Post-Wreck help needed

[Tactical_Ferret]

Hey all, I have a 2013 SHO that I got into a wreck with. Some silly goose turned out in front of me. Well insurance wanted pennys to buy back the car, when I just put a large sum of money into getting a brand new PTU installed. So I bought the car back, and just got it home. Ive got the front clip and crash bar off, only thing that really needs replaced is the Transmission cooler. I have a few questions since Im still new to this platform.
Car is stock besides being tuned by Matt at gearhead, livernois cold air intake, three bar map, high flow exhaust.
1. is there any recommendations as to an aftermarket cooler to install, might as well go ahead and upgrade it.
2. Are there any kind of crash detection settings or anything I need to mess with, like how some Fords have tip sensors for the fuel pump?
3. Ive noticed that the brake lights are on full time, something that never happened before the wreck, I assume this is related to number 2. in some way?
4. For now, to see if it will run enough to get it repositioned into my garage, ive looped the cooler lines into themselves. The fluid is pink, which I believe is from it sitting in the insurance wrecking yard for a few months, so how would I go about flushing and replacing all of it?

Im not too worried about replacing the front clip, im an avid welder, so Im thinking of fabbing up some sort of crash bar or something unique. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

[kryptto]

well get ready for work for sure. the best IC for the amount of work, but hardest to find is the Gearhead IC, look at my signature. put your name on the waiting list, and when you get the email from them buy it immediately. As far as a fuel cut off and those other issues as a result of the accident I cant answer to. what resets it all, you will need to get a diagnostic OBD port reader or preferably a windows laptop and Forscan license, $12. Cant beat that price... bottom line is there are codes you will want to see what the computer is barking over. You have the thread, and its named, post all you get here. many of the items you need are in my signature and why I do it.

 

[BradM]

Hey all, I have a 2013 SHO that I got into a wreck with. Some silly goose turned out in front of me. Well insurance wanted pennys to buy back the car, when I just put a large sum of money into getting a brand new PTU installed. So I bought the car back, and just got it home. Ive got the front clip and crash bar off, only thing that really needs replaced is the Transmission cooler. I have a few questions since Im still new to this platform.
Car is stock besides being tuned by Matt at gearhead, livernois cold air intake, three bar map, high flow exhaust.
1. is there any recommendations as to an aftermarket cooler to install, might as well go ahead and upgrade it.
2. Are there any kind of crash detection settings or anything I need to mess with, like how some Fords have tip sensors for the fuel pump?
3. Ive noticed that the brake lights are on full time, something that never happened before the wreck, I assume this is related to number 2. in some way?
4. For now, to see if it will run enough to get it repositioned into my garage, ive looped the cooler lines into themselves. The fluid is pink, which I believe is from it sitting in the insurance wrecking yard for a few months, so how would I go about flushing and replacing all of it?

Im not too worried about replacing the front clip, im an avid welder, so Im thinking of fabbing up some sort of crash bar or something unique. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

If you're a welder and already planning on fabbing a crash bar, look at a true FMIC (like mine; I posted my hack job on this forum). If the trans cooler system was opened, flush or drain and fill for sure IMHO (a search will show you the methods). Any lights on the dash? A good OBD scanner would be helpful for you (one that reads body control modules and has bidirectional control) and if you work on your own cars, a worthy investment. The Autel MK line is perfect for DIY folks at $450. I know folks that spend gobs of money on high-end socket sets but cringe at buying a real OBD diagnostic tool. Makes no sense to me. You can't wrench away a check engine light. I carrying a basic OBD reader in every car. End of rant

 

[Tactical_Ferret]

well get ready for work for sure. the best IC for the amount of work, but hardest to find is the Gearhead IC, look at my signature. put your name on the waiting list, and when you get the email from them buy it immediately. As far as a fuel cut off and those other issues as a result of the accident I cant answer to. what resets it all, you will need to get a diagnostic OBD port reader or preferably a windows laptop and Forscan license, $12. Cant beat that price... bottom line is there are codes you will want to see what the computer is barking over. You have the thread, and its named, post all you get here. many of the items you need are in my signature and why I do it.

Thanks for the response, and info! I'm going to get on that wait list asap, it might be a month or so before I get the laptop, but I will definitely do that and post, as suggested. As a little bit of an update, I put a hot battery in it, and she fired up. I attempted to put it in gear, park, reverse, drive, and sport. It goes into each gear, but I noticed when I put it into drive, the dash says its in 5th gear. (another reason I love that the tune tells you what gear you're in) unfortunately I believe that's the gear I was in at impact. For easy to do remedies, I tried to put it into sport and downshift with the paddles. No luck. It wouldn't move in any direction, or come out of 5th. I assume it likely doesn't have hardly any fluid in the transmission, so I shut it down without much run time. This weekend I'm going to attempt to drain the transmission, and put some cheap fluid back in, to see if it'll move, or if I have bigger issues that need solved.

