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

[allmyEXes]

@donalds Who was that guy? My memory is not as good as it has been. Thanks, D

 

[donalds]

@donalds Who was that guy? My memory is not as good as it has been. Thanks, D

4.0 SOHC Timing Noise

It's the metal backed guides making the extra noise, my old 2001 XLT, 4.0 2WD was slightly above silent like your 99, and the guy still drives it. I have an extra SOHC sitting here though, a 99 Sport, ford reman from the EARLY 2000s out a truck that didn't break 136K miles that's DEAD silent...

www.explorerforum.com

 

[allmyEXes]

Brazilian guy. My apologies to those of you in Hawaii and the Philippines.
Am I still the only person in the U.S.A. to use the made overseas manual tensioner to do this?

 

[donalds]

I installed one on my buddy's truck been going for about a year

This is now a reliable fix
We all need to remember who had the balls to try it lol

 

[allmyEXes]

Sometimes this feels like a "What did you do to your 2nd gen Explorer today?" thread. I started out early today while it was in the 60s F. My intentions were to remove the back seats out of one of the '97s. I'm going to finish swapping seats between the '97 Mountaineer and the white '97 Explorer. My Wife, Moma Bear which looks like Goldie Locks more than a bear, really "loves" the cloth Mountaineer seats and the white Explorer has the combo vinyl/leather seats which me, Papa Bear prefers for multiple reasons. But in order to do this process I had to clean off the back seat/s, now pulling both sets and in the process I find a box nearly full of new spare/replacement parts that I purchased from RA a year almost two years ago. It seems my memory recollection is not as good as it use to be. I sometimes think it has to do with the stroke, but mostly age, over worked, to many irons in the fire etc, etc. However in the process of going through the parts I figured out what was on my mind at the time.
So anyhow, I'm going to put the "soft" seats in Moma Bear's truck and I get the vinyl. The only cosmetic issue is on the headrest part on the Mountaineer seats it has Mountaineer embossed on them.
I think that we can live with that !
P.S. Both interiors are '97 gray or grey...

 

[allmyEXes]

About 7 months ago I finally got the newest '97 running. It was very late June before I was able to drive it. I didn't expect too many peripheral issues and resolved the steering one. Now I have 1300 miles on it.
Wednesday when I got to work I pulled in the driveway and turned off the vehicle and got out to check the mail. When I got back in I tried to start it and the battery was very low. It was Friday before I could use the nearly new battery that I charged overnight. I installed it and got the truck started and with the DVOM connected to it was reading 12.26. Charging a little but not my preferred ~13.4. I turned on lights and other things and the voltage dropped. Back off and it came back up to 12.26. After a few minutes I shut it down and was able to start it back up. I decided that I could make the 4.75 mile trip to home in it and did.
This morning with it nosed up to my broken down Mountaineer I swapped alternators. The MM one has just a few thousand miles on it and 4.0 SOHC and 5.0s use the same 130 amp alternator. After reconnecting the battery I started it up and it is charging at 14.55. More than I prefer and it seems to stay near that reading no matter what accessories are on. This is the same alternator that was causing extreme outgassing when it was in the MM but with too small a battery for it. I bought a new battery with almost double the CCA and the outgassing seemed to drop almost all of the way or what evidence of it.
Question: Do others with Gen IIs happen to know how many volts that your 130 amp 4G alternator puts out? I haven't checked my other running one but as soon as it gets home I will.

 

[donalds]

Mine charging at 14.5
Goes down after its been running with everything off

 

[allmyEXes]

Update on the '97 white 4.0 SOHC. We've put 9092 miles on it since the engine repair and after I got all the bugs worked out of it i handed it over to my wife. That was somewhere around 151,000. This is the engine with 2 manual adjust tensioners in it. I hope that she can drive it 7 more years until she retires at age 65. I may have to swap with her from time to time to perform maintenance on it occasionally.

