Bladecutter November 10:
“Its your driveway.
What do you care about the laws the city has for driving on their roads with chains?”
Because when I get to the worst part, I am entering the street at the same time. Also, I need the second gear start for on-street use, because our city is “environmentally friendly” and does not treat ice very much.
“Just put them on when you are entering your driveway, get up it, and take them off when you get back down the driveway heading out.”
The top of the hill is at the street. And it is a busy collector street with no parking allowed (no place to mount or remove chains).
“I still believe your best bet is a set of the newest generation of winter tires.”
And then I will have my future wife yelling “Get these tires out of the tub, so I can take a bath.” I have no place to store the second set.
“Your second best bet is to give the mod a try, and hope you don’t kill your car.”
I still need to find where the connection point is on THIS car. I now have more conflicting information:
- The shift select pin is the performance/economy switch.
- The same pin is performance/economy or second gear start, depending on tuning.
- There is a way to change the PCM to make the 2 position be nothing but second gear.
- Various sources identify pin 21, pin 51, pin D5, and pin 7 on the headlight switch cable. Huh?
- Someone sent me a circuit that interrupts current to Shift Solenoid A for winter driving (no first or fourth gear). But it will cause the PCM to diagnose a bad transmission.
“Third best is to get a different vehicle with the feature you are wanting.”
Out of the question at the present.
“Fourth best is to have someone install heating coils in your driveway to melt ice.”
How do I install them at the intersection down the block?
“Fifth best is to MOVE.”
That doesn’t help me on the city streets. My job is not going to move.
So far, the weather has cooperated and NOT produced one of these ice storms. I want it to keep cooperating until I have a fix in place.
The tires are 235/55R17.
Thanks to some people at HP Tuners, I now have all the info I need to do this.
The Performance/Economy switch and the Second Gear start switch are the same thing, with different switch motion and labeling. Different transmission tuning tables are used.
I look forward to finding out how your experiment goes.
I had a feeling you were using the 235 tires. They aren’t going to be as good in snow as the 225 width tires would, all else being equal.
BC.
Don’t I have to replace the wheels to get the other width?
I said it before, trade for an S-10 Blazer and you should have "second gear start’ plus 4-wheel-drive.
I said before, trading is not an option.
Whatrver!! With a 10 year old car, it’s about time to trade. You have fought this thing for 8 months, about time you did it or quit.
Why would trading NOT be an option?? Have you commited to keep the Bonnevile forever?
We just recently got a '99 Town Car from our granddaughter, and I read this morning in the manual " Use 2 (second) to start up on slipery roads or to provide additional engine braking on downgrades." So maybe other Fords have this feature. But of course, you cannot part with your
bonnevile.
All 3-speed and 4-speed Fords have the 2 position that provides only second gear.
Trading is not an option due to the settlement of a court case involving damage to my old car. The defendant replaced my car with one of his, but it has a loan on it. I don’t get the title until the loan is paid off. The court garnished his wages for 2 years for the remaining payments. But I would have to pay the outstanding balance myself to get the title to trade it, so I would lose the judgment if I trade now.
The old car was a '95 Ford with that 2 position.
I said I bought the Bonneville in my first post because I didn’t want to complicate the discussion with this settlement. The dealer I mentioned in that post is the local GM dealer.
Hey, I forgot about these things:
http://www.tirerack.com/accessories/autosock/autosock.jsp
Safer than tire chains, so you can put them on a couple blocks up the road, and get up and down your driveway with ease. Should provide the extra snow/ice traction you are looking for.
Interesting bit about the court giving you the other driver’s car in a settlement.
Is that something you proposed, or the other driver?
BC.
What other driver? Nobody was driving at the time. My old car fell off a grease rack onto its left side.
He proposed giving me the car as the only way he could afford to pay, because his insurance had lapsed. The arbitrator accepted it over my objection (that it didn’t have second gear start), because it was worth more than my old car.
“Safer than tire chains, so you can put them on a couple blocks up the road, and get up and down your driveway with ease. Should provide the extra snow/ice traction you are looking for.”
I keep saying that the driveway is not the only place I need this, and some of them are places where I can’t stop to change the setup. Here are some examples:
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There is no parking “a couple blocks down the road.” The entire road is no parking. There is parking on the side streets, but they have the same hill problem the driveway has for at least half a mile from my house. They built this road on an embankment because a creek that habitually floods is on the other side of it.
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On the road where my fiancee lives, there is a stretch we started calling “the roller coaster” after the place in the TV show “Ice Road Truckers.” Many people slide off there.
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There is another place near our main shopping mall with a steep hill.
I already know that second gear start is the only solution that works everywhere, so please stop proposing other methods. I have been driving these roads for years, in many different vehicles with different equipment.
Bad news:
We had an ice storm, and I am glad it happened on Friday Night. I tried it this morning, and car can not get out of the driveway. It spun out on the 14 degree slope, and never made it to the concrete lip that stopped my old car if I didn’t put it in 2. My old car would have made it out in the 2 position under the same conditions. The tires alone did not do it.
More bad news:
The guy who was going to help me with the PCM settings sold his tuner to buy Christmas gifts. So now I don’t have anyone in the area to do it.
You can’t trade cars, can you move to, say, Arizona?? Probably wouldn’t need 2nd gear start, (as long as you stayed out of the mountains).
You know, you might be able to find some old Ford that is in fair shape that you could afford. Just for winter driving.
How do I afford the duplicate property taxes, license, and insurance fees?
I think you are just impossible!!! You have more excuses than a bunch of kids.