War Eagle

Where oh where to put #44. George Washington, our nation's first president and leader of the American Revolution! Abe Lincoln, honorable leader who pulled our nation through its darkest time! Alexander Hamilton, founding father, first Secretary of the Treasury and leader of the constitutional convention! Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory " fought the British in New Orleans! Ulysses Grant, Union army general, led the North through the Civil War! Ben Franklin, genius inventor, political theorist and leading author of the Constitution. Finally, we have someone to put on the food stamp!!! Obama's policies have put more people on welfare than any president before him, so this placement is most appropriate. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, for which he did nothing, this is an "honor" he richly deserves.

No update yet. I've only put about 50 miles on the truck since I did the mod. I'm thinking a road trip has to be in the cards pretty soon.

X2

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. 'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa. 'Pencil', however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.' A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'? Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation. The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), 1. because: No one but their creator understands their internal logic; 2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; 3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and use 4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it. (THIS GETS BETTER!) The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because: 1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on 2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves 3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and 4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have got a better model. The women won.

Yup. These tires will never see any serious off road conditions. Been on some forest service roads but nothing where there is mud or snow or blazing a trail. In fact these tires are only on the truck from March thru October each year. Pavement Queen, huh? That's a badge of honor!

I have had two different experiences where my gen 3 truck stopped while driving on the fwy. One fix was the replacement of the lift pump and the other was the replacement of the cam position sensor. I called the first one (I could see it on my guages) and the second one took a diesel shop to identify.

I've had my gen 2 and gen 3 auto transmissions rebuilt. The gen 2 because I had to (it died) and the gen 3 because I wanted to for the intended use of the truck. The gen 3 was the most extensive due to the fact that it was going to be worked much harder (heavier loads and an engine that was higher hp) The gen 2 was a master rebuild (with one extra clutch disk) with HD single disk billet low stall converter, valve body, billet band anchor, kevlar band, govenor solenoid and transducer, drum and low and O/D sprag. There may have been a few other misc parts. The gen 3 has an exhaust brake and I tow and carry a load in the bed so this rebuild included master rebuild kit along with billet input shaft, valve body, billet band strut and anchor, replaced all plastic servos with high performance ones, billet accumulator, stronger 3-4 accumulator spring, billet flex plate, 3 disk low stall billet converter, roller thrust bearings and a few other misc goodies. Both tranny's have worked well but the gen 3 tranny is worked much harder due to exhaust brake, loads on the truck and higher engine hp. This also caused me to replace the flex plate on the gen3 but not on the gen 2. I don't race or do competition pulls so I didn't replace the intermediate or output shafts on the gen 3. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Those pictures look like they could be China or Thialand with all the bicycle riders on the streets. Been there in the daylight and evening hours and it is always the same. Looks just like those pictures.

Ya, I won't be pushing any snow or riding in the bottom of deep ruts!

Roger on that 2!

Roger on that!

I saw somewhere on one of the Dodge/Cummins forums that it was possible to modify your air dam by attaching a Gen 2 air dam to the Gen 3 air dam. I kind of liked the look of the deeper air dam so I thought I would look into it and see if I could make it work. The air dam also has a purpose of moving air down under the truck to help reduce the drag on the underside of the carriage (thereby helping mpg's on the truck). Now since I also have a Gen 2 vehicle it was pretty easy to measure things and evaluate whether it would fit well enough that I could be happy with it. I took a few pictures along the way to document what I saw as I made the mod and what it looks like when it was finished. First off are pictures showing the height of the existing Gen 3 air dam and what you see under the truck looking at the air dam level. You can see that the bottom of the stock Gen 3 air dam is a little less than 17" from the ground (with my 19.5's on) and you can see what hangs down from the undercarriage below the bottom level of the air dam. Looks like a perfect place for lots of air turbulence and drag. I ordered an aftermarket Gen 2 air dam on ebay and got free shipping and it cost me $64. I didn't want to spend a lot of money to try this out so I decided to go the ebay route rather than buy from the dealer and save myself over a hundred bucks. When the part arrived I was really impressed. Very good quality and thick material and wasn't flimsy at all. So I got a couple of small 'C' clamps and clamped it in place on the lip of the existing Gen 3 air dam. When I was happy with the centering of the unit (both side to side as well as back to front) then I drilled holes in the lower lip of the Gen 3 air dam and bolted the two versions of the air dam together. I used large pan head 5/16 x 18 screws with washers on both the top and bottom lips where the air dams are joined. On the end of the Gen 2 air dam I had to muscle the curvature of the air dam to better match the curvature of the Gen 3 air dam. Turns out the Gen 3 air dam is a little wider with a slightly different curvature as the end turns back toward each wheel. But everything bolted together pretty well and it looked like it was made that way. So here are some pictures of the finished product. I also took a picture from the front to show the new ground clearance of the air dam as well as how it has now covered up a lot of the undercarriage that was visible previously. Haven't been out much on the road yet so I can't tell if there is any measurable benefit ( but I will be hoping).

WHAT CONFUCIUS DID NOT SAY! Man who wants pretty nurse must be patient. Passionate kiss, like spider web, leads to undoing of fly. Lady who goes camping with man must beware of evil intent. Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion. Man who runs in front of car gets tired, but man who runs behind car gets exhausted. Man who eats many prunes get good run for money. War does not determine who is right; it determines who is left. Man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night. It takes many nails to build a crib, but only one screw to fill it. Man who drives like hell is bound to get there. Man who stands on toilet is high on pot. Wise man not keep sledge hammer and slow computer in same room. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. And, CONFUCIUS DID NOT SAY. "A lion will not cheat on his wife, but a Tiger Wood!"

