Embarrassed - failed inspection

[Dave W]

My truck failed inspection and a first for me in over 50 years of owning a motor vehicle. Tie rod and drag link ends!! And at 'only' 132,000 miles.


Yeah, I should have done a better job of looking at these pieces but it happened. I do have Ford ESP and they are covered but the deductible is more then if I did it myself. Since with COVID and some locally pretty big case upticks, decided that since I do have the tools, have done these kinds of repairs all of my adult life, not a big thing. Just a couple hundred dollars and a few hours.



So, the message here is, get out, get under your truck and see if you too may have this situation as well. Fords start having steering parts wear out at about 85,000 miles. I can only guess that GM and Dodge/Ram are similar since none of the Big Three have grease fittings as OE

[richfaa]

I can't do those kind of repairs . We do have the FORD ESP plan. I have to say that over the years our dealers one here in Ohio the other in Florida have taken very good care of our ford trucks.

[mlh]

Remember years ago when I had to patch my car up to get it inspected. Patch the muffler check the brake shoes. You could get 10, 20 or 30,000 mile shoes for your drum brakes. Check the lights. And between inspections you had to change points and plugs the starter, rebuild the carburetor. Work a while and ride a while. Oh the good ole days.
Lynwood

[Dave W]

Originally Posted by richfaa

I can't do those kind of repairs . We do have the FORD ESP plan. I have to say that over the years our dealers one here in Ohio the other in Florida have taken very good care of our ford trucks.

I have no problem with my local dealer. I do have a problem with the upswing in our area of COVID - especially since so many of the locals think masks are for sissys

Originally Posted by mlh

Remember years ago when I had to patch my car up to get it inspected. Patch the muffler check the brake shoes. You could get 10, 20 or 30,000 mile shoes for your drum brakes. Check the lights. And between inspections you had to change points and plugs the starter, rebuild the carburetor. Work a while and ride a while. Oh the good ole days.
Lynwood

Oh yeah, 10K on points and plugs, 1-2000 mile oil changes along with greasing a LOT of suspension and driveline fittings. Then there was that muffler that, if lucky would last a year or two. It goes on and on. My dwell meter, timing light, vacuum and compression gauges are ready to roll if we ever regress back to the mid 20th century.


I just got complacent since my last two F250 and the two F350 trucks never needed ANY steering gear work and lasted well into 6 figure miles.

[BB_TX]

Oh the memories. Points, plugs, condenser, ...... And you could sit on the fender with your feet down in the engine compartment to work on it.

[Dave W]

Originally Posted by BB_TX

Oh the memories. Points, plugs, condenser, ...... And you could sit on the fender with your feet down in the engine compartment to work on it.

Not only sit, you could actually see the engine and actually work on it without pulling half of it apart first. I can see part of one valve cover on my 6.7 Ford.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Though I don't miss mechanical voltage regulators, vacuum advance distributors, vacuum wipers and fuel pumps run off the camshaft....

I do miss the self sufficiency these things offered. My wife and I actually changed the left head gasket on our 1969 Olds 98 in a service station parking lot in Virginia many, many, years ago.

Something quits today and usually all you can do is call a wrecker.

[twindman]

What are these inspections? In AZ we have pollution checks yearly, but the only safety check is when you buy it and get the license from out of state.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Dave W

I have no problem with my local dealer. I do have a problem with the upswing in our area of COVID - especially since so many of the locals think masks are for sissys......

The area we just left was like that. We had paid for long term before we got there with no refund so we gutted it out. Nobody in the campground or office ever wore a mask the entire six weeks were there.

We're in AZ now and this place is serious about it. Masks indoors and you must carry one in the campground and put it on if you get close to people. I'd say 99% in the local Walmart too. We had such trepidation about coming here but feel much better now.

[Dave W]

Originally Posted by R.S.O'Donnell

The area we just left was like that. We had paid for long term before we got there with no refund so we gutted it out. Nobody in the campground or office ever wore a mask the entire six weeks were there.

We're in AZ now and this place is serious about it. Masks indoors and you must carry one in the campground and put it on if you get close to people. I'd say 99% in the local Walmart too. We had such trepidation about coming here but feel much better now.

What is really irritating are the signs in the doorways that say masks are required for service and not a single employee, including the owners, are wearing masks. Social distancing - HA!


When we voted today, the ladies signing us in not only had masks but face shields. Some folks are taking it seriously but way too many aren't.


Now, if the last part ever arrives, I can do the job. USPS, in their infinite wisdom sent it opposite our direction, wasting at least a day and probably two. Rock Auto Parts has great pricing even with shipping added to it but they source from all over the US. Everything but the right outer tie rod end has been here since Saturday and that single part was the closest to the point they could have walked it here in less time then USPS. Oh well, it's supposed to warm up to the mid 60s vs mid 30s for the past few days.

[mlh]

The good thing about the new cars is you don’t haft to work on them. The bad thing is you can’t. Back in the day you could add 2 fours or 3 twos and 411 gears. Because we could they were fun, not so much today. Sure the new ones will out run the old ones and they never break but they aren’t any fun.
Lynwood

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by mlh

The good thing about the new cars is you don’t haft to work on them. The bad thing is you can’t. Back in the day you could add 2 fours or 3 twos and 411 gears. Because we could they were fun, not so much today. Sure the new ones will out run the old ones and they never break but they aren’t any fun.
Lynwood

Very true. My father was a GM dealership tech for 38 years specializing in drivability for about the last 10 years of his career. Even he said if it "lays down on you" there is almost never any reason to even open the hood.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Dave W

What is really irritating are the signs in the doorways that say masks are required for service and not a single employee, including the owners, are wearing masks. Social distancing - HA!


