[rbattelle]

Originally Posted by rscurtis

If you've ever seen the insides of a Ford tractor engine, upon which the 6.6 and 7.8 Litre truck engines are based, you will see that Ford knows (knew) how to build a diesel engine. Whether they still have the ability is yet to be seen, and very shortly at that.

There's a subtle point here that's worth bringing out. If we accept that at one time in the past (30 years ago?) Ford had the knowledge to build a robust, practical, efficient engine, then the question is, do they still have that knowledge?

I am generally of the opinion that what was done in the past (say 1935 - 1960) was excellent. Unfortunately, many young people (especially managers) are of the opposite opinion - that the way things were done in the past is wrong, and now with modern equipment we really know how to do things right.

Look back at those videos from Ford. Was there anyone over the age of 50 in there? If you've got a tough engineering job, don't you want the salty old curmudgeon down the hall to be involved? [Maybe they leave him off the videos?] From what knowledge base is Ford drawing for this design? Do they still have guys around who worked on the old Ford diesels?

Ryan