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Ford Explorer Community - Maintenance - Modifications - Performance Upgrades - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street
Explorer Forum Covers the Explorer ST, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Lincoln Aviator, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Ford Aerostar
The tensioners and timing chain guides on the 4.0L SOHC have been discussed before. Search for 00M12 and 01M01 in the "Under the Hood" forum. These are the Ford Owner Notification Programs (ONP) affecting these components.
The '97 should have already been fixed under the recall on the tensioners. The warranty on them has also been raised to 100,000 miles. I wouldn't worry about that being a problem anymore.
Get the SOHC. You'll be amazed at how much more power that baby has over the OHV. In all honesty, if you have an OHV you don't know what you're missing.
SOCH is rated like 1MPG better then OHV...in real life they are the same...it mostly depends on gearing. The V-8 is only really 1 or 2 less then the OHV...some get really high milage out of the V-8, while others get really low milage out of the V-6....it all depends on the driver and the vehicle setup.