Home of the Lightning---December 2003 Questions

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That is great TX, great Movie too

And JL sorry I didn't mean it to sound like you said that,
I was just making sure everyone understood, I love the L,
just think Ford screwed us over and over with continued
unfixed KNOWN prob's yr after yr after yr.

Casey, "somewhere" in my box of original L parts, I have them,
one day I'll dig them out and post a pic. Hey who knows, maybe thats why my Lightning does a rear wheel wheely off the line, maybe the body's falling off :eek:
 
one question

Who gets the first one off the production line? Is it saved for someone special?

Whos got the first Gen2? :confused: :? :hh:

always wondered this...:B2:
Sarah~
 
SVT- Thanks for the post! Best one ever!:hail:
I do have one question. When I crawled under my Lightning for the first oil change, someone had drawn a devil smiley face on my transmission pan and oil filter! WTF? It had the pointed tail, eyes, and even fangs! LOL! Who the hell did that??
Guess it means mine was the baddest MoFo to ever come off your assembly line!;z
 
I believe that early in 2002, they found out that the plant would be closed. I sure hope that the level of dedication wasn't affected, but it sure must be hard on morale.

Red
 
here's some pictures of the stuff that was drawn on the bottom of my seats..

driver.jpg


passenger.jpg



:hh: :hh:
 
So the plant has a few artists and hippies working there!

Canada is a peace loving, expressive country. No harm done.

Red:D
 
a friend of mine works at roush ... he said they are currently working on final designs for the induction system for the production Gen 3's

but thats all he would tell me

other than the prototype is badass...



and hey SVT

i just had a meeting with the PVT from the NC plant... he's a cool guy, he told me the sad news about the ontario plant shutting down, what does that mean for all you canucks up there??

transfers or just loss of jobs
 
Hey Gents and lady;
Sorry about the delay in responding. Being the weekend and all I was pretty busy. Set aside about an hour to read this reply!!!
ROB02LIGHTNING; Don't worry I don't take anything personal. I can't control everything that goes on in the plant. First thing the loose bolts your talking about, please try to find them and take some pics so I can trace where they could have come from. Hopefully there just extra parts and were never part of the truck. I'm pretty familiar with the underside part of the truck and am really curious as to where they belong. I'm thinking when our guys get relieved for breaks the guy taking over sometimes doesn't realize the original operator had already pre-stocked the unit with parts. The reliefperson then brings his own stock to the unit which means extra parts are left there. These parts sometimes find there way into strange places in the underbody, maybe get trapped and don't fall off till months or years later. This by the way we know happens for a fact because our own test track has more then a few bolts on it. Nevertheless I still would like to see pics of your bolts. As for the windshield gaskets somethings are within our control somethings are not. We don't glue our gaskets because the process doesn't call for it. The front windshield is of course urethaned in but the rear is not. That could be an engineering flaw. The loose plugs well, our brothers in Windsor have to answer to that. I can't tell you why that happened. The ask some people about your window clunk and hopefully give you a solution.
FASTGATOR; Your not going to find a buildsheet. When we used to build our own seats we used to stash the buildsheet under the cushion. Since 1993 the seats have been built by an outside company. If you e-mail me your VIN and the year of your truck ,I'll try to locate a copy.(Remember e-mail, don't post the info on this thread).
TXOUTLAW: Was your truck brand new when this intercooler problem surfaced? Reason I ask is there's only the intercooler pump and resistor that can fail the system. The pump located behind the front bumper has an electrical connection. If the ECU detects a failed connection at the pump the truck will shut down eventually. It occasionally happens in the plant. We have alot of QC checks in the plant to guard against this stuff happening. Even then with all these extra checks like I said sometimes this stuff gets thru. As for the GILMORE writings I can't be sure where that came from. It could of been either our guys or the frame supplier. By the way I couldn't open the pictures on my computer.
SVT GIRLIE; Going by memory that first lightning built in 1999 did'nt get any special attention. Someone out there has it and probably doesn't even know he or she has the first of the Gen2 lightnings ever built.
SPANKDOG: Again I have no problem taking the heat for stuff that goes on in our plant. But again I think the writings on your tranny were from the plant that builds them. I think our tranny's are built in Mexico.
REDFOX; Your right our plant is closing July/04. Most of the guys and gals are moving over to the Freestar plant next door. The morale is obviously down but what can you do. The new Gen3 lightning will be built in Detroit.
CLONETEK; Those pictures on your seat covers were definately not done by us. Like I said earlier the seats come built to our factory by an outside company.
MISTERGADGET ;The rubberbands do most often come from the wiring harness. No worries. Afterall its better you find broken rubberbands versus finding bolts!!!
Later SVT
 
Hey TAKECOVER; REDCOMET probably has better inside info on the new GEN3 lightning then I do. I've seen the truck in person and I got to say it is a beauty. One thing that at first glance is different between the Gen2 and Gen3 lightnings is the size of the truck. I'm guessing but I bet the new GEN3 lightning will way a good 200 to 300 pounds more then the GEN2 unless Ford uses some light weight spaceage material to keep the weght down.
More horsepower can compensate for weight as everyone knows!!!!!!
Later SVT
 
this isn't neccessarily a question to svt, i feel bad for the poor guy...I am posting it here because I know for damn sure it's going to be read!

Do any of you gen 2's drift to the right? Mine is more then a "smidget"
 
LightningLngIs said:
this isn't neccessarily a question to svt, i feel bad for the poor guy...I am posting it here because I know for damn sure it's going to be read!

Do any of you gen 2's drift to the right? Mine is more then a "smidget"
Click to expand...

I can answer some of the drift to the right; if you look at a road it has a slight slant to the right for water run off. If we drove on the wrong side(left) it would pull slightly to the left.
 
What a great thread.

SVT, as a suggestion, you may want to go back to Ford with the concept of an official online Ombudsman.

At the last software company I worked for, we dealt with software developers from all over (including a few from Ford). Keeping a strong online presence was critical, and we used a dedicated online Ombudsman to handle newsgroup and forum activity. It obviously makes the community more responsive to the manufacturer, helps aid loyalty, and is not a high cost activity.

I'm sure everyone here would agree that we would absolutely love to have a spokesperson to deal with informally--without all of the PR folks constantly getting involved. You're doing a great service to this community and we hope you continue to do so.

Calling Ford---give svt a big Christmas bonus!!!!!!!!

--Rip
 
FORD is trying to save money and you think they will hire a new grunt? Nope - the only way they [Ford] can save themselves is to insert a new management layer somewhere between VP and "line boss"! Gotta fire 750 "worker bees" to pay for the 25 new managers, who won't know sh#t about making anything except BS for those below them.

Sorry SVT, but I tend to be down on corporate America of late, what with every day reading/seeing/hearing about some new corporate scandal, executive blunder or Golden Parachute.
 
Do you remember me back in 99' ?

I'm number 424... I'm red, I was born 4/13/99.

You are the man..... Great thread.

I wish we could find the first Gen 2 built that would be pretty cool!
 
We're probably better off with SVT remaining an anonymous insider rather than an official Ford rep. Less pressure on him to follow the corporate line and probably a more frank assessment of our issues. At any length, thank you SVT! You're a good man.

Mike
 
78f1hundo said:

I wish we could find the first Gen 2 built that would be pretty cool!
Click to expand...

The last one will be more valuable. Or at least tht has been what history has shown us. The recent trend of the Factory auctioning off the first production vehicles in a new model run may change this though.

fletch
 
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