reassembling two sections of the my M37's transfer case. It took several shim adjustments per the procedure in the manual to come up with the proper preload on the tapered roller bearing sets. With the companion flange nut torqued to 140-160 ft-lb the preload should be between 15 and 30 in-lb (without the seal in place). I managed to adjust them both to exactly 24 in-lbs, figuring that since they are new bearings, I'd go just a bit above the mid-point, but still well within the target range, to allow for some slight break-in (and I corrected an obvious mistake in the manual while I was at it ).

 

 

 

 

[Beap52 2,329]

Baby-sat the three yahoos.  Their mom was having surgery, Her husband and his mother-in-law were going to be at the hospital. 

 

The girl grandchild mowed the yard--under my and the youngest boy grandchild's close observation.

 

The oldest did his best to stay out of work.

 

Got smiles and comments at Dairy Queen during lunch from other patrons and had to check out the blacksnake (alive and irritated)  on the parking lot.  I assume fell out of someone's vehicle or bale of hay? 

[peter lena 9,923]

@Beap52  being a grandparent is a very  special  assignment , all of mine now in their 20,s , back and forth  exchanges , are  regularly , very solid , love learning  grandmas  cooking  secrets , always end with a solid hug , grampa , pete   

[Blue Chips 793]

I zinc plated a few more of my Dodge M37 parts yesterday.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Set up the bearings for the transfer case idler gear:

 

 

Made an arbor tool on the lathe this morning, which will be used to guide the transfer case idler gear shaft into the case and through the bearings and shims, while keeping the shaft straight relative to the case and preventing the shaft from catching on and damaging the adjustment shims as it passes through the gear.

 

 

 

[adsm08 4,714]

All of yesterday after lunch and three hours of my morning so far today have been spent on a software update recall on a Bronco. 

 

It's not hard, and I can get paid up to 7 hours for it, but it's very boring because I have to update the same three moduels over and over until there are no more updates, and it's very little interaction from me, but I can't ever leave it for more than 10 minutes at a time because if it does require me to do something, which is at least every 10 minutes, it won't move on without me.

[ebinmaine 79,363]

12 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

All of yesterday after lunch and three hours of my morning so far today have been spent on a software update recall on a Bronco. 

 

It's not hard, and I can get paid up to 7 hours for it, but it's very boring because I have to update the same three moduels over and over until there are no more updates, and it's very little interaction from me, but I can't ever leave it for more than 10 minutes at a time because if it does require me to do something, which is at least every 10 minutes, it won't move on without me.

 

 

Several of our Freightliners have been through similar.  

[adsm08 4,714]

2 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

 

 

Several of our Freightliners have been through similar.  

 

Ain't technology great?

 

My Ranger never had issues like this.

[cleat 8,992]

16 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

All of yesterday after lunch and three hours of my morning so far today have been spent on a software update recall on a Bronco. 

 

It's not hard, and I can get paid up to 7 hours for it, but it's very boring because I have to update the same three moduels over and over until there are no more updates, and it's very little interaction from me, but I can't ever leave it for more than 10 minutes at a time because if it does require me to do something, which is at least every 10 minutes, it won't move on without me.

 

My 2020 F150 is like that but my wife's 2025 Explorer just does it on it's own overnight.

 

 

[adsm08 4,714]

59 minutes ago, cleat said:

 

My 2020 F150 is like that but my wife's 2025 Explorer just does it on it's own overnight.

 

 

 

This one is not easy to do as an OTA update because it requires multiple rounds (4 so far) of updates to the module that handles the over the air updates. 

[Handy Don 16,820]

2 hours ago, adsm08 said:

Ain't technology great?

My Ranger never had issues like this.

My car just completed an update yesterday. Ninety minutes, but over-the-air and unattended. (It did disable the car for the 90 minutes, though!)

In a past life, my team deployed software to financial transaction terminals globally--always a fraught event!

[Handy Don 16,820]

21 hours ago, Blue Chips said:

Assembly tools are underrated because they are uncommon outside of production lines.

A couple years ago @ri702bill made me a manufacturer-spec tool for pressing in the bearings and seals during my gear mowing deck rebuild. Worked so well I was a bit disappointed at how quickly I finished the job!

[Handy Don 16,820]

3 hours ago, adsm08 said:

This one is not easy to do as an OTA update because it requires multiple rounds (4 so far) of updates to the module that handles the over the air updates. 

Yeah. It’s a different job when the tools themselves need the work, isn’t it? Especially true if a series of upgrades is incremental and prior-state-dependent, which your case seems to be.

[adsm08 4,714]

Finally finished that recall around 11.

 

For reference, I-81 runs through Carlisle Pa, just up the street from the dealership. If I had gotten. On 81 South, and driven straight through for the amount of time that recall took I'd have been just south of Lowland TN.

[adsm08 4,714]

29 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

Yeah. It’s a different job when the tools themselves need the work, isn’t it? Especially true if a series of upgrades is incremental and prior-state-dependent, which your case seems to be.

Very much. You update the TCU, and then another module shows an update, so you do that and a third one needs updated now, and then after that the first one needs done again, and it was just a loop until each had been updated 3-5 times.

[ebinmaine 79,363]

4 hours ago, adsm08 said:

 

Ain't technology great?

 

 

 

We have a Freightliner medium duty that has a Cummins 4 cylinder.  

That engine can't consistently communicate with the truck computer. 

 

Quite often, it throws a code because one of the two computers firmly believes that the engine is rotating backwards.

[Handy Don 16,820]

6 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

one of the two computers firmly believes that the engine is rotating backwards

And what evidence do you have to the contrary? Can’t it be rotating in both directions as the same time? 

[ebinmaine 79,363]

3 minutes ago, Handy Don said:

And what evidence do you have to the contrary? Can’t it be rotating in both directions as the same time? 

 

According to the electric brain.... yes.  

[cafoose 3,745]

31 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

Finally finished that recall around 11.

 

For reference, I-81 runs through Carlisle Pa, just up the street from the dealership. If I had gotten. On 81 South, and driven straight through for the amount of time that recall took I'd have been just south of Lowland TN.

That's 32 miles south of me  You could be at my place half an hour sooner 

[Ed Kennell 46,374]

5 hours ago, cleat said:

 

My 2020 F150 is like that but my wife's 2025 Explorer just does it on it's own overnight.

 

 

Just scheduled Mrs. Ks 2023  Escape for the overnight update.

My 2010 F-150 never updated.

[Blue Chips 793]

3 hours ago, Handy Don said:

Assembly tools are underrated because they are uncommon outside of production lines.

A couple years ago @ri702bill made me a manufacturer-spec tool for pressing in the bearings and seals during my gear mowing deck rebuild. Worked so well I was a bit disappointed at how quickly I finished the job!

 

Yes, sometimes one can spend more time and do more damage by trying to "make do" with existing tools than the time or money spent to make or buy the right tool. A lot of auto parts stores loan tools for free these days, including some specialized tools for servicing newer or popular vehicles, but I'm always running into situations when working on an old vehicle or machine where I need some oddball gadget to finish the job properly. I don't consider myself a great machinist, welder, or fabricator, but I can usually cobble together something that gets the job done correctly. 

 

Antique vehicles tend to be simpler in most respects than newer models, especially when it comes to electronics and electro-mechanical devices, but they still had their share of proprietary designs that required special tools. For example, I have a couple of boxes of special Carter carburetor tools---probably over a hundred items---and I still don't have all of the Carter tools. For general maintenance work on my 1954 M37, the manuals list 35 special tools in addition to the standard array of tools that a mechanic would have been expected to have at the time. I've either purchased or made several of them, and in some cases I've been able to substitute another tool to do the job, but it sure makes a difference when you have the right tool for the job.