New England B.S. Thread

Morning all. Happy Monday

 

Which elec. chainsaw did you go with? I want one myself, but I rarely use a chainsaw, so it will likely wait until I need one.

Ooooh, you do your own rotations on that beast? First impressions the Ferd doesn't seem to tow as well as the Sierra did! To be fair, I towed the 425 miles to Northern Maine on last Tuesday, likely the same day that is responsible for Jasons chainsaw purchase. It was insanely windy and hands down the worst tow I've ever done in my life. Trailer sway may have saved the truck and trailer near Houlton however. One gust was so bad it pushed me into the other lane and all the lights and bells went crazy and the truck slowed way down. It was so bad that I may have crashed if it didn't do that. Also, when we got off the highway and started up route 1, the roads were a horrific mess. Detours everywhere and solid ice roads due to the huge snowbanks that had melted into the road and then froze solid. Truck and trailer went full sideways at one point. When we arrived in Stockholm we discovered why we were the only vehicle on the roads... they were basically closed to civilian travel! Statement was made on the news to stay home and if you go out you will not be rescued due to down trees and wires and massive snow drifts in the roads. Tow back was much better. I think I need a whole new trip to actually evaluate the truck towing to be fair.

I did get my brake controller all set up in Forscan. Works beauty! Way cheaper than the $600 that Ford quoted!

One thing for sure this truck gets worse mileage with my trailer by about a MPG. I got 8.4 avg mpg for the entire 850 mile trip. Sierra consistently got 9.5mpg.

 

Yeah, I try to keep the truck out of any shops as much as possible. Usually, tire rotations aren't too bad, maybe an hour. Put the rear axle on stands and use the jack for the front, easy swap except the wheel/tire combo is F-in heavy. This past experience is definitely not what I'm used to.

I'm surprised your towing mileage is that low for both trucks! I'd expect the Sierra to get better mileage due to the cylinder deactivation but expected both to be around 10-12ish. I'm guessing the high winds would have pushed around anything on that road that day so hopefully that isn't the case every day.

That's great that you got everything working. I had forgotten you figured out the 12v charging issue.

 

My sled trailer is foolishly tall. It's only a 2 place trailer, 14'+5' V nose, but when I pull the big trailer my buddy and I both bought, a 24'+5' V nose with 5 sleds in it, I got more like 11mpg with the Sierra. Easily 2000lbs heavier but better gas for sure. The 2 place is almost 2 feet taller- huge difference apparently. Keep in mind I pull both these trailers at 78mph pretty much constantly- although not in those winds and only dry conditions. If I could manage to stay around 65-70mph I would probably get much better gas.

I fixed the 12v charging issue alright... I installed a deep cycle in the trailer! Better situation anyway.

 

Anyone planning on going to or close by to Kentucky soon? Theres a set of skids and a bumper thats looking really appealing minus the 12 hour drive, i will compensate

 

there was a 15 car wreck on route 1 between Presque Isle and Caribou on Tuesday. It doesn't need to be snowing up there to be Blizzard like conditions.

 

Yup, I went sideways just past Mars Hill. Then before we got to Presque Isle we got detoured off route 1 towards 1A. It was occasional white outs from the wind, very nasty conditions, super slow going. In Fort Fairfield we got on 161 into Caribou and into Stockholm. Should have just got a hotel room in Houlton, had no idea there was a stay at home warning! Pretty happy to have a cocktail after that ride.

 

Unfortunately I'm going on the way out - not the way back, I'm going through DC on the return leg and probably won't have much bed space for that. I will likely be heading that way over the summer though, down to Knoxville for MTB rides.

 

Make any other Forscan changes? I disabled the double honk if I walk away with the key, added temperatures over the gauges, changed the directional flashes to 5, and enabled global windows.

 

100% i should bebpaid by someone lol. Its ok papa elon will provide through the doge lmao

 

I did not. It was a 4 hour ordeal for me to just do the brake controller. No fault of Forscan or anything other than that my laptop is a 10 year old piece of garbage. I wanted to do bambi mode but by the time I got the brake controller going I was DONE.

 

If you just want something very simple and affordable, the Viofo A119 V3 is the way to go. Excellent video quality, compact discrete design.

VIOFO A119 V3 2560 x 1600P Quad HD+ Dash Camera with GPS Logger and CPL 2022 Edition

https://www.amazon.com/VIOFO-A119-1600P-Camera-Logger/dp/B07SWYVYJ7

Amazon's "choice" is a few dollars less but this one that comes with the CPL filter is a what I would go with. The CPL filter can help improve the picture quality.

a link to my youtube review is in my sig. haven't updated that in over a year but I still think its the best value single channel/basic dash cam.

 

All this dashcam talk reminds me - I wanted to set up the rear cam. Getting a soft topper though so I might need to find a way to run it out the back. I think I saw a version of that somewhere I'd have to check.

How is it using Forscan? I need to get the OBD2 USB cable for my Tacoma to redo the SOS calibration and my coworker has a Focus I want to plug in and turn off his seatbelt chime.

 

Thanks!

I'll have to mock up something of a similar size and see if it's too big and blocks the mirror sensor or not.

 

They might be different cables. I have this adapter and it works great:

$34 OHP ELMconfig FORS-CAN ELM327-based OBD2 to USB Programming Cable

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F0GVBWY?sa-no-redirect=1

My old Subaru required a $100 one to do anything special.

 

hmm didn't know that. I haven't spent much time looking at the technicalities of it. I only know that I need to use Techstream to re-cal my seats and do some other shenanigans (I want to extend the blinker blinks to 5 from 3, and I don't have that setting in my HU). Good to know, thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I think I'm expecting close to $100 for the cable I need. BUT that said, the cable + all the other bits it all comes in at about 50% or less than RTT/cross bars AND (in my opinion) is better.

 

Yeah, I think they're pretty specific to vehicle manufacturers. That says Ford and Mazda, must be because Ford's ownership of Mazda for years influenced their computers and electronics. The girlfriend's Mazda uses Ford Motorcraft specialty green coolant, so it wouldn't surprise me. I haven't tried the cable with her car to see if I can do anything, though.

 

I can't figure out why manufacturers default to 3. 5 is a much more reasonable number. I don't drive like I'm in rush hour traffic in Chicago all the time (been there, done that, most stressful driving I've ever done).

 

That's still on my list of things to do. I want to increase the number of blinks, I do like that it increases with a trailer but still think it's too few.