Basics: Is it the Elec. Motor, Wiring, Fuse, Relay or PCM?

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by BroncoHauler

Now you have my attention. I was a fairly hard core audiophile for years (pre-wife, pre-child), and I still have a Conrad-Johnson tube pre-amp, and a professionally rebuilt Dynaco ST70 tube amp that I hope to start using again, maybe after I retire and can set up a proper man-cave.


Herb

Nice Herb! I had a Conrad Johnson Premier 11A (ultralinear KT88's) before going down the rat-hole of designing and building my own...........perhaps we can discuss over on the campfire section so as not to derail this thread any further.......The ubiquitous ST-70 is a great platform for lots of mods, sort of the VW bug of the tube amp world......

[JWA]

Originally Posted by boywonder

One of my other hobbies/obsessions is designing and building vacuum tube amplifiers. These regularly use up to 500VDC, at least that's the maximum I'm willing to play with. Other folks build them up to 1000VDC, but that is way to much risk for me.

The strict rules for troubleshooting these is one hand in your pocket at all times or stuffed down your backside under your belt. This keeps the juice from flowing across your chest wall in the event that you screw up, which at these voltages can easily be fatal. I use clip leads on my multimeters so that I can test completely hands-off.

Wow---same here with the hobby, rebuilding/restoring Fender amps from '64 > '78. Safe to say---no pun intended---those of us poking around inside something similar have been zapped with a high voltage surprise. I was also hit with 480 VAC 3 phase power that flowed from hand-to-hand----don't wanna do that ever again!

It only takes smart people once or twice getting hit with those voltages to learn better test techniques---dumber ones take a few more times or Darwin takes over.

[E350]

Originally Posted by boywonder

One of the inherent beauties of 12V systems is that it's next to impossible to kill yourself with this voltage. ...

http://slpower.com/reference/An113%20Le ... urrent.pdf

Makes sense. I just saw a PBS program on Edison who was the nation's leading proponent of DC power. But because the distribution distance was so short and because the lines had to be so big, ad hoc the nation adopted AC power advocated by Westinghouse. While the battle between these to power sources raged, Edison funded for state prisons the electric chair which used AC power so that people would associate AC power with danger and death.

Anyone we know write the slpower.com article?

P.S. Sit facing aftward if you are riding on that train through Oxnard...

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by E350

P.S. Sit facing aftward if you are riding on that train through Oxnard...

The electric chair stuff is very interesting history, as are Tesla's contributions, and the friendship between Henry Ford and Edison.......

I ride the train south of there.......these days mostly the San Diego Coaster.....on it right now...sitting facing aftward, never in the front car....

[E350]

Update: Got the Dakota's refurbished replacement PCM today and installed it. Good news is that last week's trouble shooting seems to have correctly identified that the PCM was the break in the aux. radiator fan relay circuit. Because a third way to test the PCM which I didn't mention last week was that unplugging the engine coolant temperature sensor causes the PCM to say to itself "Dang! I can't communicate with the engine coolant temperature sensor, so I don't know how hot the engine is. Better turn the auxilary fan on to protect the engine from overheating and display a check engine light to let the driver know something is wrong." Last week when I disconnected the engine coolant temperature sensor, nothing happened. When I disconnected it today the replacement PCM turned the aux. radiator fan on, as it should have.

But the replacement PCM is throwing a P0136 "downstream O2 sensor" trouble code. And the replacement PCM will not link with the H.F. trouble code reader.* Since last week's PCM did not throw a O2 trouble code, and because it linked just fine with the H.F. trouble code reader, I suspect the replacement PCM is bad. This is the fourth PCM they have sent me...

So do any of you guys have a good source for replacement PCMs?

* One of the cool things you Dodge guys have going for you is that if you turn the ignition key from "key off" to "key on" three times, the odometer displays the engine trouble codes and says "P done" when it is done.

[E350]

Update: As I stated in a recent thread on contact cleaners and enhancers, it was not the PCM after all. It was the fan relay terminal in the 32-pin female receptical which plugs into the PCM which was corroded and had crystalized di-electric grease in it preventing it from making a good enough connection for the PCM to activate the coil in the fan relay.

