boegey

Thanks, I'll keep checking in and have a crawl under my dash and truck to look for an adjuster. Boegey

I'm looking for a little help. If any could assist, I'd appreciate it. I have an '04 F150 Super Crew FX4 with the auto tranny. It has around 65,000 miles and is out of warranty. I use the parking brake religiously (manual transmission folks will understand my constant use of this brake). At this point, it feels like the cable has stretched and the pedal goes to the floor. It barely holds my truck and cannot hold it when my boat is hooked up. (The boat is around 3500 pounds with trailer.) Is there an adjustment anywhere for this? Can I take up the slack someplace or adjust something back by the rear calipers? Thanks for any help that you can offer. Boegey

Trish, I've been boating most of my life and have had trailers with surge breaks. Some have a lock out feature such as a lever or a pin as you have but not all. My present trailer, an Eagle brand, has no such lock out. Reversing very SLOWLY, with my trailer, will not cause the brakes to engage or at least not enough to prevent backing. I believe the solution to your problem is your lock out pin that you mentioned earlier. Anyway, your surge brakes function exactly as you described. They have no electrical input but are purely mechanical. Of course, some brand new electro-mechanical device may now exist but I doubt it. If your boat is new, talk to the marine dealer that you bought it from for clarification. If you bought used, you could attempt to contact the manufacturer or the person you bought the boat from. Most boaters are happy to help others if you ask. (It speeds up time to launch their boat if the people in front of them know what they are doing - resulting in lots of cooperation.) I guess I'm echoing Derek but suggest the dealer for answers if your boat was bought new. Boegey

Its the solenoid. I had a 2000 Windstar with the exact same problem on the driver's door. To my surprise, my local Ford dealer had one in stock (this kinda told me that this may not be an uncommon problem). I replaced the solenoid mechanism and everything was fine until about three months later when the passenger door did the same thing. One more solenoid replacement fixed my problems. Boegey

Before getting the wife the Mountaineer, we also looked at Edges and MKX's too. Why does the Vista roof on the Ford cost (if my memory serves me correctly from Ford's build web site) around $1200 and the exact same vista roof in the Lincoln cost around $1800? This is only one example of identical options having different price tags. All I can figure is that Ford feels they can gouge the Lincoln buyer a little more due to Lincoln buyers generally earning more income than the Ford buyer. Boegey

I know the base price of the Ford is less than Mercury but sometimes the Mercury is less than the Ford. For example, I just bought my wife an '07 Mercury Mountaineer AWD V-8 Premier (basically it has all the options except the rear seat entertainment system). Using the Ford web sites, I attempted to build a comparable Explorer Limited and an optioned up Explorer Eddie Bauer. My Mountaineer stickered for $38,000 and change while the Limited stickered around $42,000 and the optioned up Eddie Bauer stickered for more than $43,000. I'm not sure why Ford does this but it saved me 4 -5 grand. Boegey

You've probably had your Mountaineer to the dealer by now and I'm guessing some sensor in the Advance Trac failed. The Advance Trac can pull back timing and/ or fuel to reduce engine power and can also apply brake pressure to individual wheels. All this is to aid in maintaining control of your vehicle. I'm assuming a sensor went bad and the Advance Trac was pulling power away from the engine in response to a bad input. Stopping the vehicle and restarting probably reset the faulty sensor until the next occorrence. I am curious as to what the dealer found. Boegey

Therefore, if this info is correct, you can see that the suggestion to screw over the spouse is totally up to the retiree. They can take fully earned pension payments which could screw a spouse over if the retiree dies first. But if the spouse receives recurring pension payments after the retiree's death, it is beacause the retiree chose to receive reduced benefits to see to his/her spouse's needs. Your original suggestion would therefore have no merit or cost savings. Boegey

