I broke down and took the Explorer to Apple Ford and after 4 days I haven't heard anything from them. Before I took it in, I went over everything I worked on, making sure everything was put back right and working. It's only got about 60k miles on it, never got in an accident, and has had nothing wrong with it, except for the Harmonic Balancer. This is EXACTLY what I did on my Explorer, in order.
1. Disconnected the Battery.
2. Removed the top plastic part of the fan shroud
3. Disconnected and took out the fat hose from the radiator
4. Disconnected the small hose from the radiator to the reservoir
5. Drained the radiator via the bottom drain plug on the radiator.
6. Took off the fan with cluch nut
7. Unhooked and removed serpentine belt
8. Removed Idler pulley
9. Removed tensioner pulley
10. Removed Fuse/Relay #49 Highbeam (by accident)
11. Removed Fuse/Relay #48 Fuel Pump Relay.
12. Loosened the Crankshaft bolt of the harmonic balancer. (Center bolt)
!NOTE! Reconnect Battery.
In order for me to loosen the bolt, I had to use a braker bar and extender, and then start the engine for a second to loosen it. THIS WAS THE ONLY WAY for me to free the bolt.
Disconnect Battery
13. Using the Harmonic Balancer Universal Puller kit from Autozone, I began the process of pulling the harmonic balancer off the Crankshaft.
14. Once the Harmonic Balancer was 99% off the crank, I ran out of threads on the balancer bolt to use as leverage to pull the balancer off the rest of the way. So I had to take the puller completely off the balancer, then remove the crank shaft bolt completely. Then using a longer bolt I had lying around my house, I stuck that inside the crankshaft, through the balancer, until it hit whatever was on the otherside. I put the puller back onto the harmonic balancer and used the longer, thinner bolt as leverage to get the balancer off the rest of the way.
15. Once the balancer was off the crank, I took out the makeshift bolt out of the crankshaft.
16. Installed new Idler pulley.
17. Installed new tensioner pulley.
18. greased the outter part of the new harmonic balancer, lined up the keyway slot and racheted on the new harmonic balancer.
19. Put new serpentine belt on.
20. Torqued the center crankshaft bolt to about 30-40lbs, (that's all I could manage using a strap wrench before it would spin under the weight)
21. Reinstalled the fan and clutch bearing
22. Reinstalled both the fat and skinny hose back to the radiator.
23. Reinstalled the fan shroud
24. Filled the radiator with about 3 gallons of Ford radiator fluid.
25. Tried to start the car but it wouldn't start (forgot to put back both Fuse/Relay #48 and #49)
26. Put Fuse/Relay #48 and #49 back in and car started up.
27. Let the car run for about 5 min, all seemed great.
28. Turned off the car after the engine was good and warm.
29. Changed oil, oil filter, and air filter.
30. Went out for a test drive -
a. Car stalled out and would not accelerate. On the dashboard, the wrench icon lit up and the display panel said the car was put into ETC Engine Failsafe mode. This now happens EVER TIME the car is driven.
31. Hooked up the Explorer to a OBD-II reader and recorded all codes. (THEY ARE INCLUDED IN THIS THREAD)
32. Removed the Throttle Body, Cleaned the ThrottleBody and the sensor.
33. Installed Throttle Body.
34. Test drive revealed exact same results listed in 30.a
Below is a picture of the components I removed in the process of this repair. ANY ADVICE would be appreciated.
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