4WD dash indicator on 2008 F-250 SUPER DUTY

[Pat]

Egon, I've had 4 inch exhaust on it since I first started in on it before it was a year old and a large free flowing muffler that is a bit louder.

Weight in the bed???? Don't you think the service body, contents of the cabinets, and the 65 gal fuel tank are enough? Basically weight alone is not a winner as the same weight that provides traction provides inertia to retard acceleration. Better weight distribution and weight reduction provide better acceleration.

Pat

[Pat]

Egon, Nancy moved 4 drums of it, we did one together and then the next day I did a ton and the day after well over a ton. There is only maybe 2 - 2 1/2 barrels left to transfer. Herd size is not going to grow all that much and I have had a brain storm for doing all this transfer with no buckets next time.

I have fully intended to install a cyclonic dust collection system in my shop. So Al I need is a flex hose to vacuum the feed out of the trailer and into a drum. No mods to the dust collector. Just fill a drum roll thle drum away on its little dolly wheels and use the FEL to put the drum on the util trailer. Put the dolly wheels under the next empty and place under the cyclone. I won't need a bucket and the tractor will do all the heavy lifting.

The dump trailer is 7x12x2 feet and the load of feed was about 3.7 tons. My buddy is considering enlarging his top hatch to better access it with a 2x4 board to spread the top of the load to take a little more feed. That should reduce the part I need to take so he can take the whole load and qualify for a discount.

I tell you that 7400 lbs of feed at 34 lbs per bucket lifted over the side of the trailer while standing on the ground is a good exercise. That is about a 4 ft lift or more ending with your hands above your head. I made it easy for my wife by putting the barrels next to the trailer so she dumped from the trailer into the barrels which was way easier but the barrels have to be moved by tractor and there is no room to maneuver so I put the barrels where I wanted them and carried the feed to the barrels two buckets at a time, 5-6 trips per barrel.

I think the cyclone will be the hot setup as it will virtually eliminate the hard work. Of course it will not get the feed out of the barrels to the stock. But I have plans of feeding them at the barn where the feed is stored so that won't be too hard. If I feed them in other pastures I will use the FEL to put a barrel of feed in the pickup and just dip it out to them with a bucket, again, not too hard.

Again my thanks to Pappy for the instructions. All is well with the 4x4 low range now that Pappy helped me fix the short between my headsets.

Pat

[Pat]

Pappy, What sort of override do you get on my consulting fees?

The most fun I ever had all at once as a consultant was driving in Baja California Mexico we came across two young couples in a brand new (still had the temp paper plates) 4x4 Land Cruiser. They had pulled off the road to use the 4x4 and were stuck nearly up to the axles. They waved us down and wanted to know if I would use my front bumper mounted winch to pull them out.

I said let me have a look at the vehicle first. I hopped in, TOOK OFF THE PARKING BRAKE checked to be sure it was in 4x4 and side stepped the clutch. sand flew all over them from all 4 wheels and the land Cruiser leaped up out of the sand and I drove it to the road and put it into 2 wheel high and shut it off.

They were very appreciative and extremely curious as to what I did to make it work. It seems they drove a little way off the road, parked it and got out to look at the cactus flowers and when they got back in the vehicle just dug in and wouldn't go.

I explained that was not surprising as they had not taken the parking brake off when they were trying to continue their off road adventure. It was their first 4x4 and they had no clue.

I felt only slight apprehension as we left them to their own devices.

Pat

[jml755]

Been reading this thread with some bemusement.
Question 1: Did anybody look in their Owner's Manual?
Question 2: If so, didn't the manual explain the method? If it didn't, a letter to the mfr would be in order.

Don't mean to sound smart alecky, but it used to be that you could buy a new car and not have to read the manual. ALL functions were obvious. Nowadays, they've got all kinds of functions, switches, warning lights with mysterious uses.

Example: Daughter called last year and her new Jeep Grand Cherokee wouldn't go above 20 MPH. Was headed to the dealer. Told her to check the transmission PRND indicator on the dash. Normally it's on "D". Moving the console mounted shift lever left or right, will set the maximum gear range. Her indicator said "1" (first gear). No instructions from the dealer when she bought the car. Now she knows what the "+" and "-" to the left and right of the lever mean. Turns out she (or her dogs) bumped the lever. Now that WAS in the manual, but who reads the manual cover to cover when they buy a new car? Luckily, my wife had the same model and one day I was curious about the "+", "-" on the console and checked the manual.

Another example. Driving the wife's Grand Cherokee last Sat nite during first snowstorm of the year. Noticed button on dash with a graphic of the rear of the car and squiggly lines behind the tires. Pressed it and the same graphic lit up on the dash. Wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad thing to do during a snowstorm. LOL. This thread reminded me that I have to check the manual tonite on that one.

