treks

On 11/25/2018 at 8:38 AM, Gaurav said:

It's OK if you have an issue with limited numbers then you can go with Gold plated Rolls Royce for instant prestige and no proving your point of limited edition with all the bling of Gold.

To my mind, a gold plated Rolls is the epitome of bad taste. Only pimps, drug runners (the dumb ones, at least), and newly-rich Americans would find such a thing prestigious.   

You don't even need to buy a scanner. There are some pretty nifty apps available that can be used with smart phones, and although I would not use one of these apps to diagnose  serial communication issues on Flexray or even common CAN bus systems, most of these apps are good for simple fault code extraction. 

1 hour ago, sertac said:

In Turkey they sold these cars named Taunus. There is tons of them but coupe that is really rare. 

https://www.sahibinden.com/ilan/vasita-otomobil-ford-keyif-arabasi-tek-kapi-alman-yedek-motorlu-598496865/detay

https://www.sahibinden.com/ilan/vasita-otomobil-ford-2.0-v6-taunus-klasik-sevenlere-614095499/detay

https://www.sahibinden.com/ilan/vasita-otomobil-ford-tam-revizasyon-26m-coupe-hardtop-618412083/detay

Ford used the name Taunus here for cars that came before the Cortina. These came with 1.7L and 2.0L engines and were hugely popular among the demolition derby crowd because they were extremely tough (the cars were) and it took a lot to disable them.  

On 7/15/2018 at 7:00 PM, Barry said:

Just finished the matrix trilogy. Wifey has never seen any of these old movies (isn't it weird that they're old movies now?) so I'm revisiting them all and it's good picking up on a lot of stuff I missed before.

Anything new worth watching?

Last cinema experience I had was horrible. I will never go to a cinema again. Screaming kids, people on their phones, talking loudly to each other etc. I even asked 2 people to go outside if they wanted to talk and they promptly shut up. You shouldn't have to ask for that in a cinema. Streaming FTW. If the movie makers don't like illegal streams, they should do something about the cinema experience. Set rules and broken jaws for anyone who breaks them.

I have not been in a cinema for more than 30 years. I don't know if setting the volume to deafening levels is universal, but here, people actually suffer damage to their hearing after repeated exposure to movies in cinemas. 

Besides that though- I absolutely detest loud music and noise of any kind, which makes watching a movie in  a cinema impossible for me to do. In fact, if I can hear a radio or the TV from further away than about two meters, it's too loud for me. 

8 hours ago, Barry said:

Same. Cortinas were everywhere, when the Sierra came out it was uncool to own the older cortina so most of them disappeared. If you have a 4 door cortina now, you are a god in the classic ford scene. If you have a 2 door, you are the local mayor. 

@treks you had some fancy cars in your place too. If you could collect all the XR8s and ship them to uk, you could live like a king. 

There weren't all that many XR8's sold here. They were made on special order, and at the time, their high price counted against many orders being placed. Nonetheless, I did own an XR6 for 26 years, during which time I went somewhat out of my way to keep it in excellent condition. Point is, when I sold it to a local collector, it had less than 80 000 km on the clock, and I got more than 10 times more for it than I paid for it in 1981. So yes, if you can still find them in good nick, there is some money to be made.  

1 hour ago, Barry said:

You know, the type of car you only see once in a lifetime, even if it’s a special edition of a regular car, share it with us!

Just came across this for sale. 2 door Mk4 Cortina. I saw one maybe 15 years ago. Was super rare then, never expected to see another. 

 

We have had millions of Mk4 & closely related Mk5 Cortinas here, but this is the first example of a two-door model I have ever seen. A true unicorn, this. 

5 hours ago, desertdude said:

It wouldn't help answering that question if you already don't know the answerto that. As advised get a second opinion from a second shop and even a 3rd opinion from a third. 

If it is really smoking, then yes the engine needs to be opened up and rebuilt, which in turns equal to a lot of $$$$$$$

Or just keep on driving it as is. Keeping an eagle eye on oil and coolant levels. 

