Relative Compression Guidance on a Verus/Zeus Platform & other things to look 4

I'm possibly going to be going to look at a used pickup today. A 06 Chevy Colorado for $1600.

I went and looked online at shopkey for top fixes and other things to get a idea of what top reported problems that the shopkey system sees. I was able to run the plate number as it was included in the picture.

My Takeaway was that timing chains stretch causing rough running, possible injector issues. I also decided this would be a good time to practice as I won't buy unless I get a good test drive in to check all drive monitors and give any erased codes a chance to come back as people with issues tend to hide them with the Code delete button.

I want to be able to do a relative compression test on this

I have a Pico kit still in box due to being gun shy and always saying I can learn on a snap on scope then move up.

So with that test in mind I have adapters, attenuators, other cables, clamps, probes, you name it would be my guess as I'd bought the autonerdz version of the Pico ultra kit from them with the extra goodies knowing I'd use them with the Pico but also the Snap-On scope. I have BNC to banana adapters, WPS pressure kit that came with it.

My problem is doing the HANDS ON and getting familiarity to boost my confidence in my ability to do this.

Was going to go to Super Saturday this next month but the wife lost her job after 21yrs 8 1/2 months as she had 2 instances this year where she didn't get a customer dispute on their account noted in time.



After the first time she was placed on 90 days probation but wound up going 8 1/2 months till she had an occurrence of the same nature again. This happened on a Monday and they let her go. Keep in mind she's never been late, sick or anything in all the years of working there.

We are a just cause state or something of that phrase so the business don't have to give you a reason technically when they let you go just as you don't have to give notice either but we all know how that goes against the employee always and never the employer

Kind of crappy if you ask me. What a crappy birthday present as my birthday was the next day.

Never late, always met performance goals, would get top performer of the month many times each year including a couple months between the first and last occurrence.

With me being on disability my opportunities for doing scope work are limited to me and close friends and family that I do work for as I can't work commercially.

My reason for wanting to learn all this stuff on my own? To hopefully get off disability and be my own boss as I'd need a very flexible schedule. This pertains to my back condition of arachnoiditis due to a Dr blowing me off when I knew something wasn't right because my body was telling me this.

I want to change this but each time I feel I'm getting close to going to a training seminar or event something comes up but I was definitely set with this one and never saw what was coming that came down the pipeline in regards to my wife and her employment.

I want to get learning, more experiences in doing this with hands on as I feel this is part of the bridging gap for me to say that I can go back to being able to provide for my family.

IS it a big risk to take? Yes but in life we don't get far without taking chances just as many of you haven't either

I Do want to ask a quick question of you all though. Would it be improper of me to start a gofundme account to see if I can raise the money to get to super saturday, car rental, hotel and the event itself? I feel more that I shouldn't but then I tell myself maybe I should let the public in general be the ones who decide that and if they choose to support me then they feel it's something that could be beneficial to me.

Grew up around cars, did auto and body shop in high school along with welding.

I also took light wheeled vehicle mechanics in the Army . Spent a few years in. Got out. Worked at a tire shop 50-60hrs a week for 3 months until I got a car. Went and worked on semi trucks and trailers. Welding, heavy repair, electrical which became my strong suit.

Worked at a couple other truck repair shops gravitating more towards electrical and also alignment as they needed someone to tech it so I did it a few years. Lots of wheel bearings, suspensions later I decided to go drive which I did for 13 1/2 yrs. Fixed stuff that I could when on road to reduce downtime otherwise it was wait for a repair truck or repair shop

**Long story below of medical issues**

Came off road in late 2009. Had back surgery recovered or so I thought. Intense physical therapy for 3 months. Back on road in early 2010 kept seeing black spots, tired all the time, increased pain and long story short that wasn't the end of surgeries and eventually wound up on disability due to the dr's ignorance of not listening to the patient when they know something doesn't seem right plus a neuroradiologist had told me what I suspected after contacting him since my insurance pays him and not the dr's office who they normally Do the reading of the MRIs for.

Neuroradiologist at first declined to speak to me but I did remind him that even though I don't see him I am his patient because he gets paid by my insurance and I'm responsible to them for what insurance don't pay Then it clicked and he explained arachnoiditis and pseudomengicle to me which was what I'd suspected prior to contacting him from doing alot of research trying to figure out what was wrong with me.


Needless to say the Dr lied to me for 4-6 months and even had a meeting that he setup with the risk management director of the hospital to ambush me but in that meeting after saying a few things that I brought records and backed it up with that showed he was lying he got up and stormed out like a little spoiled kid who'd never been told no because his ego had got the best of him with a average person showing his bosses that he and his Physicians Assistant had been lying and Falsifying my patient records.

Had I known at the time I would've filed a whistle blowers complaint with the feds silently with all the proof and documentation I had. You live and learn. MY main priority at the time was getting myself back healthy and the pain reduced at least 6-70% at the time.

Currently this is hobby stuff and self learning. This will be something I continue to learn and improve myself upon ubtil I feel confident enough to do the 'ticket to work program soc sec offers to help get you partially or fully back into the workplace. Woukld I rather sit home and collect a check/ no because there's to much for me left to do in life.

I also do pay it forward work at times to help the less fortunate or someone that truly which is where I mainly get my diagnostic training since I can't work per disability guidelines. It's helping someone as well. I've always tried to help those that need help in one way or another and working on vehicles just happens to be my reason.

Sorry so long.

Sorry to hear they did that to your wife, sir. Not a good way to do business.

If you're still looking at that Colorado, you'll be able to get a lot of what you need to know from the scanner. For used car purchases, I always go to Enhanced OBD. If it's new enough, it'll have the distance since DTC's cleared.. You may also get In Use Performance tracking in Mode $09, which will keep track of key cycles and how many times each monitor has completed. '06 is too early for Mode $0A Permanent DTC's.

Miss history in the OEM data will likely ID a valve seat issue if it has one (and these engines are known for them). Chain stretch may be hard to spot without a code.

As for relative compression, have you tried experimenting on your own vehicles? Like popping a spark plug out and running the test. Live cars are always best, but working on your own lets you get creative in your testing without risking someone else's ride home. :lol: