blksn8k2
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Posts posted by blksn8k2
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They also produce a bi-monthly hard copy magazine with columns by Jay Leno, Wayne Carini and Aaron Robinson along with customer road trip articles and road tests of all genres of passenger cars and trucks both classic and new. Great content.
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My cousin brought his 2013 Escape over this morning and wanted me to replace the bulb for the driver side front turn signal. What a PITA! I watched a few youtube videos before I started so I kinda knew what to expect. One guy even recommended removing the entire front bumper cover just to get at the damn bulb! There's like 50 screws and clips holding the bumper cover on!
You can actually see the light socket from the engine compartment but there are no openings large enough to reach down in there.
We decided to try going in from the backside which meant you had to gain access through the wheel opening. The first thing we did was to remove the wheel and tire to get access to the inner fender liner attachment screws. After removing about ten of those screws I was able to pry the lower front corner of the liner back far enough to reach up with my left hand and disconnect the light socket from the backside of the light bezel all while lying on the garage floor. I guess having long arms and fingers is good for something. It took about 40 minutes to do the whole thing.
Unfortunately, my cousin ordered the bulb from Advance Auto Parts (it wasn't in stock at the local store) and they sold him a clear bulb instead of the correct amber bulb. It still works, it's just not the right color. Oh well...
Funniest part was that I was using a small battery powered light with a magnetic base and I had laid it up inside the space between the fender liner and the bumper cover. When I removed the light there was a small metal V-clip stuck to the magnet. About two years ago I replaced the fan motor for the heater and to do that you had to remove a couple of plastic covers from the cowl area between the windshield and the firewall. In the process of doing that I dropped that same metal V-clip and could never find it until today. I guess that just goes to show how tight that enclosure is that a small clip couldn't find its way out of there in all that time.
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I have all of my classics insured by Hagerty and I belong to the Hagerty Drivers Club. This is their test of the Mustang Dark Horse. Awesome video production IMO.
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Episode #4:
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Episode #2:
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More Testing:
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On 12/13/2023 at 8:18 AM, Chrisgb said:
I think the mandate is ridiculous on another count. Right now, we're in a chicken vs egg period. the infrastructure is going to take time to build out to where we have chargers everywhere, just like cell service in its infancy. Antennas initially were only in the densest population centers and along the most travelled Interstates; exit an outstate freeway and you usually lost coverage. I think many small businesses are reluctant to invest what are large sums of money for them to install chargers, when there is not enough demand to make a profit currently, but I believe more people would buy a BEV if they were confident that they didn't have to stay in their range radius in order to charge at home.
I don't think you can't put mandates on supply and demand, it virtually guarantees imbalances.
And to carry that a step further, our political system includes too many elected officials that are in lock-step with their corporate puppet masters that have profit driven agendas which may not be in the public's best interest but are force fed to the public anyway by means of political campaign contributions. In other words...money talks. The end result is that the politicians and corporations get rich while the tax payers are forced to fund questionable programs.
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I got several short videos of a black bear in my orchard. When I went down there to get the card from one of my trail cameras I found two limbs on one of the apple trees broken down. I pretty much knew what happened when I saw the tree and the camera just confirmed it. Most of the videos are from when the bear was at the tree but the tree is so far from the camera that you need a really good monitor to even see the bear so I didn't bother uploading those. The three videos that I did upload to youtube were taken after it left the tree and walked right up to and in front of the camera. You can tell it is an older bear by the way it swaggers when it walks and how close its belly is to the ground. My guess is that it is a male and that it weighs around 300 lbs. This happened just before 2 AM last Friday (12/1/23).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c8uvXlyGDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw9WWpI7eSc
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This thing fights its own weight and lack of traction at the starting line but once it gets rolling it just flat out embarrasses whatever is in the other lane.
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This thing fights its own weight and lack of traction at the starting line but once it gets rolling it just flat out embarrasses whatever is in the other lane.
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On 11/28/2023 at 12:26 PM, Tico said:
Regular gas around MIlwaukee is low of $2.68 at Costco up to $2.99 next to the freeway off ramps. Averaging around $2.85 according to gas buddy app. Not sure why it is so much higher some other parts of the country.
