I'm a diesel mechanic.

Frogman

Frogman

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I promise to nicer if you promise to be smarter.
I was out in the middle of nowhere yesterday afternoon, looking for coyotes to educate. I stopped by my favorite gas station in town that sells about 2000 gallons of diesel a day as well, to top off my fuel tanks before heading out. Nothing worse than running out of fuel 80 miles in the middle of nowhere.

I pulled up to the semi truck pumps, got everything situated and started pumping fuel. The girls inside know my truck and automatically authorized the pump.

As I'm doing this, I see another pick-up truck, a 3/4 ton FORD pull up behind me. Instinctively, I looked at the license plate. California. Hope the guy isn't scared of slick roads. Guy gets out, runs his card and starts the diesel pump to fuel up his truck as he's looking at my truck. "Yup. Mine's bigger than yours" I thought to myself. I hit the 8/9 9/0 buttons on the door to lock the truck and went inside to get some coffee and flirt with the cashier girls. As I'm preparing the base for my coffee, guy walks in and heads towards me.

He says "Hey, is that your black truck?"
"Nope. I just stole it from some guy." Guy looks at me a little funny and I continued "yes, it's my truck... why?"

"That's a nice truck. I like that bumper. Why do you let it idle and waste gas?" he asks me. Note the gas reference. I didn't try to correct him.

"I don't know... because I want to, I can afford it and because this isn't California?" He looked at me a little funny when I said "California".

"It's idling too high", he says after a pause. "It shouldn't idle that high"

"Yes, I know it's idling a little higher than normal. It always high like that." I replied as I grabbed the coffee cup I prepared that contained the perfect creamer and half/half mixture, heading for the microzapper.

"I'm a diesel mechanic, that powerstroke shouldn't idle so fast. Something wrong with it, may want to have a mechanic look at it" he tells me.

I put the cup in the zapper, turned around, looked the guy dead in the eye and said "You're a diesel mechanic? Either you're full of schit or you're and idiot. Which one is it?"

I saw the guy puff up a little as he said "Why are you calling me names and an idiot? I'm just trying to be nice and tell you that there's something wrong with your truck".

"There is nothing wrong with my truck, you pinhead. If you are a diesel mechanic then you should know the term "wet stacking". If you don't, then either you're not a diesel mechanic and you're lying to me, or you're an idiot. Furthermore, I've never heard a diesle mechanic refer to diesel fuel as "gas". I didn't call you any names, nor did I call you an idiot. I was merely asking which one you are, so that I may know how to proceed in this conversation. So, which is it?"

Awkward pause as I hear the gears in the guy's head churning slowly. I wrapped my right hand around a coffee pot handle just in case the guy decided to do something stupid. Short of pulling out a firearm, the coffee cup was my next best option for a physical weapon. I suppose I could have grabbed a stirring stick and beat him with that if he tried something stupid, but damn it, that would have taken too long... and I didn't bring a lunch sack with me.

"I'm a diesel mechanic" he said again.

"Ok. And I'm an astronaut. Look up " diesel wet stacking" and educate yourself. Then look up "High Idle" and educate yourself some more", I said as the bell on the microwave went off. I pulled the cup out, grabbed the coffee pot, poured coffee into it and brought it to the counter as the guy is just staring me down.

I set the cup on the counter, turned around and walked up to the guy in such a manner that I looked as if I forgot some coffee condiment. I got close to him smiled and said "Do you have a problem?"

He looks at me, his touch guy face cracking a little bit and says "No. I just don't like being called an idiot".

"Would you like a problem, seeing how you don't have one? I would be more than glad to give you one or two. If you don't want one or more problems, you'd best go and finish fueling up your vehicle. I don't appreciate people staring me down. I don't play well when that happens... GO!"

Guy is a little stunned. He turns around, mutters something under his breath and walks away.

"I'm sorry? I didn't quite catch that. Did you change your mind and wish a problem?"

"No" he says as he walks out the door. I kept an eye on him just in case he was going to be a tough guy and do something stupid to my truck as revenge. He walked straight to his truck, hung up the pump nozzle, pulled the receipt out of the machine after a few moments, got into his truck and drove away.

I got back to the counter, gave the girls my fuel card, walked outside to hang the pump nozzles back up, walked back inside, signed the fuel card, grabbed the coffee cup (free coffee... they love me, what can I say) and walked out.

I noticed my truck idling at 1200 RPM... "Yup. A little high" I thought to myself as I depressed the brake pedal, which in turn killed the high idle switch and brought the idle back to base idle.

Diesel mechanic my ass...
 
Hey Frog---

We all KNOW you're wonderful!:D
(And I thought you were going to say that he put in gas instead of diesel fuel or vice versa.)
KS
 
That's what I thought ! Lol. If you use diesel , in most cases you'll call it fuel. Plain and simple. Or. Diesel. IMO if you had tool boxes on your truck or a whole Mech. Set up I would figure you know your truck and. If its idling high There's a reason or There's a problem and you'll fix it when your damn well ready. That doesn't sound like something a well seasoned diesel mechanic would say to another.
You didn't have to be so hard on him. Coulda just asked him if he was serious then if he were dumb.
 
