Tire advice and outcome
From : edward ohare
Q: tom lawrence wrote hey all you cdt and other diesel owners what kind of fuel mileage do you average inner city and highway i get about 125% of a chebbie 1/2-ton while making about 2.5x the power and weighing about 50% more about 19mpg in mixed 50/50 driving... 21 on straight highway runs. 23 if i keep it in the right lane at 55. 15-16 if im playing make the rice rockets look even sillier. yeah right on the 2.5 x power. if the gas truck is geared properly it will pull just about as much as a oil burner will. it is all in the gearing. deisel are usually geared correct to match their narrow power/rpm range to the load while gas truck are rarely geared properly. i have hualed a 13k loaded equipment trailer a few time with my k3500 with not problems or big fuss. heck 30 years ago i was hualing 23k grain trailers 20 miles to a mill at harvest time before there was even the dream of a ctd dodge with a 72 gmc 3/4 ton 4wd with a 350 a 4 speed and 4.10 axle ratios and never had a problem getting the load moving or keeping it moving. it was traction limited in 2wd first/granny gear even when loaded and would frequently leave marks into the surface of the county roads when starting out because on the high torque loads placed are contact point of tire to road. i could even pull the loads out of the field in 4 lo most of the time if the ground was not too soft and again it was traction limited not power limited. a freind pulled too with a f250 and a 351 with 3.54 axles and a automatic but he would stall out with a load in soft ground and not even be able to spin the tires even in low range. it was no match for my old gmc in pulling power. that truck was one of the last of the beasts before emmissions set in big time. i used to pull a load 4 horse trailer with it a lot too and never had any problem hold speed in 4th on any interstate hill and got 10 to 11 mpg doing it too. one time when i was redoing a dam i hauled 2ea 5k cement drain pipes at once on a equipment float with a total weight of close to 15k 60 miles on the interstate atspeed limit without any real problems. you just need the gears and the proper drive line not a oil burner to move a lot of weight. -- ----------------- www.thesnoman.com .
Replies:
From : Annonymous
ah ya didnt miss much but to be honest having met the the furry bum in person he aint too bad . . . ya just gotta watch him around carrots . . .he gets . . .excited ya know budd well ya did better than i did. i couldnt get the childhood pic. but after seeing what it evolved into as it grew up and out i can probably pass on the early pics. bfg roy .
From : mark d
the main reason for the low/no cost erver is purely financial . . ..i havent much being on a fixed income. ill check t-bird out but im not a ford fan ; budd .
From : edward ohare
about three months ago my 86 dodge pickup with a 318 4 barrel died and would not start. eventually i installed a points distributor and now it will start run and idle with an occasional hesitation. when i try to drive it it will go for a few seconds and then want to die. i have to give it a lot of gas to prevent this from happening and then it will go again for a few seconds and then it repeats. it is almost as if it is driving down the road bucking but not quite that bad. my first question is if it has something to do with the new distributor if possibly it is just not compatible or i didnt know something that i needed to when installing it. in the past 6 months the following have been replaced battery coil all grounds distributor fuel pump fuel filter carb plugs wires cap rotor and computer. i have checked out the fuel lines for leaks and loose air hoses but found nothing out of place. also the motor has been timed well it will sit and idle very nicely for a couple minutes before a quick hic-up i think that something is bogging the motor down getting a bad air/gas mix every few seconds and it is barley noticeable when idyling but significantly increases when giving gas and trying to go down the road. i am going crazy and really need this truck to work. i think that this is probably a relatively simple stupid little problem that i am overlooking and i need some advice please. thank you .