Here in PA it's because of all the extra road taxes, etc. that get added on that most other states don't have. And yet our highways still suck. ?
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Not sure why, but the independent station in my home town dropped their price for 87 from 3.54 to 3.39/gal in the just the past couple of days. Most other stations in the area range from 3.55 to 3.69. The only thing I can assume is that the owner is doing the community a favor over the holiday weekend. He's one of those rare good guys. His major business has been providing water via tanker trucks to the companies drilling Marcellus Shale natural gas wells. That business has obviously taken a hit under the current whatever you call it.
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Been holding steady for about the past month at $3.59 for 87 in my hometown here in West Central PA but that's generally the lowest price station in about a 40 mile radius.
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Fords won all three NASCAR racing series championships over the past weekend. Congrats to Ryan Blaney in the Cup Series, Cole Custer in the Xfinity Series and Ben Rhodes in the F-150 bodied but Ilmor (GM) spec engine powered Craftsman Truck Series.
Should be interesting to see what rule changes are made over the off-season to prevent such an unacceptable thing from happening again. LOL
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4 hours ago, tbone said:
Haha, I don’t mind. Since the truck uses Raptor headlights, it does look like a Raptor light with those wheels. I do think it looks good and I’m glad the setup is meeting your expectations. However, I’m still looking forward to the supercharger setup?
I read there’s a new Ford Performance 800hp setup now for Mustangs so maybe one for the F150 down the road…
The Coyote in the Mustang is rated about 80 hp more than in the F-150 even without a blower so it doesn't surprise me that it would be about the same difference when both have the same supercharger added.
Here's the Tremor with all four new tires installed.
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Well, I couldn't take the constant rocks bouncing off the bottoms of the running boards any longer so I started looking at different tire options. I decided to try and find a wheel and tire combination that would not require any modifications to the suspension, crash bars, speedometer, etc. while still giving me a more aggressive, off-road look.
Keep in mind that I also have a set of 2019 Raptor take-off wheels that I had been using on my 2018 F-150 before I traded it on the Tremor. The Raptor wheels also have a +33mm offset vs the +44mm offset of the stock Tremor wheels.
What I settled on was a set of General Grabber X3 tires on the Raptor wheels. I know tbone (just kidding) will give me crap about trying to make my Tremor look like a fake Raptor but I think it actually looks pretty good. The tires are size 33x12.50x17 which makes them almost the same overall diameter as the stock 275/70R18 General Grabber ATX tires but about 1.5" wider and with a much more aggressive tread. The width is also about the same as the base BFG tires used on the Raptor. By using the Raptor wheels I was able to keep the tires from extending too far outside of the body while having zero clearance issues. It couldn't have worked any better if I had planned it that way. LOL
So far I have only installed the one on the driver side front which I did mainly because I wanted to check clearances and the possible need for fender flares before installing all four. I obviously need to clean the wheels as well.
Not only do the X3s fit perfectly but they were also about the least expensive tire in that size range. Walmart had that size on sale for about $40 per tire less than Tire Rack plus General had a $100 mail-in rebate on the purchase of four tires.
BTW, these are also the same tires I have on the Bronco all-be-it in a slightly different size so I do have some prior experience with this tire design. Tire Rack also did a comparison between these Generals and similar tires from BFG, Firestone and Cooper and rated the Generals the highest.
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I know political discussion is taboo but I suspect that another influential factor affecting the industry's hesitancy to jump all-in is that the 2024 presidential candidate who is currently leading in most polls doesn't seem to agree with the current government's plans. The reality is that if government subsidies and incentives are reduced or eliminated that would also have a pretty drastic effect on EV sales...
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I saw a post on another forum from someone who had the Ford Performance SC kit installed on his 2023 5.0L Tremor by the dealer before he took delivery of his truck. I was a little surprised that he did not know that Ford had made some major changes to the 5.0L in the F-150 for the 2021 and newer model years. He said that he did not understand why the dealer had refused to replace the oil pump gears before installing the supercharger. He did not know that Ford had switched to a belt driven oil pump on the F-150 5.0L until I told him which kinda makes me wonder if whoever he was dealing with at the dealership was even aware of that.
