RE: Well I guess its official that the economy is in the dumps
As far as Harley Davidson and the RV industry.....if I remember correctly, HD was an owner of AMF, which was owner in some RV industry...though I can't remember if that is still the case.
AMF had purchased HD. During the AMF years, they produced some of the worst bikes in their history. After years of this a group of employees wound up buying HD from AMF and improving the bikes and quality control to what they are today.
Special protections from Congress were sought to protect them from the onslaught of Japanese bikes. These protections were later dropped when HD got back on their feet and were again profitable.
actualy it is kinda backwards, some of the best improvments were made to HD during thoes years, HD was a stagnant bike company befor AMF. when they bought it back they continued with thoes improvments which made HD a good bike again. if thoes changed were never made HD would be gone.
Steve
RE: 3 STAGE BATTERY CHARGERS
Had a WFCO OEM unit that died at 2.5 years. It was a 3 stage unit but boiled the water out of the batts.
I have had a WFO for 2 years in my rig and it stays plugged in year round. I have never had to add water to the batteries and I check them ever 3 months. maybe there was something wrong with the one you had?
Steve
RE: I believe in engine brakes!
why are you even quoting HP numbers when talking about diesels??
Maybe because Horsepower is the scientific method to measure work and I believe an operating diesel is capable of performing work? I could give all kinds of opinion but without scientific data to back it up it would be absolutely worthless. I suppose I could do it in BTUs or KW.
but horsepower is a dirivitive of speed and force, the force is torque. at any rate a gas engine and a diesel engine do not compare in HP or Torque so it is very hard to compare them to each other.
but to help you with your other question.. diesels actualy do have a lot of braking force with out a exhaust brake.. they have a much higher compression which is harder to turn over... the lacking part was our trannies and the fact that older ones used to only lock up in OD. my 99 ford will lock up in 2, 3 and OD and it did pretty good for stopping the trailer.. now I did add a exhaust brake and it works that much better as now the load has to overcome the compression of the engine, then the back pressure in the exhaust. now there is going to be differences between different diesels, dodge is a smaller displacment and only 6 Cyl so it will have less braking force than my 7.3 and so on.. at anyrate the OP liked his EB, I like mine, and I have never heard of anyone saying I put a EB on and hate it so there must be somthing there.
Steve
Steve
RE: I believe in engine brakes!
In those days the semis had big 230-250hp Cummins engines and 238 Detroits and we did fine. We didn't have disc brakes either. Trucks crossed the mountains for many years before high hp and engine brakes and without the shallow 6-7% slopes of interstates.
Today, even the factory 325+ hp isn't enough for a little pickup truck! More horsepower up and exhaust brakes etc down may be able to compensate for loss of intelligence on occasion but.... Too much gadgetry disrupts Darwin.
why are you even quoting HP numbers when talking about diesels??
the rig deisel with 230-250hp have about 1000ftlb of torque compared to a light duty diesel of 325hp only pushing 500 to 600 ftlbs huge differance when towing..
by adding more power in a diesel you are doing a few things, increasing efficiency, fuel milage and usaly if done right dropping egts. all this makes travel cheeper, more enviormentaly friendly and can help your motor last longer. a good example is I took my F250 from 500 ftlbs to about 900-950 ftlbs, I get better gas milage towing in the mountians than my F150 did empty. I can go up a grade 8 hill in overdrive at the 110kph speed limit with my EGTs down about 900 (pre turbo) with out the lock up clutch disengaging. By adding a exhaust brake I can go down that same hill safley with out touching the brakes and since the tranny is locked there is little heat build up as most heat is caused by the torque converter slipping. so my tranny is lasting longer, my brakes are lasting longer, my engine is lasting longer, and my gas money is lasting longer..
man I must be stupid to add that power and gizmos I didn't need.
