1997 "white" 4.0 SOHC primary and D side secondary chain guide repair-Fill neck hose replace-

[allmyEXes]

4-08-24 Update: Yesterday I changed the oil on the white '97. It now has 200774 miles as of last night. That is 52,936 miles since the left front timing chain has been replaced. I looked at everything under the hood and didn't see anything wrong. Today my wife was halfway home and called me. She blew a coolant hose of some sort. I grabbed some tools and went and bought an upper and lower radiator hose and made my way 20 miles north. She was on the main drag in her old hometown. After I got there an hour and a half after the truck sat, we filled it up with the four gallons of water that I took with me, but water was coming out pretty fast. It was raining on us too and making it hard to see where the leak was. We elected to drive it less than a mile away to her daughter's house. I didn't want to leave it alone in an empty parking lot overnight.
At the stepdaughter's house, I started removing the air tube and upper radiator hose to get a better look. It turns out that a small 'L' shaped heater hose had blown. The one connected to the plastic thermostat housing. When I was trying to loosen the darned spring clamp, I hate those things, I apparently broke that plastic nipple off of the t-stat housing. I picked up all of my tools and quit for the afternoon.
Later at home and after dark, I started removing the t-stat housing off of the 2002 Sort Trac 4.0. The housing looks the same. I would like an aluminum housing however this truck needs to be fixed in the morning.
Big question. Should I be able to remove the thermostat housing off of the 2002 without removing the intake manifold. This is the manifold with the stripped out very back bolt. I know I may have to remove the upper intake of the '97 to get it back in place.
I re-read this thread and I see where I had removed the upper to install the t-stat housing after adjusting the front manual tensioner. I'm hoping I can slip the housing out from under the 2002 intake. I have already destroyed the brittle sending unit connectors. I have the heater hose off and the lower short hose heading to the water pump looks like it will come a loose easy.
Any tips?

 

[allmyEXes]

The next day, I went and worked on the '97. I installed the used plastic housing. I had trouble with some of the 8 upper plenum bolts droping down while I was trying to get the piece on flat and square. Either a bolt shifted an O-ring or for some other reason a vacuum leak was created.
Wednesday, I ordered an aluminum t-stat housing complete with sensors and thermostat, an upper hose for a 2002 Sport Trac 4.0 SOHC to replace the' 97 design that is 2 pieces of hose and a metal tube and 4 clamps. This will simplify things a bit. New intake set of 0-rings showed up too. I've had the upper off 2 times on the 5-year-old seals, so it couldn't hurt to replace them.
I need to replace the gas filler neck hose later, too.

I'm fixing it tomorrow, the 2nd time.

 

[allmyEXes]

Today I've had this truck apart and back together and it runs well but the temp gauge is not working. Which of the connectors on the thermostat housing is which? The orange is on the right hand side and the gray one is on the left hand, drivers side US.

 

[Pete Deering]

Today I've had this truck apart and back together and it runs well but the temp gauge is not working. Which of the connectors on the thermostat housing is which? The orange is on the right hand side and the gray one is on the left hand, drivers side US.

Its the sensor with a two wire connector.

 

[allmyEXes]

Its the sensor with a two wire connector.

@Pete Deering MY 1997 has two wires on each temperature sensor. Look at picture in post #202. This is a 4.0 SOHC.

 

[Pete Deering]

@Pete Deering MY 1997 has two wires on each temperature sensor. Look at picture in post #202. This is a 4.0 SOHC.

This is for the gauge.

 

[Pete Deering]

This is for the gauge.

View attachment 451560

This is for the coolant sensor.
One is black connector , the other is grey connector.

I think you have too remove one of the sensor and look at the part number on it.
The gauge sensor has longer threads. The edu sensor is the bottom sensor in the picture, because it has shorter threads.

 

[allmyEXes]

@Pete Deering I need new connectors for both. RA only shows one. The one for the temp gauge. The other sensor feeds back to the PCM and so far, I haven't found the connector for it.
ADDED:Coolant Temp Sender

 

[allmyEXes]

Thanks for the help Pete, RockAuto's listing for one of the two connectors is completely wrong. Surely the two connectors are "keyed" differently.
All of the connectors on this particular truck are brittle. They are own my 2002 Sport Trac too. The extremely high under hood temperatures of our "southern" trucks, take a toll on the connectors. I'm going to have to go to the junk yard and round up some better connectors. Online prices of the individual connectors seem at least twice of what they should be. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Pete Deering]

@Pete Deering I need new connectors for both. RA only shows one. The one for the temp gauge. The other sensor feeds back to the PCM and so far, I haven't found the connector for it.
ADDED:Coolant Temp Sender

I believe they both use the same connector.
RA shows two.

 

[Pete Deering]

I believe they both use the same connector.
RA shows two.

View attachment 451563

View attachment 451564

Here the connector , look at the part number and description of each connector.

 

[allmyEXes]

At those prices, when I go to the JY, I'll be chopping connectors off of 1996 to 2015 Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys!
The curse of Oak Island is on for all of those who watch. Good night Everyone.

