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Hockster

My 45ft Bluewater Party
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Yo... Glad to be added here... Firstly my name is John Hockaday... Have always been called Hock so feel free to do it... LOL
A bit about what I did at Ford... I did 6 months of temp work there in 1976 as a vehicle build coordinator, got laid off and finally landed a job in 1978. I started as a experimental mechanic in the EVB, Experimental Vehicles Building in Dearborn. The building has somewhere around 250 hoists and had 2 mechanic's per hoist it its day.
All product development was performed there and, I have worked in every group we had( large car, medium car, small car, chassis/brake, air condition, light truck and heavy truck and even the tire and wheel group) Did 18 years in EVB and then in 1996 landed a job in the 3.0L Escape powertrain calibration group( my dream job!!!) Was in charge of all 3.0L Escape/Tribute builds and updates. Ran emission and fuel tests in the Allen Park Test Lab... did catalysts aging for all the vehicles and dynos...

In 2003 the crunch came and Ford started doing thing right finally and decided to merge the groups together(which made great sense) To get an idea what they did, we had different calibration groups with 7-20 people in each doing the same thing on the same vehicles. Example... we had a calibration group for each motor line, a 2.3L, 2.5L 3.0L 4.6L 5.4L and so on..
So each vehicle line had a calibration group associated with it. You had a 3.0L Taurus cal group and a 3.0L Escape cal group. Each had their little empire.
Ford finally figured out that they could combine the groups and have one group per engine line instead of per vehicle line. So, basically my whole group was eliminated( I was not the only group that lost out) and I had to find another job in the company...

In 2003, I moved into the fastener group doing fastener and part torque/tension testing... and worked there setting torque specs for every bolt and nut on every vehicle Ford had. It was there in 2006 that I had a chance to do testing the front arms and shocks of the Raptor. Since we are the only tension testing lab Ford has I was contacted by a engineer in SVT to see what the compression of the front and read shocks could take... I was like WTF is this going on?? Brian, their shock engineer showed me a picture and was sold at that point!!! I have a few friends in the Road Load strain gauging department and they had the only test Raptor there. A buddy and me went over and had a chance to drive it... after I drove it I was SOLD COMPLETELY!!!!

I was forced into retirement in 2008 ordered the Raptor in 09... Been living the retired life since and I love it!!!! :peace::peace::peace:
 

BOJANGLES

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Right on Hock.

Well through all you've seen at Dearborn there is no doubt in my mind that you have a wealth of knowledge to share with us here. Thanks for your continued support of FRF and your willingness to help us regular folk out with mechanical questions you probably find mundane.
 

SOCOMech

Famous Raptor
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Wow........totally envious of you right now, lol. Ever do anything with SVO Mustangs? (Not only the grandaddy SVT but also known for it's suspension) That was my first car and loved it, eventually joined the SVOCA and all that good stuff.
 

JP7

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Welcome bud! I've always appreciated your knowledge and sharing here - hope to see it continue here!
 

iceman302

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Well, there goes the neighborhood!

J/K, man! Glad to have you onboard. I'll create the problems and then you tell me how to fix them.:waytogo:
 
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