Steve
RE: Driving in overdrive
you know I read a lot of misleading infor here that even confused me so I went out and read the owners manual on my 99 7.3 PSD. I have always towed in OD as I can pull up a grade 6 and stay in OD with no shifting in and out. and my owners manual confirmed that towing in OD is the prefered way and to only lock out if you are experancing hunting between drive and overdrive.
now after talking to the trans shop the only reason to lock it out when it is hunting is because it is disengaging and reengaging the lock up clutch and changing gears.. this causes faster than normal wear on the friction surfaces and the lock up converter on a stock 4r100 is the week part and localized heating from it locking and unlocking can lead to stud failure in this area.
Luckely I had my PSD ripped off a couple years ago and I was forced to have the tranny rebuilt so I did a bunch of upgrading.
basicky if you have a stock tranny if it is shifting in/out of overdrive, disable overdrive.
the old days of heat in overdrive is not realy valad here as when we are in overdrive our lock up converter is locked which meand direct drive and take the torque converter out of the equasion.. so less heat is generate.
old non-lock up type trannys are the ones you never want to tow in overdrive with.
Steve
RE: Ball angle on WD hitch?
when I set up my hitch the instruction stated the head angle is used to set the bar angle relitive to the trailer frame, nothing about how many links.. the theory behind this is that if your bars are at a agngle with the back down, when you tighten them it will flex your front end of the truck down. there are two things that realy mess up the operation, 1 is no angle, and the second is bars that bend when you hook them up. this means the bars you have are to light for the trailer. with mine set up at the proper angle when both the truck and trailer are level (as per instructions) I lock in on the 8th or 9th link..
I had the dealership set mine up originaly and I was hearing noises.. they didn't snug it up at all and they didn't install the head bolts to the proper torque either so I redid the whole set up.. not that hard just takes some time.
Steve
RE: 1/2T Towing...It's The Payload That Doesn't Make Them Work
while I agree it is good to be safe, I don't think figureing out your payload capacity is a good way to do it.. what realy matters is your axle weights and you can figure this out by driving into a scal when it is closed and do one axle at a time. with my new trailer and my old f150 loaded up for camping I found I was under on the front by 100lbs but my back was only 30lbs under. while I was safe leagaly I did end up moving to a diesel F250 but that was prompted more because the gas V8 just didn't cut it in the mountains and any way I drive I have to go through them. in hind site only being 30 lbs under my max rear axle weight didn't bcut it either. funny thing is I was still 1000lbs under my towing capacity.
Steve
RE: F150 vs. F250 - One Man's Opinion
StirCrazy, as good as the 7.3 is (I have one), your mileage must be from using Imperial gallons? Also, are your results hand-calculated over a number of fillups, or from a readout? Your results seem too good even for the ole 7.3.
thats over 7 tanks calculated by hand. of the midifications I made one was going to a single shot injector. makes it a little louder at idle but big increase in efficiency, this with the intake, exhaust, and DP tuner on economy mode. oh and yes this is imperial gal not US forgot about that. I guess 30mpg imp would be about 24.9 mpg us.
when I went to the diesel I gave up all the luxeries of a fully loaded F150 to a 2wd, no ac no power windows or lock, F250.. I am installing power locks next week, power windows after than and I just got a quote from ford for AC... I am retiring from the military this summer and moving tot he desert so I think I might need that LOL..
Steve
RE: F150 vs. F250 - One Man's Opinion
I remember reading in a 'shootout' article where they compared the two trucks (V10 and diesel Ford superduty) towing a heavy trailer, and the difference between their times climbing a steep grade....Was NOT that much, much less than diesel owners would want you to believe.
actually I have that mag, the speed want that much difference that is true, but the V10 had a rear end gear set in the 4.xx, where the gas was 3.73 which gave an advantage to the gase engine and it was still slower towing. the rest of the article went on to say that the V10 was redlining up the hill to get that speed, where the diesel wasn't.
the difference is that the diesel will be able to keep this up for 500K or more miles where running a gas engine that hard all the time will severely impact the life of the motor.
the biggest factor on the life of an engine is rpm the higher the rpm the quicker the motor burns out.. also the construction of the internals on a diesel are way more heavy duty which also correlates into longer life.