 

[donalds]

I just installed a set on this 04
Both sides I also deleted the balance shaft chain

I plan on swapping the tensioners on every sohc I work on

Thanks

 

[allmyEXes]

They work well. I drove the blue one hard this a.m. I just knew that I had messed something up. Ole "Flo" hung in there.

 

[RickOTR]

That alternator should put out 14.5 volts at cold idle and go down to 12.5 volts when completely warmed up per Ford.

 

[allmyEXes]

When I realized that there was not room down in there to replace the tensioner guide I removed the balance shaft chain with my Harbor Freight 12" bolt cutters.

 

[donalds]

When I realized that there was not room down in there to replace the tensioner guide I removed the balance shaft chain with my Harbor Freight 12" bolt cutters.

That's how I did mine lol

 

[allmyEXes]

01-01-22. It seems like a good day to do an update on the white '97. Some of you know that for a while had a mystery raw fuel vapor smell. Finally that is fixed for now.
I was getting numerous complaints about how noisy the front tires were getting to be. I thought maybe the front end was needing aligned or maybe the Goodyear Wranglers (good inexpensive tires) were starting to dry out a bit. I purchased a set of new American made wheel bearings (the old ones were made in China) and swapped out the left side while I had the wheel off to take out the apron and a solenoid. That didn't fix the noise. So we decided to buy a new set of tires. The wife wanted something different than the Wranglers so a set of Dextero tires (another good inexpensive brand of tires) from Walmart with everything including road hazard warranty were installed. (I kept the Wranglers to install on the Mountaineer). The noise was still there. A few weeks ago the Wife said that she heard a dragging sound while driving it. She pulled over to see if a limb was stuck under the truck. Every time that I drove it when me and her were travelling it would NEVER make the sound with me in the vehicle. The very next morning on my Wife's way to work the right front wheel bearing locked up. She limped the truck to work, barely. After contemplating several retrieval scenarios I opted to strip the RH spindle assembly off of the '97 Mountaineer. Pour truck. it's new alternator, big battery, LR taillamp assy have all been removed to keep the white '97 on the road. Anyway, I removed the spindle, put the tools in a box and put them, a floor jack and something to sit on and drove 35 miles to where my Wife works and swapped spindles in order for her to get her and her truck back home. It would have a lot easier to change the RH bearing the same day as the left side.
The truck now has 163011 miles on it and needs a few little repairs but driving. That's 15173 miles since the left head removal and chain guide repair. My Wife needs to be able to drive it 3 and a half more years to work. She says she is retiring at age 62. That is 70,000 more good miles needed out of it.
Link to other update thread

 

[obaja]

great story with tremendous amount of updates

 

[donalds]

Thanks again for the sweet updates

 

[allmyEXes]

The main reason for the updates was to share with everyone about the reliability of the manual tensioners originally used in the Razors. In the 15000 miles that we have been driving it there has been zero start up rattles and no chain slap at all. I think someone could get 300K out of a 4.0 SOHC engine with the manual tensioners and the improved chain guides.

 

[donalds]

I'm running manual tensioner s in this 04 explorer
Front and back
No problems

 

[allmyEXes]

Today I changed the oil and filter in my Wife's white '97. Also I fixed the annoying pulling to the right that bothered me every time that I drove it. The steering wheel would be uncentered towards the right when driving it. I toed in the left side 1/16 to 3/32". I landed right on the sweet spot @donalds . The steering wheel is now centered and it doesn't pull either direction. I do have a front end shimmy in the 40 to 45 mph range. I don't know if it is the outer tie rods or the sockets in the rack. Are the sockets hard to change on the pavement? My lift at work is occupied. We now have ~ 38,000 miles on the manual tensioners. I was the first person in the CONUS & Canada to use them. They work and still no chain rattle even at
start-up. I'm not to crazy about the Dextero tires. The budget priced Wranglers were better. I wonder if rotation is covered in the Wal-mart warrantee?

 

[donalds]

I removed my inner and outer tie rods as a set
Jack up the front end
Remove wheels
Turn wheel one direction pull back inner boot and remove with a pipe wrench
Install the same way with lock tight