Fifty150

I've found that LED light bars can be aimed lower, and work great in inclement weather. I have been using the light bars which illuminate in amber and daylight colors. For camping, off road, power outages, underground garages - the daylight color works great. But it's the amber color that really impresses me. In my area, we get heavy, thick fog, and rain is called an "atmospheric river". Snow isn't that far away from The City either. Amber lights have been great for visibility, and make a huge difference in fog, rain, and snow. On the other hand, you may want to keep your vehicle as close to OEM as possible. I get that. Some people don't want all kinds of bolt on accessories sticking out all over the place. I think that instead of trying to cut out holes in the bumper, and fabricating mounts - it's a lot easier to order the correct bumper with the foglight. Keep us updated. Maybe start a new thread for the front fog light install.

Complements on the file cabinet. Very nice touch. Those reflectors look good! Glad it worked out for you buying from Latvia. I had my doubts.

On the 2nd generation, the XL model has no harness. The bumper cover is also different. Anyone without factory fog lamps can order the bumper cover with the holes cut out, and order the additional pieces for mounting the fog lamps. You can then install OEM halogen style or aftermarket LED fog lamps. But you will still need to wire it up yourself to some sort of switch. Unless someone knows how to wire it into the Body Control Module and reprogram the Body Control Module. Look under the bumper cover. See if you can find a harness. See if the back of the bumper cover actually has mounting points for the nuts & bolts.

S9K71A33 (1).pdf

The service recommendation for the 6F35 is to do a triple drain & fill. A shop will use a machine with your cooling and return lines for a complete fluid exchange. Different people have preferences as to which process is better. I would rather have a machine fluid exchange. But I do not own such a machine. So to save a few hundred dollars, I do the triple drain & fill. It sounds like you've already drained it twice. Maybe you could follow up with a 3rd drain & fill. Some people may even say go for a 4th. Be sure that your transmission up to operating temperature as specified, and that the vehicle is in neutral when you drain. Then fill, shift through all the gears and allow for engagement, be sure that transmission goes back up to temperature with the fresh fill. Now place in neutral before you open the transmission fill plug to check for correct fill level. I say neutral, because the service procedure spells out neutral. Then allow the computer to relearn the shift pattern with completely fresh fluid.

I've always liked small, compact cars. Easy parking. Fuel economy. Just big enough for me, and my backpack. Perfect for those days when I would rather ride the motorcycle, but the bike only has a solo saddle, and the girlfriend wants to tag along. Honda Civic CRX, Honda Fit, Geo Metro......all reminds me of the good old Renault LeCar days.

That's pretty cool. Euro lights on US car. Even more street cred than a JDM emblem.

Well, there goes your ability to blend right in to the fleet of white vans downtown. Now you'll stand out. If you rob a bank or something, you won't get away with it. Which is why every pickup I've ever owned was white. When the cops are chasing me, I could always pull into a Home Depot parking lot, full of white trucks, and they won't know which is the truck I was driving.

The real deal looks good.

Great tutorial. Excellent photos.

Very unique window. Looks good.

Jrm223, Nice LED installation. Are those solid reverse, or flashing warning?

Good to hear. Puts me at ease. Over-engineering is a bad habit of mine. I am still a little concerned about the 35X12.50X17 tires.

I would go back to O'Reilly's. Since the tank & cap are new, there should be some sort of warranty.

I bought the 16,000 lb ramps from eBay. Lowest price I could find. Next year, when I do my next oil change, I'll know how well it works or doesn't work.

Here is the lowest price I have found. Anyone see the 16,000 lb set selling for less?

Sorry. My mistake. I actually did read it wrong. Fuzzy brainwerks. I'm punch drunk. In my mind, I figured that with a 6,000 lb limit, I wouldn't be able to use it on the pickup truck. Although, with reading and re-reading, I think that the physical difference between the 12,000 lb & 16,000 lb rating, is that one has a wider ramp. Both appear to be the same height, and the same length, with the same climb angle.

