Hello from Michigan

[KingTut]

Hello guys and gals, just stumbled upon this site and I couldn't be more happier. Lots of good information here. A little about me, my name is Nate and I go to school at Central Michigan University studying Mechanical Engineering. I'm from Ohio and live near Sandusky. I'm currently driving a 1999 Ranger 4x4, however, it's not running the greatest so hopefully someone can steer me in the right direction.

 

[RatDog8o8]

Welcome to TRS! Make good use of the tech section, and the search feature will prove helpful to find stuff about what's keeping your ride from running well. Jump in the other parts of the forum, too.......always good to have a fresh outlook on things!

 

[Observer]

Hi King! I recently joined too, so welcome to the club.

From what I can tell people suggest changing the fuel and air filters so that was what I did as soon as i got the truck.. may or may not help your case but its not too expensive to do/

Im going for mech. engineering as well!

 

[Heavyfire14]

welcome to TRS!

so, what seems to be wrong with your truck?

 

[KingTut]

Thanks guys, I'm having an issue with an unstable idle; running rich. I've replaced what seems like half the motor trying to figure this out but to no avail. I've done plugs and wires, IAC,MAF,coolant temp sesnor,O2 sensors,fuel injectors and an EGR valve. I made a post in the General discussion about this also. Would a Throttle position sensor cause the truck to run rich? I haven't tried that yet. I think besides that the only other option would be to replace the ECU. Any thoughts?

 

[KingTut]

Observer, how far along are you in the Mech. Eng. program? Are you liking it?

 

[Observer]

Im just in first year still nothing huge, taken calc 1 and programming courses as well as the technical writing class and did well in all of them.

What im finding the hardest is taking lots of classes at once as it does not suit my learning style.. I get overwhelmed too easily I guess.

Not sure what im going to do about that. For now im taking one or two at a time and getting good results- parents have agreed to let me stay as long as im in school, though they would like to see me take on more.

Until I can do that ive been taking intro classes to math, chem, phys, to brush up as highschool did not prepare me AT ALL. I despise highschool, waste of time. My math skills needed developing most of all, and I now feel much more prepared for the next step. Which is important!

Need to get my act to together, its driving me nuts.

But its not my attitude that's the problem its mostly the constant fatigue.. cant concentrate during class and such. Even went to the doctor and got bloodwork done but he just handed me a depression booklet and said to check up in a month?!?

Its damn hard to fix a problem that isnt obvious i guess.. kinda like a truck haha. But a mechanic wouldnt tell someone with a rattle in their engine that they were just imagining it and send them on their way? Damn doctors. They really are just pill pushers now, i can vouch for that stereotype.

Some students are there to hang out as well, but I cant stand that kind of thing. "Omg i failed the midterm" "Ya mee too hahaha" Makes me so angry that they have the ability to do it but no drive.. Im there to get my degree, whether my body will let me or not is another querstion lol.

For example on a daily basis how energetic do you feel? Ive got nothing to compare to but i feel like a zombie most of the time.. and its getting in the way of my goals now

 

[KingTut]

Hey man don't feel bad! I'm in my second year and I'll have to say that physics and calculus are going to be the biggest hurdles. Calculus 2 will probably be the hardest thing and then it gets easier in Calc 3. I'm in Calc 3 right now and to me it is way easier than 1 and 2 becuase it just builds on those two classes.

I'm exhausted too at the end of the day being full time but you have to want it bad enough. My first year was a wake-up call. I was doing poorly and blowing it off and then reality set in. I would sit in my classes and daydream and not pay attention. You have to look at the end of the road not the beginning. If you need help in anything, I can try to help out the best I can. Just hang in there. 4 years of hell will be well worth it in the end.

Oh for what its worth, I started the program when I was 24 so I'm considered non traditional. I started out in the lowest math class possible because like you high school did not prepare me enough. I never dreamed in a million years that I would be taking these hard math classes but it is possible don't let it scare you.

I too was overwhelmed when I first started out. I felt like I couldn't handle a full-time load. I'm not the kind of person to just sit there with a book and stuy for hours but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do it. Hope this helps

 

[Observer]

Well good to hear someone made it! From the speeches they give us only about 10% of people make it to second year it seems :O

They do make calculus out to be this big scary boogey-man though! I didnt have a hard time with it, actually got an A in calc 1 so either I did something right or zombie-me is talented.. It seems like a blur once it was over which makes me wonder if the knowledge stuck or not..

Parents didnt see the big deal in that A grade, which annoyed me a bit as they dont see the effort needed to get it! They just expect it

We'll see how calc 2 goes as im taking it in the winter here.. should be interesting. Good to know it gets less steep as you get further in too!

O well, the dream isn't to get the degree I guess, its to build things... 1st thing i ever took apart was a rotary phone lol. Grandma wasnt paying enough attention.

 

[KingTut]

Ha yeah you'll do fine if you got an A in calc 1. Yeah people do make it out to be hard which it can be if your math skills are lacking but like I said if you got an A in calc 1 you should do fine in the rest of them. How did you like that computer programming class. I hated that class! I was struggling so bad in that class. The class was based on java which was very confusing to me. Not sure if its the same class as what you took but it sucked.

 

[Observer]

I think they have it setup all wrong pushing people before they have the basics down pat.. maybe thats why its so feared?

I was in java class as well haha, and im a computer guy but it was a hell of a step up.. never seen anything like that before! All text based, and if you miss one little itty bitty "<" or a comma or something BOOM! Whole thing breaks down.

Ya I gained a lot of respect for programmers after that class :S

Imagine a videogame with all different weapons and stats and pathways and objectives.. makes my head hurt to think of programming that.

Gonna be avoiding that as a career for sure lol. I need to keep my sanity.

 

[KingTut]

haha yeah well said. I hated that class with a passion. I found myself stuck in syntax errors for hours all because of a stupid punctuation error. Yeah I could not do that for a living either. However, some of the stuff that we did was interesting. At the end of the semester we created a boxing match were two computer controlled guys would duke it out. One person would program one section and so forth until it was a working program. Took forever to complete for maybe 30 seconds of runtime. Gotta love college, all the cool things that you never wanted to do.

 

[Observer]

Well at least we have our trucks to fall back on, thats a good skillset in itself i guess.

Most of the people in my classes wouldnt know how to change the oil if their life depended on it!

The engineering lead was telling us one of his students was instructed to "thread a nut" when they had various hardware on hand to fiddle with.. and she asked them "with what?" well they thought it was pretty obvious but after a while she ripped a thread off her shirt and began putting it through the nut in loops and things.

So im thinking wrenching on a truck and just general things like that can help after all lol.

 

[KingTut]

Haha wow that's funny. There's definitely some different characters out there.

 

[jcd302]

Which campus you at? I was thinking there was a CMU campus near Grand Rapids.