 

[Tactical_Ferret]

If you're a welder and already planning on fabbing a crash bar, look at a true FMIC (like mine; I posted my hack job on this forum). If the trans cooler system was opened, flush or drain and fill for sure IMHO (a search will show you the methods). Any lights on the dash? A good OBD scanner would be helpful for you (one that reads body control modules and has bidirectional control) and if you work on your own cars, a worthy investment. The Autel MK line is perfect for DIY folks at $450. I know folks that spend gobs of money on high-end socket sets but cringe at buying a real OBD diagnostic tool. Makes no sense to me. You can't wrench away a check engine light. I carrying a basic OBD reader in every car. End of rant

Thanks for the response, ill definitely look into your work, im very glad to see other people have done rudimentary the same thing. Dash lights so far are just to be expected, low washer fluid, one said something about "service required" with a wrench I believe, which i dont think popped up into i tried to put it into gear and it didnt move. ill have to take a closer look this weekend when i do the drain and fill. Im going to put cheap fluid in it to see if it moves, and if successful ill drain and put the good stuff back in it. any recommendations on cheap stuff that wont hurt it? i was thinking of some house brand stuff from the zone or the green place, but I know better than putting basic "atf" in it.
im 100% with you on the diagnostic tool. Ive always worked on older cars, 80-2000, but since time keeps marching on, my projects are getting newer, so I agree a decent one would be worth every penny.

 

[Tactical_Ferret]

what I started with, old photos from the wrecking yard, more updated photos to come this weekend. Just so everyone can see what Im working with.

 

[kryptto]

ouch

 

[BradM]

what I started with, old photos from the wrecking yard, more updated photos to come this weekend. Just so everyone can see what Im working with.

At least you're not trying to rebuild the maroon door Looks like you'll need a core support. The frame rail doesn't look bad from the photos. I don't know what cheaper ATF is compatible with MERCON LV. If it were me, I'd bite the bullet and just use LV and avoid f-ing up the trans with mixed fluid. The airbags are going to break the bank I think. Would like to know how you end up handling them.

 

[BradM]

BTW, I see the crash bar was rusted through. Come on Ford, that's a safety item! Do better.

 

[Tactical_Ferret]

The crash bar was really rusty, I was pretty surprised because it was a pretty clean unit, with just under 100k miles, good ol Indiana cars. The rear crash bar is basically nonexistent anymore, but I will say, it did do a good job still, my fans, connectors, motor etc. are still fine! As for the airbags, that's a cost I never really planned on replacing, unsure of pricing but I've always heard that they are rather pricy. So, my plan for that is to make a roll cage, half cage, something, as well as harnesses, maybe even seats. As much as I loved this car, I'm now paying on a new daily driver, so this will be just a fun car, drag strip like I used to with it, maybe drive it work if I'm feeling like it. I've even threw around the idea of getting rid of my high school truck, that's also a project.

Updates, I had a few hours to tinker with the SHO today. First three photos are before my I ran out of time for the day.
First on my to do list, was the line that I thought was AC, turns out it goes into a cooler that uses transmission fluid. I did some hack job and got it back together. I attempted to drain the transmission fluid, got legitimately only a single drop of some good red fluid out. Put a good amount in it, let it idle for 10-15 minutes, then attempted to shift it into drive. It did a loud clunk, then said it was in 5th gear still. I tried to put it down in sport and downshift with the paddles, no success. (Photo one, showing warning lights, and the car is currently in sport, which isn't illuminating like it does in all other gears.) Pop ups were some expected stuff, washer fluid, turn signal, and a service advance track light as well. Since I knew it had fluid in the transmission, I tried to pull it across the yard a few feet. It would move but was indeed in 5th. When going into reverse, another hard shift and clunk, but worked as normal. Photos 2 and 3, are of the DTC codes I could pull off of the tuner. Most were related to a sensor I had to repair the wires on, and I assume the others were related to having a stock MAP in it, while tuned. Cleared the codes, then I decided to go to the parts store and get more fluid. Poured it in, repeated the test, again no luck. Finally, I did something that I didn't want to do at all.

Before I continue, I have to say I DO NOT blame the tune, the tuner, or anything related whatsoever, in the slightest.
Using my tuner, I turned it back to stock. I fired it back up; everything ran like normal. I then drove it across town to put some fuel in it, ran and drove like normal. As I was almost home, it started to get warm, so I shut it down and let it cool off, before finishing the drive home. Backed it into its spot and shut it off, then I discovered a small drip coming from the radiator, coolant. So that's now on the list as well. Still having the problem with the brake lights staying on, next thing I'm going to look into is to see if maybe I bent the pedal or something when I slammed on it wearing steel toes, then got into a front-end collision. Snapped photos 4 and 5 before calling it a day. It's rough right now, but before I dumped too much time and money into it, I wanted to be sure it could be saved without going crazy on it.

 

[BradM]

You'll definitely need a OBD scanner to clear the BCM codes (like SRS). You're not seeing those codes with your tuner and they might be keeping your brake lights on. I ran my scanner on a crashed Acura could not believe the number of BCM codes (and it didn't deploy the airbags). Not sure why you'd need a roll cage. The structure of the car is plenty strong and you'll just add weight. FYI, the standard trans cooler is the top 1/3 of the AC condenser. Looks like a fun project!