Im gonna put this out there for fun... I worked for Ford as a Diesel Mechanic for 5 years and am actually Ford Master certified in Diesel Engine and Chassis. Now I work on Cummins and Detroit engines in buses. I don't know what wetstacking is, nor have I ever heard of it. However, I do know that the 6.4 has a factory high idle in it for cold weather. I am pretty sure in the factory programming along with the cold high idle, it has a turbo vane sweep and EGR sweep strategy to keep from coking them up. Great trucks when they are running good, but GOD I hated working on them. I began to prefer pulling ambulance engines over working on 6.4s...
 
Wetstacking.jpg
 
I looked around on Powerstroke.org and a lot of people kind of throw it around as an urban myth as far as newer diesel engines go, however, it means...

WET-STACKING
Wet-Stacking is a common problem with diesel engines which are operated for extended
periods with little or no loads applied. When a diesel engine operates without sufficient load it
will not operate at its optimum temperature. In order for a diesel engine to operate at peak
efficiency it must be able to provide fuel and air in the proper ratio and at a high enough engine
temperature for the engine to completely burn all of the fuel.
 
DieselDan said:
Im gonna put this out there for fun... I worked for Ford as a Diesel Mechanic for 5 years and am actually Ford Master certified in Diesel Engine and Chassis. Now I work on Cummins and Detroit engines in buses. I don't know what wetstacking is, nor have I ever heard of it. However, I do know that the 6.4 has a factory high idle in it for cold weather. I am pretty sure in the factory programming along with the cold high idle, it has a turbo vane sweep and EGR sweep strategy to keep from coking them up. Great trucks when they are running good, but GOD I hated working on them. I began to prefer pulling ambulance engines over working on 6.4s...
Click to expand...

I think the High idle thing goes back to the 7.3's. I know for a fact the 03 and up had the software built into the ECU, you just had to activate it by applying +12V to a certain wire that told the computer to kick idle up to 1200 RPM and lock the Torque Converter. The computer then checked and made sure the parking brake was applied and the transmission was in park.

Now, the 03 and up also have a different kind of high idle as well. This one will vary the engine RPM (up to 1200, I think), based on battery voltage. This is aimed towards specialty equipped vehicles like ambulances and vehicles with a lot of power drain due to lights, radios, etc.

So yes, all SuperDuty trucks have these options built in. It's a matter of user preference and configuration.


DieselDan said:
I looked around on Powerstroke.org and a lot of people kind of throw it around as an urban myth as far as newer diesel engines go, however, it means...

WET-STACKING
Wet-Stacking is a common problem with diesel engines which are operated for extended
periods with little or no loads applied. When a diesel engine operates without sufficient load it
will not operate at its optimum temperature. In order for a diesel engine to operate at peak
efficiency it must be able to provide fuel and air in the proper ratio and at a high enough engine
temperature for the engine to completely burn all of the fuel.
Click to expand...


Correct. At base idle, unburned fuel finds it's way past the piston rings into the crank case. Diesel fuel does not play well with oil and it wins by thinning out the engine oil.
 
I had a 2002 superduty with the 7.3 and it would idle higher when it was really cold out and I was in park for a few minutes and I had a 2006 6.0 powerstroke that did the same thing. I do believe that some of the aftermarket chips that were adjustable on the fly had a high idle setting. That biotch didn't know his a$$ from a hole in the ground!
 
The omen said:
I had a 2002 superduty with the 7.3 and it would idle higher when it was really cold out and I was in park for a few minutes and I had a 2006 6.0 powerstroke that did the same thing. I do believe that some of the aftermarket chips that were adjustable on the fly had a high idle setting. That biotch didn't know his a$$ from a hole in the ground!
Click to expand...

The 6.0 High idle was something they added in a later customer satisfaction program on the PCM. Along with some other cold start issues, like the FICM injector inductive warming that was blowing up the 48v inverters inside the FICM. When they added the programming at first we didn't know they did and with the truck idling in park with the parking brake on, they would idle up. It is not something that any of the 03-07 6.0s came with factory.
 
On my 03 I actually had to splice the high idle wire and give it 12V. I put a switch inline as I didn't always want the High Idle to kick on when I set the parking brake. But it was not a factory thing where it did "out of the box".
 
Then again, my 06 was back to the dealer several times:rolleyes: so I believe they re-flashed the computer in it. I should have kept my 02 7.3 dually.....dammit!
 
6.0s were awesome once ford figured them out. Head studs, EGR delete, and replace the snap-to-connect fitting on the back of the HP oil pump and the truck is mostly bullet proof. I hope to find a 6.0 excursion or an f450 one day that needs fixing up. Most people think the 6.0 is garbage, those people are misinformed.
 
Roomate is looking for a 6.0 right now... wants to get one that is broken and do the basic fixes and have a fun reliable truck.
 
However, stock for stock a 7.3 is more reliable. With a few fixes I would take a 6.0 any day.
 
My 6.0 had egr cooler deleted,arp head studs,pcv detete,elite diesel tune,cold air,turbo back straight piped so it ran real good. I just wanted a jeep srt8 for a while so I traded it.
 
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