 

[allmyEXes]

Follow up of hose replacement and aluminum thermostat hosing assembly complete.
Last week, Monday, after what turns out to be a blown short elbow shaped heater hose, the one that attaches directly to the nipple on top of the t-stat housing. I snapped the nipple off of the old one. The next day, Tuesday, 20 minutes from home, remotely I installed a used plastic thermostat housing assembly that I took off of our 2002 Sport Trac project. I used a 5.0 water pump bypass hose and clamps, borrowed from the Mountaineer project. I was scrounging whatever I could from multiple explorers to be able to get the white '97 4.0 SOHC truck back on my side of the state line. To make a long story short, on Monday, I got a call from my wife that some observant motorist apparently had evidence that she had a water leak. Maybe a slippery wet film on their windshield? She was halfway home from her 33 mile one way trip from home. Had they not, it is possible that she could have made the whole trip back resulting in a very damaged 4.0 SOHC. We are thankful that didn't happen.
As I was working on it, by the time that I had it repaired, sort of, after I said it was done, it had a vacuum leak. My wife understood that it wasn't fixed all of the way, but enough I could get it back home and to my shop to pull the upper intake again. I decided that it was a good time to order some new hoses, an aluminum thermostat housing complete with sensor etc. and an intake O-ring set. That was the third time that it had been off and back on. I also wanted to remove all of the spring type hose clamps and replace them with screw type. Yeah, the spring type may be ok however during a side of the road emergency repair, they might not be easily removable.
Monday all of the new parts got here except for the EGR gaskets that go between the tube and valve.
I had to remove the radiator to get to the difficult spring clamp at the lower hose, water pump connection. I installed a new Gates lower hose but it doesn't fit as well as the original Ford hose. It is touching one of the transmission metal lines, so today I'm going to split a piece of rubber hose to put around the metal line and secure it with two zip ties. I used a one-piece hose for the top that is intended for a 2002 Sport Trac 4.0. That gets the upper down to one hose and two clamps instead of 2 hoses, a metal tube and 4 clamps. Of course, I had to remove the upper plenum again and immediately found the vacuum leak. The PCV valve was just sitting on where it plugs in instead of plugged in. That may be where last week, brother Ken thought that he may have seen smoke from using the smoke machine. I saw smoke coming out of the EGR connection and made a temporary gasket. As I was going back together with it, the brittle connector for the temp sending unit cracked but felt like it plugged on. I put a zip tie around it but now the temp gauge is not reading anything. It could be the connector that needs replaced or it could even be that the new sensor is bad in the new Chinese aluminum t-stat housing. It can't be properly diagnosed and repaired without the upper intake being removed. I was almost done with it and when I went to install the lower hose to the radiator, I determined that it needed to come back off and trim the top part about an inch and a quarter. Fortunately for the screw clamp, I was able to remove it with a 1/4" ratchet and socket. That turned out as the proof to myself that one could replace the lower hose in an emergency situation without removing the radiator. When the hose was getting reconnected, I was able to lay up under it and get my right hand up in there to hold the clamp and left hand use the mini ratchet to tighten it.
Comparing working room on the 4.0 SOHC vehicles to the 5.0 powered ones is like night and day. The 5.0 fits the engine compartment, engine bay, much better. I suggested to my wife that when she retires and we have all of the little things repaired on this white '97, that we sell it. In our part of the US, solid southern salt free vehicles are bringing decent money.
Today, later, I'm going to replace the fuel neck filler hose. I basically know how that works after having the '92 tank out one year ago or is it two?
I'm not sure if the left rear wheel needs to come off, but I'm playing it by ear. I also want to remove the twisted front bumper and swap it with the straight one that is on our blue '97. I'm putting any good part off of the blue one on to the white '97 and the '97 Mountaineer.
Last night, Pete helped me look up new connectors for the sensors and I determined that they are way overpriced. I will source some on my next trip south to LKQ parts. There entire lot is level gravel, and the cars are 4 feet apart. The junk yard/ scrap yard west of me is a mud bog and all of the vehicles are crammed together. they don't care if they sell parts or not. They are truly a scrap yard that it constantly crushing and hauling truckloads of cars out everyday.
It's still raining...

 

[Pete Deering]

At those prices, when I go to the JY, I'll be chopping connectors off of 1996 to 2015 Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys!
The curse of Oak Island is on for all of those who watch. Good night Everyone.

There are other brands that are cheaper, but still pricey. I have not found a place that's sell connectors at a fair price. JY is the only place.

 

[donalds]

The aftermarket sensors on the aluminum thermostat housing Only lasted a year gave me hard starting issues replaced it with a ford ecu temp sensor brandused
From the junkyard

 

[allmyEXes]

@donalds The sensor to the PCM seems to be working because after the engine warms up, I can tell when it goes into closed loop.
Checking radiator water level before heading to work.

 

[donalds]

The sensor to the PCM seems to be working

Yea mine
The reading drifted over time and when winter came we had hard start issues

 

[allmyEXes]

Today I was able to remove the filler neck and hose that had been leaking. It is a good thing that I had bought two feet of hose. I used every inch.
I also cleared all of the codes that posted while I had the vacuum leak. p0171, p0174, p0455 gross leak was there too. There was another vacuum leak one but I erased them all and the light went off. I'll read again when the light comes on. I'm not going to go through the blow by blow. I will say that the left wheel needs to be removed, properly block up or use a sturdy jack stand. I used 2 6"x6" oak blocks for this.Also, 2 feet of hose is needed. I went and put $6- of gas in to see if the leak went away. It did.
5 years ago I noticed that the fill neck had been punched out. I assumed that the PO did it after the truck broke down, thinking that he could get his gas out. Nope!
The metal flapper was jammed down in the fill tube. I've had to run the gas pump slower at times for it to take fuel. Not now.
Picture of the flapper after it was dislodged and dumped out of the tube.