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20 hours ago, tbone said:
I saw that about the Roush kit. Looks like it puts a little more power out than Fords. Is there any benefit to purchasing the Ford performance kit over the Roush kit in respect to warranty matters?
That's a really good question but so far I'm not finding any concrete answers. Ultimately, I will probably have to talk to a Roush/Ford Performance dealer such as Beechmont to get the correct info.
Anyway, here's what I've found so far.
The powertrain warranties seem to be similar but it's hard to find warranty info on the Ford Performance kits for the gen IV Coyote in the F-150. What I have found so far on the FP website only applies to pre-2021 vehicles. You have to sort through all the legalese but it appears as though the FP supercharger warranty might not void the entire factory 5yr/60k mi powertrain warranty the way the Roush warranty does. That's kind of a bummer since the powertrain warranty obviously covers more than just the engine.
I'm probably missing something there though and, as I said, what I have found so far doesn't cover post 2020 F-150s anyway.
Also, both warranties say they are for 3yr/36k mi but there's a caveat. Both apply from the time of the vehicle's first in-service date, not the date when the kit was installed. So, if you've owned your truck for 6 months and it has 10k miles when the SC kit is installed, your new powertrain warranty that comes with the kit is only good for the next 30 months or 26k miles, whichever comes first. Saying that these kits come with a 3yr/36k mile warranty is a little misleading because that's really only true if the kit is installed before you take delivery of the truck. And, if you put one of these kits on a 4 year old truck you aren't getting any powertrain warranty at all and I assume you would also void whatever is left of the original powertrain warranty, at least in the case of the Roush kits.
Again, I haven't seen the warranty data for the '21 and up F-150 kits from Ford yet but I doubt the start date portion has changed.
As I said before, now that there is also a Roush kit that works with Pro Power Onboard I am sort of leaning in that direction, especially since my truck already has the Roush CAI. It also doesn't hurt that the Roush kit is a little less expensive and has a 45 lb ft higher max torque output. But the potential warranty differences are still an issue that could sway me in the other direction.
I also mentioned this one before because I thought it was kind of bizarre and, since we're talking about warranties, I thought it was worth mentioning again. I was told by a dealer that with the pre-2021 Coyote in the F-150, Roush would void your powertrain warranty if you replaced the factory gear driven oil pump with a stronger aftermarket billet unit. According to the dealer, Roush did that because they felt that their kit was designed to work within the limitations of the factory oil pump and could not assume that whatever aftermarket pump you used was as good as the factory pump. However, I have seen way too many reports of the factory gears failing in high boost applications. If I had to choose between losing the Roush warranty and potentially destroying an engine, I'm going with the better gears every time, warranty be damned.
That is obviously not the case with the '21-'23 gen IV Coyote in the F-150 since Ford went with a belt driven oil pump on those which can supposedly handle much higher power figures and should not require an upgrade. That to me is a really big deal because not only do you gain a huge amount of reliability, but replacing that oil pump is not inexpensive nor is it a simple task. Thank you Ford for finally getting rid of that weak link! Or so they say...? -
After photos of the body repairs performed by Spitzer Ford - Lincoln of DuBois, PA:
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I picked up the Tremor from the local dealer's body shop yesterday. They fixed all of the body damage that was on the truck when the dealer in Indiana delivered it and it turned out awesome. Unlike those clowns in Indiana my local dealer has been upfront about everything they have done for me and so far the only thing it has cost me is my time and inconvenience which are really all on the ass clowns in Indiana. Speaking of that cost, I also received a copy of the invoice for the body work. The total came to $1386.71, which again, will unfortunately be billed to the company that originally delivered the truck to the selling dealership. That included repairing and repainting the passenger side bedside, repainting the outside mirror on that the side and removing the dimple on the top of the driver side front fender. I also had them replace the TREMOR decal on the driver side as it was applied crooked from the factory. BTW, according to the decal on the doorpost, my truck was built in January of 2023. How on earth could it have sat either on the dealer's lot or in some holding lot in Detroit for that many months with obvious body damage and never had anyone even attempt to repair it prior to selling it? Hell, the dealership even added dealer installed accessories like the splash guards and couldn't fix the obvious body damage first? Not to mention the fact that they had photos of that side of the truck on their website. Total BS IMHO. As I've said before, all of the evidence points to the damage having been done AFTER the dealership took delivery and I have absolutely no reason to believe anything the selling dealership has said otherwise.
