rockmeupto125

I thought you saw that coming. 🤪🤪🤪🤪 Yeah, bolts will tighten that up a wee bit. HF also sells a hitch anti-wobble plate.

I really neglected to think this through completely. You might have been able to use a smaller and lighter hitch with an extended ball. But I do think the HF hitch is a good purchase. It's adjustable enough for you to figure out what really works, is cheap enough for a throwaway or use it for miscellaneous metal stock when you're done. If it works but has too much slop for you, just set it where it's right and weld it up.

https://www.harborfreight.com/automotive/trailers-towing/hitches-receivers/8-in-1-adjustable-ball-mount-hitch-95991.html

Because of its size, it ships as oversized freight regardless of weight. Some things you just can't get around.

Cal, if you had just used the tool kit that came with the bike..... But I had my favorite little half round chisel that would bite into those soft screwheads.

And with springs, I kinda agree with you, Mike. Springs are one of many things that are very easy to make cheaper, and sell cheaper. I've seen really inexpensive springs collapse in a couple thousand miles, or be so soft right off that bat that they weren't worth changing out. Problem is, you have no indication except reputation that the ones you are buying are indeed the good springs and not the same ones that xyzimporting brought in and were rebadged.

And this is why we have these type of threads. There's a high level of trust that's been built here both in the level of expertise and the good faith of our community. I know I've received very good advice from our forum members. The fact that it may not fit my specific circumstance, or at times I choose to ignore it anyway, doesn't mean it is not appreciated and valued, it means I'm just stupid.

I know what I need. A 2009 Avalanche with a 6.0 and a towing package. Brilliant!

It sure sounds like it. I did a search in a for sale area, first one that came up had 150k on it, just replaced engine with 70k motor. 😄

I lot of things go through my mind, probably because it's like a sieve. As I explore options in the light of looming retirement, one avenue might be a new (cough, gag, retch) truck. The idea being that I'm not buying something someone else has beat up, and I can get what I want instead of someone else's hand me down to drive for the rest of my life. I would need it to do everything, which means it wouldn't be great at anything, but hopefully at least passable. One rabbit hole I've gone down is finding more in-depth information about the GM L3B 2.7 4-cylinder turbo, available in the Silverado and Canyon pickups (and their GMC counterparts). There's quite a bit of background information online, but you have to dig past the total idiots on youtube and forums to get to it. It seems to have the design and parts to be in the game for a while, as well as the performance spread to do no work, or lotsa work, with the tradeoff being that while it can get decent mileage unloaded, working hard is going to burn through fuel like crazy. Most of the time my truck is a car that's easier to get into and sits above traffic. I only pull a trailer a few thousand miles a year, and yes I would like 900 foot pounds of torque I would get with a diesel. I also would not like to do $100 oil changes, pay $2 more per gallon than gas, stink like fuel oil, and avoid listening to the engine for fear I'll hear a multi-thousand dollar noise. Anyway, check out the L3B.

Even if I didn't want to tow a trailer more than 100 miles at a time, I have an allergy to incendiary vehicles.

There's only one way to get enough power to do every day stuff and still meet stricter CAFE standards, and that is forced induction I've been looking whimsically at new trucks, and there just isn't the information out there to make good decisions about what a well designed system. Agreed with fur that equipment needs to be cared for aggressively, it would be nice to know things like how expensive is this turbo and how hard is it to change? What can be done to improve cooling and increase longevity. Etc, etc, but I'm interested where this thread goes.

50 years of corrosion is a hard thing to fight. I'd still try to sneak a screw in their and get a puller on it just to say I tried. That's the same principle behind the tool that icepick advocated. If there is enough of a hole that you can get a small pin punch or even a nail inside the roll pin, you could inject some grease or heavy liquid and then take a good wack at whatever you found that can fit inside the pin. Probably have to refill a couple times, but hopefully the hydraulic pressure might express the pin out enough to get the mightymighty vise grip onto it. At least it will be lubed for drilling

You don't have to take off any panels, just reach up underneath. Not so easy to do, though. You'll find some new ways to bend your arm, and probably some new words as well.