OR sell it.

Still having a hard time believing such a low mileage motor is smoking.

Good luck

It happens. I can't tell you the number of times I have seen engines destroyed by over heating, while the owner/driver insists that nothing drastic had happened. Some people just don't monitor instruments while driving,and many more don't understand what their instruments are telling them when they do decide to look at them once or twice a year. 

5 hours ago, desertdude said:

 

This is almost certainly the A/C drain- no vehicle that I know of drains excess water/coolant in just this exact position. Sometimes when the A/C ices up heavily it can take several hours for the ice to melt and drain. Anyway, even if the coolant does not contain antifreeze it will have a distinctive smell, whereas A/C condensate will have no smell, just like regular water. 

Now this is what a Jeep should be. 

All I can say is that if I had ten bucks for every time I've had to reprogram/initialize something because a customer thought that disconnecting the battery would somehow "fix" fault codes or "reset" the ECU, I could have retired several years ago.  

11 hours ago, Barry said:

2 guitar greats and what makes them great is that they play from the heart rather than from a sheet. Gilmour is one of my favourite guitar players ever. There’s so much feeling in it. I’ve learned a few pink floyd songs, a few dire straits songs too, but sometimes it’s better to just listen to something and enjoy it rather than try to emulate it. I’m a massive bob Marley fan. I can listen to him all day, but I never want to play any of his songs because I feel that will take the magic away. Some things are just meant to be appreciated and not emulated.

I used to teach guitar. So many people thought they could buy a guitar and become Glenn Tipton from Judas Priest in 2 weeks then gave up. Guitar is a lifelong thing. If you want to be good you have to practice for years. If you want to be David Gilmour or Mark Knoplfer you have to have an amazing mind and do your own thing, bit stil practice is key.

 

I read an interview with Knopfler once where he said that he needed to practice for at least 4-5 hours every day just to keep his hand in. However, you can practice till your fingers fall off, but if you don't have an innate talent to augment your amazing mind, you are going nowhere, as I can attest to. However, I have accepted that I will never play the guitar, so now I just appreciate the lifetimes of practice the greats have put into making their guitars cry or sing, as Knopfler puts it. 

 

I don't hate BMW cars- I only hate the drivers of BMW's who are trying to prove something- like for instance their firm belief that they are somehow not bound to the rules of the road, or that their cars are immune to accident damage even if other makes are not, but worst of all, I hate BMW drivers who refuse to allow traffic from the side to enter the traffic flow. Its like there is something wrong with BMW drivers in this country. 

I cut my teeth on twin and quad carburetors, but sadly, that skill is no longer in demand. I used to also rebuild slushboxes as you call them, but I have not so much as touched a spanner in almost a year, and with some luck, I never will again.

However, as per your OP, I would dearly love to be able to compose music, and particularly guitar music- and off course being able to play the guitar like David Gilmour or Mark Knopfler. I even went for lessons once, but I just don't have what it takes. 

For me it has to be the Lambo Countach LP 500, because it was the first super car (by the standards of its time) that I ever got to drive on the open road. This happened many, many years ago when I was still an ignorant apprentice, but now that I think back on it, I am wondering why the uncomfortable seating position, poor visibility out of it, the very heavy clutch and mushy gear shift did not put me off super cars in general, and Lambos in particular, for life back then. 

Nonetheless, even though I have lost my enthusiasm for cars long ago, I  must admit that my first experience with a super car was my coolest experience with super cars, ever. 

21 hours ago, sertac said:

True, but the second kind (on the right) don't do well in countries where the road surfaces are divided equally between tarmac and potholes.  

I tend to disagree with @Barry on this. No good (read, professional) technician can fix anything, and nor should he try.

It may be true that most automotive technologies are common to all cars, but there are sometimes vast differences in how some technologies are implemented on different makes- two examples being the way PID's are set up differently for ABS brakes and active suspension systems between cars of European, American, and Japanese manufacture.  

