u/livens

Sometimes they cook themselves 😂.

I needed something to brighten up my boring bathroom. Who better than my favorite Rear Admiral.

I have a 2015 Ford Focus with the power shift transmission. We bought the car used in 2016 for a great price with a stuttering clutch and Ford replaced the clutch under the extended warranty. That was 10 years and about 120k miles ago. It has driven perfectly ever since.

It started having transmission issues a couple of months ago, the usual Transmission Overheating messages, dtc's concerning clutch A being stuck and eventually it stopped shifting into 1st, 3rd and 5th gear.

So I tried the clutch actuator swap from A to B, and sure enough it wouldn't shift into Reverse. So I bought new clutch actuators and it drove fine for about 2 days before the clutch A dtc came back. It drove fine until after about 30 minutes of driving, every single time. So the issue only started once the transmission was fully heated up.

Next I thought it must be the TCM. So I bought a used "K05" TCM off of eBay. Installed it and used FORScan to run an Adaptive Clutch Relearn. All seemed ok but after driving for awhile it would still get intermittent clutch A stuck trouble codes. Yeah, it needed a new clutch and clutch forks. Honestly I think everything started failing and it wasn't just one thing causing the issues.

I bought the Luk clutch kit and replaced it myself in my garage. Here are some pictures of what I found. On the clutch A fork the rollers were really stiff to turn. Getting hot probably made that even worse. So I'm thinking that was the main issue. Also the throw out bearings weren't the smoothest and you can see huge grooves worn into the z rings by the clutch fingers. After finishing up and doing another adaptive clutch relearn the touchpoints were a lot lower than the before, if that means anything at all. From 13.1/13.5 to 10.5/12.1

I also did some maintenance while the engine was apart. Cleaned the intake valves and replaced the valve cover gasket that had been leaking. I drove around for about an hour last night and its shifting like new. Hoping to get another 10 years out of it (fingers crossed).

If you try this yourself, here's a few recommendations. Get a transmission jack, or an engine hoist/chain hoist to lower the transmission out. I did some redneck engineering to lower mine out... never again. PITFA! Also the ball joints for lower control arms. Every YouTuber suggests using a crowbar to force it down. Screw that, and you'll notice they all cut to the end and are out of breath after doing it. Get a ball joint press from HF for $20 and they pop right out.

My 2015 Focus started shifting weird for my wife. I drove it and 1st was really sluggish and it went into second gear pretty quickly, gears after that were slipping. Reverse was fine. Pulled both clutch actuators, swapped positions and reverse wouldn't engage. Swapped them back and first gear wouldn't engage. That seems to indicate an issue with the A actuator. Tested both clutch forks with the spline tool and both were smooth, no sticking. I've got 2 actuators on order, genuine Ford parts not the cheap Amazon ones. Hoping this is it because I really don't want to pull the transmission and the clutch pack.

I was filling up my '02 Ranger and when I started her back up white smoke started pouring out of the center vents and below the dash. I figured it was the radio since the clock was blank. So I pulled the radio fuse and drove home, immediately pulled the radio out to confirm my suspicions. I was curious about what exactly happened to the radio so I pried the top case off. It was in induction coil, completely melted one side of it. I guess something finally wore through and shorted it out. I also wanted my Color Me Bad CD back! It resisted me but with some "gentle" persuasion with a screw driver I retrieved it.

Now I'm looking for a decent 2 din stereo with a CD player. Might opt for one with Android Auto so I can have those fancy maps in my old truck 😂.

I just received the Children of Time box set by Orbit. The hardcovers of these books are usually astronomically priced, and the Broken Binding editions are sold out. So this box set priced at about $50 on Amazon seemed like a great deal. Until I opened the first book and noticed how thin the paper they used was. Not only is the text on the reverse side bleeding through, but you can pretty much read the opposite page through the paper. Very irritating to read a book printed like this. I'll be returning this set.

Does anyone know if the trade paperback editions are printed on better paper?