Transit & Sprinter have all wheel drive or 4 wheel drive models. Higher off the ground. Longer wheel base. Pricing is a little bit more. Depending on your needs, it may be more cost efficient to rent when you need it. With Transit Connect, I can drive it every day, and use it like a normal car. With a Transit or Sprinter, not that you can't drive it every day, but it consumes more fuel and is harder to park.

Am I reading that wrong?

If there were more interest, aftermarket parts suppliers would consider development of Transit Connect specific parts. Not that it can't be done. A lot of things can be done. But nobody to date is investing in research & development for this car. Not enough private owners, voicing their desires. Nobody is going to spend R&D money for a van, unless enough van owners ask for it. Same way you're not finding bolt on exhaust kits, cold air intakes, et cetera.

From what I remember, there is a certain procedure for "bedding in brakes". I'm a loser. I've never gotten it right once. They stop. They stop well. And I have to live with the brakes squealing and sounding like cr*p.

You see all the photos and negative reviews on Amazon. Usually, it's the way the person drives up onto the ramp. Road surface, a little too much throttle, a little slippage...... If the ramps aren't perfectly straight and in alignment, then you will have problems. If the car goes up, then to the edge, and you go just a little too much, you will have problems. I think that all the failures are user error, and happens when you drive up on the ramp. Once you have the car on the ramp correctly, those ramps are not going to collapse. Although your idea of using jack stands does provide an additional measure of safety, and it couldn't hurt.

Someone with a workshop manual may have the answer. Transmissions all route the ATF through the cooling system, then sometimes through an auxiliary cooler if there is 1, and returns to the transmission. Now all that is left is to identify which one of the hoses under the hood is the return line to the transmission, and figure out where & how to disconnect it. With the Ford trucks, which have a lot more space under the hood, hot fluid went into the radiator at the top of the radiator and came out the bottom. Same exact design for decades. Very easy to disconnect and attach a long piece of transmission line with a hose clamp, then run fluid into a bucket for collection. Old Hondas were easy also. Disconnect the the transmission line, attach your own transmission line with a hose clamp, the other end empties into a bucket. When I look under the hood of the transit connect, there are hoses everywhere. I'm not sure which hose to disconnect, or how to do it (if special tools are needed). In a service bay, with a lift, the techs disconnect the cooling line at the back of the transmission. Cooling line goes to a cooler bypass valve, which allows fluid to continuously flow back into the transmission while it is cold, and flow to the cooling system when hot. That's not as easy to get to when you have the car on jack stands, and you're crawling under it. The line from the transmission case, is the cooling line. The line returning cool fluid should be at the front, so that fluid goes back to the sump. In the Transit Connect, the battery, fuse box, and air box completely blocks you from being able to access those lines, or even see them. So now you look down towards the radiator, and you are sure that the largest hoses must be engine cooling. But what about all the other connections, and where do they go? Which direction is the flow? It was a very easy, with the car on jackstands, to do the triple drain & fill. Since there is a drain plug, and you can easily fill through the vent assembly. I'm still hoping that someone will figure out which hose to connect, how to do it, and write up a step by step for us.

From my understanding, the weight rating is for 2 pairs. So in theory, if you have four ramps, 1 under each tire, you can support up to the weight rating of 12,000 or 16,000 pounds. Each ramp, by itself, is suppose to be good for 3,000 or 4,000 lbs. What I'm thinking is with larger trucks and SUVs, it would be handier to have to ramps with higher weight rating. I would rather have the heavier rated ramps, than to find myself wishing I did. The total weight of a truck is a little bit more once you have it loaded, or you have your tools onboard. Trucks tend to have most the weight in the front end. Maybe I'm just overthinking or being too cautious.

Do you have the 12,000 lb or 16,000 lb model? I wonder if I can drive the Transit Connect onto the 16,000 lb model. I would rather buy the heavier rated model, in case i want to use it for something larger and heavier.