I am not a retiree but I believe when a worker retires they are offered one of three options. Choice 1 - 100% of their monthly pension payment for worker and spouse and when retiree dies the spouse gets nothing. Choice 2 - The retiree and spouse get 66% of monthly pension payment and when retiree dies the spouse gets 33% of the monthly pension payment for their life time and Choice 3 - the retiree takes 50% of the monthly pension payment and the spouse continues to receive the 50% after the retiree dies. The bad part of these options is that the retiree cannot change his/her plan if their spouse passes away first. For example, say you retire and take the 50% deal so your spouse has a steady income after your death but your spouse actually kicks before you do. You cannot go back to Ford and change to Choice 1 and get the full 100% pension monthly pension payment. Boegey

The Navigator was originally a 4 valve 5.4 motor making 300 HP. The new 3 valve 5.4 makes the same 300 HP and uses variable valve timing. The 4 valve is more expensive to boot. Also, Cobras were 4 valve 4.6 making 305 HP and todays GT uses a 3 valve variable valve timing 4.6 to make 300 HP. The variable exhaust valve timing also increases torque over the 4 valve non variable motors. Boegey

Title header from that article "Toyota's truck could make a big mark" Yeah, a big black mark on the pavement after the engine pukes out a couple of cam shafts!! Boegey

Sort of like what Mad Max used on his Aussie Interceptor. It always seemed if you can clutch an A/C compressor, why not a blower? I'm sure I over simplified this but seems cool anyway. Boegey

Yes, they will save money and I don't believe Ford is trying to hide that fact. I used to work at Twin Cities Assembly Plant (TCAP) in St. Paul, TCAP went from 1800 Ford employees down to 100. The rest are all Temporary full time contractors. Most of these people qualified for one of their four retirement buyouts. They receive their retirement benefits (including medical and such) plus double dip by earning a pay check doing exactly the same job they did before the buyouts. So, you see getting all of those temps is not much of a problem. Also, talking about transfers, good luck!! At TCAP, I understand 1 (yes - one) employee got a transfer. Boegey

First, the point is that these people broke current laws and need to be dealt with accordingly. Secondly, I have to add my two cents to this 'stealing' of indian land (not that this has a hill of beans to do with the topic at hand). I am not native american but grew up 2 miles from a reservation and attended school from k-12 with native americans. Here is a little of what I have learned growing up with these folks. Indians never had the belief of 'land ownership'. They believed that no man could own the earth. So, when the white man (laughing at the stupid indian) negotiated the purchase of indian land for almost nothing, the indian chiefs were laughing at the stupid white man for giving them currency, goods or whatever to own something that no man could own. The 'taming' of the west was no more than a war between native americans and european settlers. The indians lost - period, end of story. The statement that the indians were conquered is an accurate description. Had the outcome been different with the native americans 'winning' this war, I doubt they would be tolerant of mexicans (or should I say native north americans) illegally immigrating into their country. Boegey

[] After months of looking at Edges, MKXs, Explorers, Mountaineers, S40s, S60s, Zephyrs, and MKZs, my wife bought an 07 Mountaineer (V8, AWD, Premier) two weeks ago. I couldn't get her into a sport sedan for the life of me. She had a '91 Explorer XLT when our kids were babies and after the 'Soccer Mom' Windstar, she couldn't wait to get back to her mid size SUV. I'm not certain what drove her desire for the Mountaineer over the Explorer LTD. Styling might have been part of it but I think the $4000 lower A-Plan price on the Mountaineer over the Explorer was a huge factor. (The Mountaineer had every option except rear seat entertainment system - so the Limited Explorer was an apples to apples comparison and the Mercury was still $4000 cheaper!!) Go figure. Boegey

The only tubes are the 'main' horizontal tubes. It appears only the fins were mashed. If the A/C no longer works, it is because the main tube was punctured and your refrigerant charge leaked out. Boegey

Thanks for this info. The wife and I are looking at '07 Mountaineers and she was curious what minor tweeks would be made for '08. This should answer her questions. Boegey