One other defect that I hadn't mentioned before was that the cruise control never worked from the day I took delivery. That turned out to be a loose wire connection on one of the sensors inside the front bumper. What's both interesting and disgusting about that is that it was probably never connected properly on the assembly line. One might think that it could have been knocked loose sometime after the selling dealer took delivery but that seems almost impossible considering the fact that the entire area behind the bumper is protected by a huge skid plate and there was no visible damage to the painted bumper itself. You can't even reach up in there with your hand. The local dealer's tech had to remove a plastic cover from the front of the bumper just to be able to access and push the wire connector on properly. Why is that disgusting? Because the delivery driver made a big deal about how great it was to have used the Adaptive Cruise Control on the entire 500 mile trip from Chicago. Right. If you believe that I've got a bridge for sale in....well, you get the point. BTW, that driver also happened to be what the sales manager referred to as "one of our F-150 specialists". In other words, he was also a car salesman. All I can say is don't ever buy a vehicle in the Chicago area from anyone named Tresten. Lying SOB.
In my opinion, a lot of this also points to piss-poor or nonexistent dealer prep. I also found factory assembly decals on the rear seatbacks which were visible from the rear of the truck along with tape on the inside of the power sliding rear window that should have been removed during dealer prep. Who knows what other stuff (like fixing the cruise control) they didn't do or check during dealer non-prep?
Speaking of that, the sales manager also made a big deal of how the delivery driver was going to take the truck to a car wash and detail it before he came to my house which is something else that never happened even though the driver literally told me that he "called three people just to make sure the truck would fit through the automatic car wash" which was less than fifteen miles from my house. Again, lying SOB. I know exactly which car wash that was because I told him to use it and how to get to it during a phone call while he was in route. As I told the sales manager, if there are security cameras at the car wash, they will prove that my truck was never even there. When he got to my house, all four tires had dried mud on them and I later found dried mud inside all four wheel wells which I took photos of and sent to the sales manager. When I questioned the driver about that and the fact that he had just told me the story about the car wash his only response was "I have no idea where that came from." Good grief! My guess is that mud got there during a test drive or some other off-road adventure after it was delivered to the selling dealership and that is also probably when the body damage occurred. Come to think of it, Tresten also told me that his family owns property in Indiana that has "lots of ATV trails". Hmmmm?
And dealerships wonder why people hate the whole car buying experience. This one has obviously been an f'ing nightmare!
One of my next obvious purchases is going to be a license plate frame that doesn't have that wonderful dealership's name on it.
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Just received an email today from Roush Performance. They just released a new supercharger kit that is designed for the F-150 5.0L with Pro Power Onboard which gives me another option to consider. Still rated at 705 hp and 635 ft-lb which are higher numbers than the Whipple kit from Ford Performance. The Ford kit is rated at 700 hp and 590 ft-lb. My truck already has the Roush CAI so hopefully that will work with the Roush SC kit although it appears that the kit does include a new CAI anyway. Shouldn't be too difficult to sell whichever CAI I don't need.
Six-Pack of Identical Ford Pinto Wagons for Sale, In Case You Were Looking
in Ford Motor Company Discussion Forum
Posted
I had a '72 Pinto Squire wagon, fake woodgrain, chrome roof rack and all. I bought it in '73 when gas prices shot up. It had just over 6k miles and was a 2.0L 4-speed, red w/black vinyl interior. After a couple of years I pulled the drive train out and replaced it with a 289 with a C4 auto trans and 8" rear axle assembly, all from a '65 Mustang. Fit surprisingly well and the fuel mileage wasn't bad either. I ran it that way for a few more years before replacing the 289/C4 combo with a 351W 4V and toploader 4-speed from a '69 Torino GT. Now that was a true sleeper and a really fun little car.