About 5 seconds before the solenoid kicks out. I had some quiet time with the hood open and a modicum of cooperation so I could hear. Key on, turn to crank, solenoid clicks and clunks into place, no crank. Repeated this times 5, went and bought a starter. Apparently the Ford has an OEM "can't get that bolt from here" bolt. Took me a while, but I got it. The real kicker was it appeared the previous skilled technician broke one of the bolts off and drilled it out just a wee bit off center before jamming a bolt in from the back side, so at least I had something to hang the starter on. After I went and got the core back is when I realized they hogged out the mounting hole so the last replacement starter could go in. I wasn't quite as subtle, but if you pay for a cutoff saw, it needs to earn its keep. Starts and runs, back to baseline

Project on hold until I diagnose and fix the slightly intermittent no crank condition (which means it occasionally starts). Pretty sure its a solenoid, rule out starter and ignition switch. Unfortunately the solenoid and relay are on the starter, unlike Fords of yore which one could spin over with a screwdriver in 4 seconds once the hood was open. <sigh>

So like furs video. Yeah I watched it and many like it. This is not what the truck is doing. It stutters when it's cold or under a good load, almost never when it's warm, and it comes, leaves a 301 code, and leaves. Otherwise nothing. 20230401_071552.mp4

To answer your prior question, yes, the red truck is gone, good riddance. It's complicated checking mileage, but I'm trying. It uses CNG until the pressure is too low to actuate the system, then switches to gas. So to figure CNG mileage, you have to make sure to get it, before it runs out, and it has to have a good sized sample because of pressure changes with temperature and such. And to figure gas mileage, it has to be run out of CNG. Bluntly, I haven't put enough miles on it to get a good figure.

Motorcraft plugs that were purchased from one of the local parts houses. Marty changed them before I bought it, he said they looked original, as in corroded as all get out, and the lower plugs were worse than the uppers. At best, it's slightly auditory and a stutter that's significant for 5-10 seconds then seems to slowly and gradually resolve to running smoothly. At worst, the miss is obvious. Loss of power that doesn't seem consistent with a single cylinder along with a judder and change of engine note. Today I took it on an 80 mile trip. A little stutter when getting on the highway 2 miles from the house, but didn't throw a code, and no pending codes registered. Smooth ther rest of the trip with several stops and a couple shutoffs.

I've seen that thread, and spent quite a bit of time trying to research even before I bought. My head scratcher is that it is inconsistent, and rarely occurs once the truck is warm. There's no secondary indication of a sticking valve such as weird noise from the intake, ticking/tacking, backfire, etc. And the CNG conversion has upgraded seats, valves, and springs. And if its mechanical, it shouldn't be intermittent. Metal doesn't break and unbreak randomly. But I suspect the compression test is next. Those spark plugs are BURIED in there.

I forgot to mention I can't run a mode 6 scan. I don't know why. Perhaps its a function of the ECU flash for the CNG conversion, but it wouldn't make sense to disable any of that for CNG. Iceprick, you should see these plugs in comparison to what you just suffered through. Threaded portion is about three inches long, I swear.

Okay, I picked up that truck I yammered about in the Pub. It's a 2015 Ford F250 Superduty 6.2 gas, 4WD Supercab equipped with factory duel fuel CNG. I get the impression of an abused mule. We're not really communicating. Not too long after I got it, I noticed some jerkiness that led to a P0301 code for a misfire on cylinder 1. I drove it for a bit, thinking some fresh gas might just straighten it out. It didn't, and the miss got worse. I bought a generic coil to replace the original. A quick review might be important here. The 6.2 in this year had a dual plug head. A coil over plug has an output for a traditional type of plug wire to transfer to the second spark plug. So I changed the coil, and things seemed to be better but not perfect. Shortly before NotRacer, I took the truck out for a long shakedown run, and low and behold, under heavy load, I again was able to generate P0301 several times, and once a P0308, although once is an anomaly. My "once bitten twice shy" side rented a truck from Enterprise to haul the trailer to Florida. Not doing that crap again stuck in Nowhere In The Mountains (Actually it was on Tater Hollow near Hillesville, VA). Now I'm messing with the Ford again. I swapped the spark plug wires from cylinder 1 and cylinder 2. I had changed the coil and still got the code. So now I swap the wire. If it's the wire, it should give me a P0302. If the new coil is not good, I'll still get P0301. And I still get P0301. Then I put the number 2 coil on the number 1 cylinder. And I still get P0301. Sigh. I'm trying to research what parameters trigger the misfire code, and all I can find is a deviation of greater than 2% engine rpm between consecutive cylinder fires. So what then? I've got a single cylinder misfire that does not follow the coil or the second spark plug wire. The truck has new spark plugs. even if one was bad, the other should provide adequate combustion, it being new and all. It's intermittent, and mostly occurs before full warmup. It does it whether it is running on CNG or gasoline. Each fuel has its own injector. There's nothing that would make me think it is air delivery. Changing spark inducing parts doesn't make a difference. Again, there's no reason to consider that both fuel systems are faulty in exactly the same way. And it's intermittent, which kinda rules out a broken valve spring, low compression, or mechanical fault. Arrrgh!

Hank, it looked familiar, but I didn't have time to do the research on it.

Actually, the VT reg should be enough to get you a title in most states.

No title "due to age." Right. Even I have a birth certificate, and I'm damn near salvage.