I used to have a 1985 F250 that I put a Lund Sun Visor on. If my memory serves me well it looked very similar to these pictures.

I recently needed ball joints and did some research to try and determine a good brand at a price I thought was reasonable. As you can imagine there were plenty of comments both good and bad on all the brands I researched. It seems the common view was Cali was the best (they are rebuildable) but they are the most expensive (Way North of $600 a set). I even found some reviews where they were reported to not last. I think most people felt Dynatrac was just below the Cali and they were north of $500 a set. Then there are a bunch of other brands that people swear by and swear at. XRF had good and bad reviews also. XRF has a new design out that is the million mile label and supposedly it is an upgrade of the original design that has made improvements on the quality and life of the units, (they are north of $300 a set). I couldn't find very may reviews on them but I bought a set and installed them on my gen 3 truck this spring. They seemed very heavy duty (far heavier than the OEMs that I replaced) and are greasable (both upper and lower) units. I only have a few thousand miles on them so far so I can't really tell you that they are the cat's meow. But so far so good and I supposedly have a very long mileage warranty. So time will tell!

Beer and the Wheel, a History Lesson! The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. Beer required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These two were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: 1. Liberals. 2. Conservatives. Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement. Other men who were less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hairdressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men evolved into women. Others became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy Liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that Conservatives provided. Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass for obvious reasons. Modern Liberals like lite beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard Liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: many Liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most college professors, social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, film makers in Hollywood, group therapists and community organizers are Liberals. Liberals meddled in our national pastime and invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat. Conservatives drink real beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, engineers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies, hire other conservatives who want to work for a living. Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the Liberals remained in Europe when Conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing. Here ends today's lesson in world history. It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to this post. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be shared immediately to other true believers and to just piss-off more liberals And there you have it. Let your next action reveal your true self. I'm going to have another beer.

Could be an air leak some where in the system. I had a similar thing happen several years ago on my gen 2 truck. Found an air leak in the fuel system and tightened up the fitting and it solved my problem

My Smarty allows me to dial it in. I used my gps for my trip to Portland and back and the gps logged 850.6 miles and the odometer showed 850.2. Now the speedo shows about 2 miles faster than the gps. So when I set the speed at 65 on the gps the speedo shows almost 67 but the odometer reads as above.

X2 ^ But I think I made it work going from gas to diesel in my commuter cars! I have a '01 VW Jetta TDI that regularly gets 50+ in combined daily driving. I also have a '12 VW Passat TDI (clean diesel) that I regularly get 42 mpg in combined daily driving. This car replaced an '09 Toyota Camry that regularly got 31 mpg in combined daily driving. All the mpg numbers (gas and diesel) go higher if you consider only trip results but the overall results remain the same.

I have a son that is moving to Portland to go to school in the fall. Made 3 trips back and forth. 1 trip pulling a trailer loaded with household furnishing etc. Not a big one but a 6x12 flat nose which scaled at 4.5k and the bed of the truck was loaded also. GVW was at 14.9k. Got 16.2 mpg's going over and then 16.3 coming back unloaded, which I thought was not too bad. Made the 2 other trips over with stuff in the bed only (did not scale the loads) and on the first round trip got 22.2 mpg and on the last one got 22.5 mpg. All hand calculated. Nothing scientific but it is looking very positive for the freewheeling hub install. I can't say enough for how easy this thing is to drive and steer now. Don't really know how to explain it but it just feels so much freer or effortless. I'm liking things so far!

I also really like my 19.5s. No comparison to 16 or 17 inch LRE tires for stability and weight carrying. I carry a slide in camper and it loads my rear wheels to nearly 8k pounds. The 19.5s make carrying that load safe and sane. The LRE's just can't do it and with the softer sidewalls you get lots of sway and flex. The tires are smooth riding but they are a bit stiffer also when unloaded but with good shocks they are not as bad as I was expecting when I first put them on. I run these all spring, summer and fall. I put my 17's back on in the winter and run my Michelin LTX/2 MS because I get much better winter traction from them than I do with my 19.5s because I am running steer tires in all 4 positions. I am expecting to get at least 2x the tire mileage on the 19.5s as compared to any LRE tire that I have run on my truck. As an added benefit I am seeing a tad better mpg's out of the truck when I am running the 19.5s. Not sure whether it's because of less rolling resistance or the slight change in the final drive ratio due to wearing a taller tire than the stock ones.

Maybe the VP44. Yikes!

A US Marine enters the Catholic Church confessional booth in Jacksonville, FL. He tells the priest, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Last night, I beat the sh** out of a flag burner and an Obama supporter." The priest says, "My son, I am here to forgive your sins, not to discuss your community service."

I have a 2012 TDI Passat and it is a 'clean' diesel and uses urea. The urea tank is about 5 gallons in size and lasts about 15k miles. I just top it off at every 10k mile service interval. The TDI engine in the Passat has been the CKRA and in the Jetta, Golf and Beetle has been the CJAA. Passat TDI used urea from 2012 and the others did not but as mentioned 2015 the engines were changing and all were expected to get the urea treatment. I haven't snooped around any of the 2015 model stuff so I am not exactly sure what has transpired.