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Performance Upgrades - Maintenance - Modifications - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street Trucks. Covering the Explorer, ST, Sport, Lincoln Aviator, Sport Trac, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Aerostar. Featuring H.I. - Human Intelligence.
Hi !!! New to the site. I just bought an 04 explorer 4.0 that's in excellent condition for 122,000 miles. A mechanic buddy of mine says I should replace the timing chain. Looking for input.
Thank you for all replies
If it's rattling at start up, or if your getting a rattling noise while driving/ accelerating, then you need to. But if it's driving fine and not making any weird noises you don't need to worry about the chain.
And it's not the chain, but the guides and tensioners that go bad. Have to pull the engine to get to the back chain. So it's not really a preventative maintenance kind of job.
If you have a lot of rattling, that could mean the guides are bad like Number4 said. I had my own nightmare with the timing chain. It's a big job and cost upwards of $5,000. If you can at least replace the tensioners, I would do that.
Definitely look into doing the tensioners first. My son's 03 Sport Trac with the 4.0L just started to develop a slight rattle on cold start (137,000 miles). We got on it pretty quickly and started with the rear tensioner, as the rattling seemed to becoming from the rear of the engine. The job took us about an hour at home and solved the rattling. We did it about 3 weeks ago and have had no issues since. The old tensioner was worn out and quite weak compared with the new one.