[jimbrown]

Posted on the other site but.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well we bought a new truck. A Chevy Avalanche so no one has to ask. I sit down at the table with my coffee and think I ought to read the owners manual. Hah! The thing is 680 pages long. Huhhh the operators manuals for none of the helicopters I ever flew were that big. There are over 30 pages of how to work the seat belts. Come on the ejection seat manual for an F16 ain't that big. I don't think there is a single page with out a big bold block saying you will be maimed or die if you don't follow these instructions precisely.
Yikes I don't recall more than two or three of those things in the operators manual for an M60 tank and it is designed to kill people. I read the instructions for how to calibrate the on board tire monitor three times...i am gonna just use my tire gauge. There can't be more than one person out of 10,000 na make it 50,000 that ever reads one of these things. Oh and I kinda wanted to know how the active fuel mangement sytem worked. The system where it shifts from 8 cylinders to 4 under light load... Not a word.

[Bird]

Sounds perfectly normal to me. The manufacturers of those helicopters and the ejection seat in the F16 didn't have Ralph Nadar going after them and they didn't have lawyers all over the country looking for a way to sue them like the car manufacturers do. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] It really has gotten ridiculous, hasn't it? [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Pat, in some transfer cases the planetary for low range has the low range outer gear attached to the front half of the case. In that situation, one set of teeth is totally stationary and one would be moving, making low range engagement almost impossible. By stopping and going to neutral, the slider can move and engage that stationary gear to the planets without breaking something. One of our Jeeps is that way and one isn't. This push button business is for high skool kids, it's levers for us old dogs. I even feel insulted when the transfer cases only have one lever so I split the Model 205 in my pickup to get the second lever back. I grew up shifting WWII GI six-bys that were the same age as me. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] We used those GI transfer cases as "Oklahoma Seven Speeds" by going through the five main transmission gears with the transfer case in low range then shifting to high range and back to fourth and then up to fifth. We were real tough truckers back in them days with our GI hay haulers. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Dave, I have only had one Jeep. It was a 1943 Ford. A previous owner had rebuilt the transfer case with DIY gears (worked for Convair and had access, no doubt, to a good machinist.) When their home brew stuff finally broke I tried to buy parts to fix it, my only time inside a transfer case. Stock gears would not mate with their custom so I changed out the whole transfer case for a new one still in its Korean war wrappings. It cost me $75.

I have two friends who both have deuces so I have driven them off road. This 2008 F-250 4x4 is the first electric-turn-a-knob-4WD I have ever driven. Hopefully it will work for a long time.

Pat

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] After z'war, the US had oodles of GI vehicles in the Far East, and repair depots were set up in Japan to recondition them for Korea and to give the Japanese something to work on that halfway brought them back to the world of the living. Your Jeep transfer case was doubtlessly part of that enterprise. A former sailor told me that he saw stacks of Jeeps, still KD in crates, by the hundreds sitting on the docks in the Phillipines when the z'war ended. I can still remember seeing ads in magazines advertising army Jeeps for $50. Of course that was usually a come-on since everyone wanted to have a Jeep. The ad was really about some other thing. I knew a family whose house was built out of Jeep crates dragged home from a surplus depot where two guys assembled Jeeps eight hours a day. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

I can remember the urban myth of Jeeps for cheap.

Oh, you might have to replace all the rubber parts as they will have deteriorated and be sure to change the fluids but other than that they are essentially brand new in the crate, just give the shady character there at the back of the pool hall your cash deposit to hold yours until the freight cars they are shipped on is unloaded in a couple weeks. They are going fast so don't wait. Maybe buy 3-4 and sell a couple to pay for yours making them FREE and keep one for parts.

Variations of this story (and scam) circulated widely in the late 60's and 70's. I have NEVER EVER seen a new WW II style Jeep that came to private ownership in this manner.

The best deal I ever saw was a buddy of mine bought a "parts runner" duce at 29 Palms (Marine depot) that never got off the depot and was used to shuttle parts around the base. It was stock and pretty cherry. It has one of the multifuel engines. You made no adjustments, just pour in diesel, kerosene, regular gas, av gas (not the highest octane but the lower couple grades were OK), JP-4 and similar, paint thinner or whatever in whatever proportion and it just ran on it. It was made by Studebaker in 1952.

The only civilian evidence was the California Lisc plate which was easy to overlook. It had new canvas and he bought a snorkel kit for it. He used it for various things including an RV. Just use a fork lift to put a drum of potable water in it and a pallet load of firewood and head out into the desert.

Pat