I can go on all day about why a diesel is better than a gas motor, but I won't.. I think it suffices to say that two years ago I would have never considered a diesel, now I will never go back to a gas engine.. we even traded in the wife's gas car for a new VW TDI, once again all I can say is wow, goes up a grade 8 in 6th gear and is getting 60mpg with out even being broke in and out accelerates 95% of the cars in its class.. considering I am a die hard ford man, going to the VW was also a big step that I tried to avoid :) but I am happy I did now.
Steve
RE: F150 vs. F250 - One Man's Opinion
I hope I can add something meaningful to this, I used to have a 98 loaded F150 and was in love with this truck.. we had a tent trailer and I got 21mpg in the mountains towing. 2 year ago we upgraded from the tent to a 29BHS wave and I found the F150 was severely under powered for that truck.. in the prairies I probably would have kept it and put up with the bad gas mileage, but on our first two trips I got an average of 9mpg pulling just under 8K and if I got stopped at lights at the bottom of a grade 8 hill I could only get up to about 65kph on the hill. I had a friend who had a V10 ford 3/4 ton and he told me to go for a good drive towing my trailer so I went the same route and purposely stopped at those lights again. while it towed better I still had to work the engine pretty hard to maintain the speed limit up a grade 8 hill. with the V10 I got about 12mpg. long story short.. I found a 99 7.3 power stroke for the trade in of my truck and a bit more.. I was amazed I once again went to the grade 8 under tow and stopped at the lights. in no time at all I was letting off the gas as I was doing 110 and the motor wasn't even trying, when I check gas mileage I was pulling 19mpg through the passes towing and it would stay in overdrive up to a grade 6 hill. recently I had to do some work to the truck as it was ripped off and driven into a lake. so I figured I would put in injectors, exhaust, intake, tranny, and a DP tuner multi function chip. empty I now get 30mpg on flat land, 28 in the mountains, and about 22 towing. as for noise, ya if your windows are open and your going slow in town you notice it, I put a new carpet in it and put some sound proofing under it and I can actually say it is just as quiet if not quieter than my F150 was on the highway.
one thing a lot of people get confused with is it isn't necessarily how much power the motor has that helps you tow it is how and where that power is applied. a V10 may have almost 500 ft-lb of torque, but that is at 4000rpm, how often are you screaming that engine that fast. before my upgrades I had a little over 500ftlbs at 1800 rpm... that is about high way speed so it is perfect for hills. after my upgrades I am probably pulling about 800ftlbs at 1800 rpm, getting better gas mileage, and pulling 8K lbs up a grade 8 hill in overdrive.
the 7.3 is the best diesel ford put out and if it wasn't for environmental restrictions of motors ford would have stayed with it. the 6.4 is nice, but gets bad mileage unless you remove the particulate filter and chip it. even then it is worse than a 7.3 but much closer.. the thing the 6.4 does have is quietness. I do have a setting on my DP tuner than allows me to quiet down my engine. it makes it much quieter than a 6.0L but not quite as quiet as a 6.4, but this is made for drivethroughs and not good for driving around in.
Steve
RE: Here is what I found out about L.E.D. Lights
I have been researching LED lights and this is what I came up with for those that are interested.
1. https://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/pcblamp.htm - I BOUGHT THIS ONE. (these will use 87% less than what the incandescent lights use and are 120 Lumens, 190 milliamps)
I have been using this one for about a year now. (1156-PCB-WHP9, warm white) some people seam to thing it won't save much but I can tell you in a 30 foot trailer running the furnace 24 hours a day, 2 hours of tv a night (I let the kids watch 1 move a day) and all you normal other loads, I have basically extended my camping time from 4 days in the winter to 6 days. they are plenty bright enough to read by, unlike my older led boards I replaced. I set them up so every single fixture has one and then on the duel fixtures the first one that comes on is the LED. if you bring on the normal there really isn't much difference with these boards.
Steve