I have been diagnosing a "no canbus" no start situation or various sensor "open relay" trouble codes in my wife's 2000 Dodge Dakota 4x4 4.7L gasoline engine over the past year. And have gone through 5 defective replacement PCMs since.

I just sprayed some CRC contact cleaner into the three female plugs and on the bright brass shiny pins on the replacement PCM which I just received earlier this week, let them dry for a half hour -- and when put back together, the engine started immediately.

It was "no canbus" a half hour earlier.

Now I think that all along the problem or one of the problems has been oxidation on the three female plugs on the harnesses where they connect to the PCM and that I may owe an apology to the replacement PCM provider who graciously kept sending me new refurbished replacement PCMs under warranty.

[E350]

Just purchased a Ford New Generation Star (NGS) to analyze our two Fords and came across this which I thought I would add to this thread:

[boywonder]

Here is the brilliant idea of the hour.......

If someone was interested in a van-based hobby that makes a little money to fund the van habit, they could buy various tools that we all need once in a while and rent them out for a small fee + security deposit, all done with paypal of course.....

Paypal the deposit+rental+shipping, receive the tool in the mail, use it and return. Lose or break the tool, lose the deposit and get a public shaming on the forum..

...perhaps an interesting way for jage to fund the ongoing forum expenses...just thinkin' out loud...

Stuff like code readers
speedo reset gizmo
Dana specific tools
Ford service tools
E350's relay gizmo's above
etc, etc......

[E350]

boywonder: I get it that many of us are almost becoming a shop unto ourselves (BajaSportmobile, I can hear you laughing...) I think we have a members-only section. So maybe I should post this there. But Tugly set up a B.E.S.T. Map (Brotherhood of Engine Scan Tools):

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... 5F24-dUkj8

which is a list of volunteer FTE Brethren who have Auto Enginuity or other special tools or knowledge so if you are driving your Ford 7.3L PSD and have engine problems you can email or text them to see if they are available to bring their AE over to help.

I am not yet in the category of being knowledgeable enough to help, but I just bought a Ford NGS tester and hope to one day know enough to be able to help others.

Since Sportsmobilers are travelers by their very nature, possibly something like that could be set up. Two categories come to mind. 1. Sportsmobile specific (i.e., house side) issues, and 2. Vehicle specific (i.e., engine/drivetrain) issues.

We do share a common interest. Do we have enough of a common culture to share tools and time other than what we do here?

Maybe, I don't know.

At ford-trucks.com there are annual RRE's (I don't know what that stands for) but they are meet ups where 7.3L owners go with their tools and help each other with Hutch and Harpoon mods and FRX installations and other such modifications. I don't know if that would be popular amongst our group, but working with others is always more fun and often more productive than working alone. And generally one and a half brains (where I supply the half) are usually more knowleadgeable than just me alone.

I used to be a member of Gold Country Paddlers (GCP) and every Independence Day between 100 and 200 paddlers meet up from across the country at the Trinity River in N. Cal. to white water kayak anything from Class 2 riffles to hairball Class 5 stuff. Paddlers are primarily good people because there is risk involved and we all know that we need to look out for others, because it is important that they look out for us and our boats if we take a swim.

I met one of my best friends on a GCP July 4 Trinity trip and then 10 years later my later to be wife on another GCP Trinity trip.

So meeting groups of other people who share a common interest has generally been good for me.

That said, I am presently so overwhelmed with what is on my plate now that I don't think I could help to either organize it or to participate in it once organized, but my guess is that the list should be available to members-only so that the server has a more private list with at least some basic membership info.

Maybe we should start thinking about crowd sourcing tools like boywonder suggested?
Or crowd sourcing knowledge in a face-to-face group meetup setting?

I don't know maybe we could brain storm something.

I will say this, if a group meet up is going to be planned for Sand Sportsmobilers and Snow Sportsmobilers it should probably be in the Summer sometime because I hate laying under my van in the snow...

[JWA]

Originally Posted by boywonder

get a public shaming on the forum..

Being the miscreant I am I like this ^^^ idea in any context or thinly veiled "reason"!

Completely kidding however I think the logistics and learning curve attached to borrowing or renting such tools might be the bigger sticking point.

What sort of time limits for use before returning? Would that be totally open-ended or a definite max time in-hand be in place?

Good idea on the surface---perhaps a bit more brain storming can produce a workable model.