Havent heard of this. Can you explain?

 

Never heard of this too. I want to know more about it

 

The small semi conductors with the marking of (Dale0075) can be soldered also from the back of the board. I took my extra ficm and did not remove the silicone based material to get to the topside.
I instead used the soldering iron on the backside adding solder and heating it up until it flowed into all of the small holes that attaches them to the board. The solder will flow right through and reflow on the other side, stop when they are all filled.
Now this only works if the resistors are still intact. If your resistors are burned out like one of mine was on original ficm you can buy them on the web for .49 cents each at Mouser Electronics.

 

http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/at...s/6-0-tech-files/11664-detailed-ficm-repair-procedure-ficm_repair_procedure.pdf


Here's the write-up I used. It's pretty good. The only thing I had a hard time with was the goo on the board. Mine was very thick and the hair dryer didn't do squat. And the resistors are small and hard to do. But all in all, not a bad project.


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Just takes patience and a steady hand! Glad to see you got her all fixed up... at least that problem, 6.0 :doh: :hehe:

 

I don't know why the link I attached doesn't go to the right place on the autoguide app, but does on the internet. Strange..

I had a 7.3 and loved it, other than the trans. Till some clabber head stole it.


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My buddies ficm packed it in. Maybe I'll try it.

 

You inspired me. Just did mine. Was just about to send it out to get repaired, and figured 'what the hell'. Was getting readings in the low 20's after start up. Now I'm at fluctuating between 48 and 46.5! I honestly don't even know why this works. I also butchered the hell out of the board (i'm apparently horrible at soldering). Especially trying to solder between those two resistors on each side. But, whatever, I'm back on the road.

 

:dunno::dunno:I've been having hard start issues since I bought my truck (3 weeks ago) 2006 f35 CCLB. Anyhow, had all the issues I seem to hear about, long crank when cold, ran like it had a kitty stuck in the intake, shifted hard and late, but was amazing when warm.

being the genius I am, I started buying toys before important things. did the intake, exhaust, leveling kit first. then coolant filter setup, and some of the incredibly expensive Revx. I hoped revx would work the magic I saw on youtube, but no.

Driving to work this morning, I got a check engine light, swung by autozone, "all 8 cylinders, low injector voltage", I had a feeling it may have been a ficm issue to begin with but hadn't gotten around to checking anything out. I'll be doing the FICM solder repair tonight. hopefully all goes well.

PS: I regret buying my 6.0 a bit. But on the bright side, I love fixing stuff, so I guess it's all for the best.

 

I know I'm reviving an old thread, but I just had to say holy crap this really worked! At idle my ficm was doing 48 volts but would drop quite a bit when giving it any gas (err, diesel). It was slowly dwindling every day, and yesterday it actually hit 39 at WOT so I figured I had to try something. My board looked like new but apparently was worn out somehow. I only soldered the caps and cleaned the pin contacts (I didn't trust myself with the resistors) but it worked, she doesn't get below 48.5 volts now, even romping on it. Thanks to whoever wrote up that guide, it worked great!

 

going to get a bad FICM need a spare anyhow and try this

 

Yea the FICM repair business was such a money making situation because the parts were pennies most of the time.

Send a $150.00 bill and use .49 cents in parts.

Yea it works and I still have some parts left over.



Here is the Permanent Fix for FICM Failures......!!


(1) 190 AMP or BIGGER Alternator !!!!

(2)) KEEP BATTERIES HEALTHY.

(3) Adding a additional 4 gauge power cable off alternator charge post to driver side battery . Along with ground cables to engine and frame from each batteries ground terminals.

That will cure your problems. Good Luck on it.

 

...
Here is the Permanent Fix for FICM Failures......!!


(1) 190 AMP or BIGGER Alternator !!!!

(2)) KEEP BATTERIES HEALTHY.

(3) Adding a additional 4 gauge power cable off alternator charge post to driver side battery . Along with ground cables to engine and frame from each batteries ground terminals.

That will cure your problems. Good Luck on it.

That doesn't fix the bad cold solder joints that are known to exist on the boards.

 

"Cold solder" is a term used for some of the automated soldering that's done these days. I'm not sure how accurate the terminology is, but there's little denying that the joints do not hold as well as conventional soldering. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the big problems with our FICM. Just like the overhead display and other circuit boards in the truck.

Many people have "fixed" their FICM with a re-solder. That's all I'm saying.

 

Yea thats what I thought you were saying. Re-flowing the solder is a big improvement on them. Adding some good toxic lead solder sure to help too. lol

I bought lots of the old solder years ago before it got squashed. If Ford would have made a good alternator for these trucks it sure would have stopped a lot of bad issues.
Forget what car our alts also come with standard but it is a car alternator. Cheap is cheap and always seems to win out ??


The FICM repair shops made piles of money for quite a few years thanks to these trucks. Pretty shameful really. Plus look at all the BPD and Swamps FICM parts were sold early on. I don't think they are big sellers at all anymore. I see no point in dropping that kind of cash on something that does not fix the root issue.

A real alternator is the solution ;]

 

Not disagreeing with anything. We seem to have a mixture of a few terms going on here, though.

Cold heat soldering - which is relatively recent - uses current to melt solder. If you can get the solder to actually melt using a cold heat pen, it theoretically produces as good a solder joint as anything else. Big "if" though. I find it aggravating, at best.

That solder technology wasn't used when FICMs were originally produced, though. ...and it's not really a high volume production thing, regardless. It's more a roadside repair thing.

Cold soldering, as it related to FICMs, are when the solderer (person or machine) didn't adequately melt the solder at the time of assembly. Cold joints are characterized by a dull bumpy appearance. OEM FICM boards had plenty of those, it seems.

The problem with cold joints is poor adherence to the solder pad on the board. Due to vibration, heat, and electrical stimuli, cold joints pull away from the solder pad on the printed circuit board. It's only a micron, but it's enough to wreak havoc. Your solder joint is now effectively a capacitor. High current at low frequency cannot conduct through that.

That's why - as above - properly reheating the joint can help. It re-adheres the solder - which is generally properly contacting the component lead - to the board. Voila... moving electrons. ...and moving electrons are happy electrons.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread...

 

Yea I get the crappy job at conception so to speak. Money dictates the quality of the FICM boards for sure. They could have surely done better in several areas. Dr FICM has all the to do repairs on these things. Was too much new technology to all hit on one complete engine. All things considered though the 6.0 came out a good engine after all is said and done.

 

... All things considered though the 6.0 came out a good engine after all is said and done.

I agree. There were/are very few corrections that needed to be made. ...and a lot of the issues were things that took time to come out. A cold solder joint doesn't fail overnight. They may not have been an issue at all if the FICM wasn't so close to the turbo or better isolated.

That is the way I see most all of the 6.0 engine issues. They are some little odd things that didn't come together well more than any one big thing.

Still don't like the engineering decision of too-few head bolts in TTY, though...