When we voted today, the ladies signing us in not only had masks but face shields. Some folks are taking it seriously but way too many aren't.


Now, if the last part ever arrives, I can do the job. USPS, in their infinite wisdom sent it opposite our direction, wasting at least a day and probably two. Rock Auto Parts has great pricing even with shipping added to it but they source from all over the US. Everything but the right outer tie rod end has been here since Saturday and that single part was the closest to the point they could have walked it here in less time then USPS. Oh well, it's supposed to warm up to the mid 60s vs mid 30s for the past few days.

Kind of makes you want to come into the store without pants and shoes but wearing a mask and see if they enforce that.

What's the most irritating to us is the danger they're putting those who can't or won't wear masks in.

Our granddaughter-in-law drove up with our 16 month old great granddaughter (who won't wear a mask) up to see us while we were in CA. We decided to go to a local aquarium.

Everybody in the small group we went through with was wearing a mask correctly and staying away from everybody else. As we were leaving a "scroungy" family approached the counter unmasked and asked if there was a time when they could go in without masks. The lady told them they could go in sans masks. Very happy we were on our way out.

The one place not wearing a mask won't be tolerated at all is on all the military bases we've been on since the pandemic. Unfortunately most have 14 day stay limits or we'd ride the whole ordeal out there.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Dave W

Now, if the last part ever arrives, I can do the job. USPS, in their infinite wisdom sent it opposite our direction, wasting at least a day and probably two. Rock Auto Parts has great pricing even with shipping added to it but they source from all over the US. Everything but the right outer tie rod end has been here since Saturday and that single part was the closest to the point they could have walked it here in less time then USPS. Oh well, it's supposed to warm up to the mid 60s vs mid 30s for the past few days.

Good luck with the USPS. I sent a certified letter Friday. Cost $4.10. It's been floating around in St. Louis since Sunday. It's kind of important as I'm cashing in my 401K and wanted to get that done and get the check before we leave for Florida and start mail forwarding.

St. Louis is 2.5 hours away. I'm actually considering filling the forms out again and driving up there and hand delivering them.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Fish

Good luck with the USPS. I sent a certified letter Friday. Cost $4.10. It's been floating around in St. Louis since Sunday. It's kind of important as I'm cashing in my 401K and wanted to get that done and get the check before we leave for Florida and start mail forwarding.

St. Louis is 2.5 hours away. I'm actually considering filling the forms out again and driving up there and hand delivering them.

Here's our USPS story.

We were in Vegas on Nellis AFB for the last election. Had our ballots forwarded to the Nellis AFB PO via General Delivery (USPS website says they accept it). It arrived at the PO three days later, they immediately returned it undeliverable as they DO NOT accept General Delivery despite what the website says. Took it 7 days to get back to Florida to our mailing service. Had them immediately send it back to a location that would accept it. Long story short. We missed the election deadline.

[Dave W]

I don't believe I've been anywhere but the election polling place since my encounters with the maskless groups - and expect to keep it mostly that way for the foreseeable future.


The USPS did their job and actually got the part to me on time. Luckily that was the part I was waiting for to do the job. I have the steering of my truck apart in the driveway. But with that said, since my truck is a very early 2011, built in May 2010 it has a mish-mash of parts. I found that out when I did the brakes a while back. This means that what the Ford partsbook calls for, may not fit. Sigh. I hope Amazon at some outrageous price can get the right ones to me on time and a lot faster then Rock Auto. Hopefully, back together on Saturday, Sunday at the latest (pending USPS doing their job)



If a DIYer wants to do the job himself - it isn't too bad on a Ford tho metric tools are a must. Dirty, yes! The only place I had a bit of trouble was at the pitman arm. It took some mighty whangs on the pickle fork with my 4 pound Stanley engineer's hammer

[mlh]

We rent our old home place out to a man in his 70s and 3 grandchildren. They are in quarantine. One of the kids just came in. I have no idea where she and her boyfriend have been. One of the others is gone now. The grandfather has half of one lung gone, heart trouble and diabetes and the kids are out maybe infecting others.
Wonder what quarantine means? I thought I knew but I guess I was mistaken.

We send out at least 4000 packages a year and very rarely have one lost. We receive several hundred a year from all over the country. It usually takes 2 days. If a package is priority flat rate or standard snail mail doesn’t make any difference they take 2 days. If you send a package over seas you can double what the post office would charge to ship UPS and double that to send FexX and do at less twice the paperwork. Am I a fan of USPS? You can believe it.
Lynwood

[Sdgood1]

Is this post about masks. I thought we couldn’t post about politics?

[Dave W]

Originally Posted by Sdgood1

Is this post about masks. I thought we couldn’t post about politics?

What's political? I, as the OP see nary a thing on any response that says slightest thing about politics except yours.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

My responses were in no way intended to be political.

Lots of people from both sides wearing masks that publicly share their political stance.

Speaking of which. Our son just sent us this very sad local news story.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/artic...2-70041667d42a