Baby Diesel sounding X?

Hey guys.. first post here... i have a hard time explaining sounds but i was curious if anyone else had a sound like a diesel engine at idle from their X at idle. it sounds worse when cold and quiets down once warmed up. I do know it is not the exhaust leaking... Anyway it is driving me nuts and the shop said it was nothing to worry about........ oh by the way its a 1999 xlt 4.0 sohc w/205K on it. any info would be great. Also I have a flashing O/D light but it seems like i have O/D fine.

timming chain tensioner. EVERY SOHC explorer had this problem. You can *** it yourself, look around, gotta go 4 now! good luck!

that my friend is the sound of fear, you really should not be driving that anymore if it is really bad. what the problem is, is your timing chain has slack in it, this is due to ford putting in plastic adjusters and cassette in the front and rear timing chain. that noise your hearing is the chain smacking around and should be dealt with asap.

the only problem with this is the engine has to be pulled or the transmission has to be dropped to get to the rear cassette for the rear timing chain. this is generally the biggest part of the project. you can get the front with the engine inside of the vehicle and the kit isn't that expensive. you just have to buy the timing wrench which is about 160 to 200 bucks. this is all depending on your experience and how far you feel you can do the repair. to get a shop to do it your looking at about 1300 to 1500, now thats what i've seen quoted around here.

also, the shop told you not to worry about it??? i would not recommend going back there then. if the chain happens to slip or break, your looking into a new engine all together.

if you want to read up on the problem and diagnosis more, i would suggest this thread for you. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163298&highlight=Timing+Chain

good luck man, sorry to have bad news for ya, but everyone from 97 to 2003 will eventually have this issue, again, thank you ford!!! i have the same problem but mine is not as bad sounding as you describe, they say once she starts sounding like a diesel quit running it....good luck guy.

yeah well i guess dropping the tranny and lifting the motor might be fun

Welcome to Club SOHC... Ford has released several TSB's about this problem.

And sadly wont fix it at their expense. im surprised there wasnt a class action lawsuit on them! and if there ws i wasnt in the loop.... but other than that, its a great and strong motor. Mine only does it on cold start ups!

They avoided the lawsuit because they fix the problem under warranty up to 100K miles. After that you are on your own.

Damn

Space Truckin' said:

They avoided the lawsuit because they fix the problem under warranty up to 100K miles. After that you are on your own.

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they fixed HALF the problem....they only replaced the front timing chain components because they didn't want to take on the labor costs of pulling the engine or dropping the tranny.

what gets me is why did they wait to fix it until late 03?

frickea86 said:

good luck man, sorry to have bad news for ya, but everyone from 97 to 2003 will eventually have this issue, again, thank you ford!!!

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I thought Ford fixed that problem in 2001 or 2002?

While the front and rear cam timing cassettes and tensioners were very similar, the root cause of the problem was oil draining out of the oil galley for the front tensioner after the engine was turned off. When the engine was restarted, the front tensioner did not have initial oil pressure and did not maintain tension on the chain resulting in damage. The plastic material used in the cassette was a contributing factor in the failure but was not the root cause. The design of the rear oil galley did maintain tensioner oil pressure at engine startup. Consequently, the rear cassette does not fail as the front does even though they were made from the same material. The most critical part in solving this problem is the revised front tensioner and new oil restrictor that is installed in the oil galley, not the new material used to make the cassette as is commonly believed. (In contrast, the failure of the jackshaft tensioner and guide is directly related to the material used, but that is a different problem.) The timing cassette warranty for ‘97 and ’98 models was extended to 100K miles in April of 2001 (see TSB 01M01). Remember this part failure took time and by 2001 a typical ’97 had about 40K miles on it. The trend had become apparent but unfortunately, by then a lot of engines had been built using the faulty design. As mileage increased on newer models, so did failures and they were added to the warranty extension. I believe both problems (cam timing cassette and jackshaft) were completely solved by 2002 and no 2003 or newer models are affected.

97greenmonster said:

Mine only does it on cold start ups!

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If the noise is only during cold starts and goes away completely within two minutes (Fords time spec) there is a relatively simple and inexpensive fix. It sounds like at this time you do not have major damage to the cam timing cassette. Replace your front tensioner now and you could avoid replacing everything else and save a lot of money. The revised tensioner kit also includes the new oil galley restrictor (do not skip installing this critical part) and the revised lower intake manifold gaskets that solve the cold start rough idle problem. The kit costs about $40 to $60 depending on how much your Ford parts guy likes you. The tensioner is next to the thermostat. The intake manifold does need to be removed first but that is easy. If you wait until failure, the tensioner still has to be replaced so you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by doing it now.

i just decided to replace my motor with a jasper crate engine since the cost of getting this issues repaired was roughly $500-1000 less then a brand new motor with a 3 yr/36k mile warranty..jasper has built the motor better then ford did by modifying the known causes of this problem....

id suggest buying a new motor as opposed to fixing yours