Having made a very good living out fixing peoples' cars for nearly forty years, I can confidently say that there is no way one person can know everything about these differences, and in my opinion a technician who says that he can fix anything, should be treated with a good measure of circumspection. 

The thing about mirrors is that are only useful if people actually use them.

In some parts of the world, side mirrors appear to be optional extras in the same way that direction indicators are, since nobody seems to look into them, or use direction indicators to signal an intention to turn or make lane changes.  

I've lost count of the number of times I've nearly been sideswiped by  idiots that thought their side mirrors were there only for cosmetic reasons, or a diabolical plot by car manufacturers to make it more difficult to fit into tight parking spaces.   

1 hour ago, Rahimdad said:

The extraterrestrial should also join Carnity and share their technical knowledge with us.

You think? Somehow I don't think they will understand how our cars work, and I'm pretty sure not many of us will believe that they have really mastered the art of deep space travel at several multiples of the speed of light- or understand how they do it. 

Then again, not many of us understand how some of our cars work, either; especially Jeeps and Land Rovers...  

7 hours ago, kumara said:

Thanks for advices.

Doyou know a good garage to go specialize in Ford vehicles?

See if you can contact @Barry through the forum here, and twist his arm to run a diagnostic for you. He has a professional-grade computer, and he know how to use it, so he might be your best bet. 

Richard is right- this is very unlikely to involve the ECU. Best thing to do is to have a diagnostic scan done to get the codes.  

The problem with this kind of driving behavior is that the idiots don't learn until they are in a crash, but another problem is that the crashes these idiots cause often kill innocent road users.

In my opinion,driver education should be made a compulsory subject in high schools, and if you fail the exam, you can't get a licence for at least 10 years. If you pass the exam after 10 years, you should only get a restricted licence (like in New Zealand), for at least 2 years, but with the provision that if you are caught for reckless driving, drinking and driving, or texting while driving during this time, you lose the restricted licence, and can never retest for a licence- ever again.

Moreover, if you have a full licence and behave like an idiot, you should lose your licence for life.   

23 hours ago, Barry said:

Read my disclaimer, last paragraph. 

I have already acknowledged your point. This article is just a basic lesson in some things you can do with your computer. For fun and nothing else. 

Next thing I plan to show is relative compression testing using graph overlays if you don’t have a compression tester gauge. I’m just waiting for a suitable car. 

There are so many things you can do with a diagnostic computer and if you’re a bit nerdy like me, there’s a lot of fun to be had. When the fun is gone from working on cars then what’s left? Sure as hell in UAE the salary isnt the motivation for doing it 

I agree that diagnostic computers can make life a lot easier, but for compression testing, a compression tester is the way to go unless you are waiting for a car with an HCCI engine. These have compression sensors in the cylinders, so I would be interested to see your screenshots. 

On 10/2/2018 at 9:23 PM, Barry said:

How does that even happen? I like to play around and experiment with things as learning but I’ve never wiped an ECU! I didn’t even know it was possible! Maybe he was trying to do a reflash?

Easy. Most Launch (and other) computers have the ability to reset the KAM memory, but if you get it wrong, you lose all programming for the basics like idle speed, fuel trim look-up tables, basic ignition timing settings, and a lot of other things besides. 

However, I did not have the software to reprogram the KAM memory, so I had to deliver the car to dealership 60 km away, and provide the client with a rental vehicle for two days. Good thing he was a long-time customer, but he was still not happy about the affair. 

Speaking of young mechanics who think they know it all - I had one about three years ago who erased all the programming from the ECU on a new BMW, instead of erasing some ghost codes like he thought he was doing. 

And worse, all because he thought he was clever and thought he knew everything about using a diagnostic computer- even though he had no reason under the sun to go anywhere near the car that was in the shop to have a flat tire fixed. Pity the law prevented me from docking his pay for what it cost me to have the car reprogrammed at the dealership. I did fire him though...  

Good for you- I'm glad you got this sorted out!