From : Annonymous
i was quoted $500.00 to replace a fuel pump in my 1999 dodge ram 4x4 quad cab with a 26 gallon fuel tank. although it may be completely covered under my guardian insurance plan. does that price sound crazy one other thing. for about 8 months now my fuel gauge has not been working correctly. i found this out when i ran out of gas with 1/4 of a tank still showing on the guage. so ive been using the odometer since. now the fuel pump appears to have gone bad. are the fuel guage and the fuel pump related would it seem plausible that the fuel guage system craps out 8 months before the fuel pump and if i get a new fuel pump will that automatically fix the fuel guage problem that high price comes from the high price of the pump especially if its from dodge and the pain in the ass it is to replace it. you could probably do better if you shop around. your fuel sending unit mounts to the pump assembly but iirc is not included when you get the new pump. there may actually be nothing wrong with the gauge or its sending unit. the pump has a pre-filter attached to the bottom of it and if that union failed it is possible that the pump will begin sucking air at 1/4 tank which would make you think that the gauge was wrong. does the gauge operate properly above 1/4 of a tank if so this is the most likely cause. another thing that could happen if it leaks there is that the pump now has to deal with all of the crap in the tank that the pre-filter would have stopped and could cause excessive wear to the pump and the main filter to plug up and stop flow to the engine. there is sadly know way to know any of this without removing the pump and the pump should be covered minus any deductibles from your plan. the fuel sending unit is cheap compared to the pump and should add nothing to the cost of labor so you might want to have it replaced since the y dont last forever. -- if at first you dont succeed youre not cut out for skydiving .
From : mark d
-ed howdershelt author i agree with matthew. it is all about torque. the original statement was that to move a load of x lbs. at y mph requires z hp. however that hp is created be it lotsa torque with low rpms or little torque and lotsa rpm matters not. . 222 309051 bsvlf.5797$yh2.2857@trndny01 the original statement was that to move a load of x lbs. at y mph requires z hp. however that hp is created be it lotsa torque with low rpms or little torque and lotsa rpm matters not. somehow people are missing the fact that hp is the force with motion which indicates work done or capable of being done.. ill readily agree that its an arbitrary unit but that unit comes from a finite formula that can have the same result despite different numbers being plugged in. i think the quotes from the f1 guys are comical. both refer to specific tracks... wonder what they say about other tracks where wide open running dictates that hp is the key also comical is the statement that no matter what engine you are looking at torque is the basis of the hp rating. no quite true. many dynos measure kw which can be converted directly to hp. most industrial engines have a kw rating and most overseas diesel manufacturers especially the europeans use kw ratings without hp being mentioned until it hits the us market. -- max there are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty soap ballot jury and ammo. please use in that order. -ed howdershelt author i agree with matthew. it is all about torque. the original statement was that to move a load of x lbs. at y mph requires z hp. however that hp is created be it lotsa torque with low rpms or little torque and lotsa rpm matters not. .
From : brent p
god damn ask a simple question about mileage and this is what i get! glad to see the group is still as dysphunctional as ever! vbfg well... i did at least answer your question before making a left onto tangent boulevard... .
From : edward ohare
thicker oil protects the engine better but the default suggestion is almost always 5w30 or even 0w30 zerow30. this is because thinner oil offers slightly better fuel economy. so it makes sense for a car manufacturer to suggest lighter oil be used. hmmm... only the 4.7 of the 4 engines offered in the 2000 dakota carries a recommendation to use 5w30. pickups are gas hogs anyway so thinning out the oil wont help much. youd probably find the manufacturing tolerances arent ideal for thin oil on the other three dakota engines. i had a car that would use no oil at all between fill-ups if i put 10w40 in it but would use a little more than a quart of 5w30 between oil changes. ill bet that the brand new dakota engines are probably the same way . . . they actually need the thicker oil. nothing wrong with that. -dave .
From : mike t
on my 1989 v6 dodge van..... while changing the valve cover gaskets ....in a fit of intellectual lack and accidental prowess i dropped or more accurately ejected a tiny 3-4 inch red plastic strawfrom a aerosol down some tube in the cylinder head.....passenger side far left front. if i had tried deliberately there is not a chance in hell that i could have got that thing in there.....the hole is out of sight and now after a futile effort to retrieve it so is the straw. any guess as to what this tube ismight be more or less a 1/4 diameter after unsuccessful efforts to grab it vacuum it up etc. i tried briefly to turn the motor over and nothing blew out. is it possibly just a drain hole back to the oil pan if i absolutely cant get it out without removing the head is it likely to do harm thanks rod .
From : mike t
tbone tbonenospam@nc.rr.com wrote in you have tightened the hub nut to 175-190 ft-lbs on a 2 wheel drive 3 times and drove it that way for 50000 at least two of those times do you change your front tires every 500 feet as well does anybody have a manual that can check that setting i dont understand why you have a problem with this. my haynes and clymer manual both list this as a torque value i suppose the fsm is the difinitive source but again both books couldnt be that off could they if you want i can scan that page and post it here. the whole bearing assembly spins freely with 1 finger. .