Hi!
I am finally done with the engine rebuild! The car is a 98 Explorer that I got from my dad. It has just under 93750 miles on it or 150000km. He didnt run it much before because the engine rattled and had low oil pressure. As he lives in the contryside, he had the keys in the car, and of cause the police called him and the car had been stolen and abandoned in the middle of the road....
At this state he was so tired of it so he talked about sending it to the wreckers, but then I stepped in. Previously he has replaced the hydraulic tensioners and a couple of rockers that had been destroyed by clogged up lifters. Of cause with no more use than a hole in the wallet....
When I got the car I hoped that just the timing chain had jumped so that the car didnt get any compression. This is a budget story, so I have spared every expense that I could!
So I started to look for timing parts. But here in Sweden the Ford dealership is highly incompetent and extreamly pricey. I looked up the timing parts and some gaskets that should come in handy.
The price tag on this stopped at around 1000$. Of cause I have looked up the American Ford prices here on the site and some parts was outrageous expensive here. The timing cover gasket cost around three times more than in the US. I even work at Volvo and therefore I have a discount, but it was still to expensive.
After a while I ordered a kit from us ebay with all chains for around 350$ with shipping, and with low custom value
The major problem with getting the engine out was the rusted manifold bolts that connects the exhaust pipe. I got one loose intact, one broke and the ather two had to be sawed of with a blade that I held in my hand. I hated the car now!
When I opened the bottom end I found a lot of parts. Tensioner parts, both metal that had been jammed between the chain and sprockets and various plastic parts. The main bearings were scorched from metal parts that had gone through the filter obviously it wass full of crap... The rod bearings were worn down to the copper. The crank was a little bit damaged on every bearing surface. Of cause it wouldnt be enough with the chains.
I ordered Clevite main and rod bearings via Autoshop race engines, as I was buying some stuff for my race car too. The price of bearings is at least the half in the US.
I placed the crank in the turning machine, and polished the bearing surfaces with a old lether waist belt i had in the closet in conjunction with some fine valve grinding paste. The crank still had some small scoring, but it was way better than it were in the first place, and the high spots were ground down!
I assembled the engine the new bearings and the timing kit. The rear chain and tensioners looked good, and didnt neeeded to be changed, but of cause I did it when I had the new the new parts laying there!
When I was about to tighten the front bolt to the auxillary shaft(the shaft that transmittes the motion to the right cylinder bank) I noticed a big play in the rear end of the shaft...
Of cause the rear shaft bearing had worn out and spun with the shaft. The bearing had placed itself on the axle between the bearing bores. That explained the low oil pressure! Thats the positive part!
Luckily the gears to the oil pump, that is on that side of the shaft where still ok. I managed to get the bearing out so that I could get the shaft out.
I called Ford here in Sweden, and got the answer that Ford didnt supply this bearing any longer. But they could sell me a new shaft with bearings included for 1000$. Of cause this was not an option... I tryed to be a little rude to the Ford guy, WTF couldnt they supply spare parts for a engine that is manufactured to 2004 or something? I ranked Ford low before, but after this I am never going to own a Ford again... Sorry
This shaft too were put in the turning machine and polished with the old belt
I mesured the bearing bore with a three point micrometer and the shaft and made a broze bearing from a worn out car lift nut that I had replaced, and hammered it in with some loctite for bearing installations. I had to drill two holes and made a groove in it for the oil.
It took me about an hour to do, an cost nothing. I guess I could get one from Clevite, but It would be expensive and take long time. I didnt replace the front bearing as it looked fine.
I didnt buy the tools for the timing of the chains. They come in handy but isnt needed.
I used a cylinder stop in the nr 1 spark plug hole to find TDC, As im used to do this with my race car. The zero mark in the harmonic balancer was accurate.
The aux shaft was tightened first. I didnt have the torque for this, but I used a list of torque that I got for metric fine pitch bolts in different bolt qualities.
Then I had the nr1 cyl cam lobes pointing up and the plane on the cam parallell with the milling on the cylinder head. I turned the cam so it was under a half mm differance in height between each side. Mesured with a distance plate from the milling machine, placed on the cams planar surface and the depth were mesured with a digital caliper.
On the left bank the middle lobes, cyl 5 should point down. The cams were mesured the same way as the other one.
Sorrily I didnt have the cam holding tools, so I had to be creative again! I took a bit of 180grit abrasive paper and placed underneath every top cam bearing halfe and torqued them up as much as I dared. I also used a big wrench with a 5mm steel plate in the other end of the cam to equalise the torque when I tightened the nuts to around 70Nm. Then I removed the abrasive paper and cleaned and oiled the cam bearings of cause.
After this I rotated the engine 720degrees and mesured the cams again, so that the timing still was ok! And it was!
I mounted the engine together, after welding the sump that was rusted up and seriously repaired from both sides with some chemical metal compound! This didnt seem like as good soloution in the long run. The sump was wery thin in the material so it was tig welded and tested with crack testing spray used for controlling fork lifts.
I wasnt sure that the valves were intact, so I did a leak down test. Guess what? just one cylinder had about 70% leak down, the rest had 100%! So all the gas leaked out the valves. This sure is an interference engine
If i had done the leakdown test before i could have ordered cylinder head gaskets from Autoshop to, but my garage buddy had tried to rebuild the leakdown meter to a compression meter and hadent mounted it together again I hate that...
The cam degreeing was down the drain. I removed the cylinder heads and all the valves were bent of cause. At this time I wasnt surprised, the only thing positive was that I didnt need to change the pistons.
As I said this is a budget bild, so guess what? I straightened all the valves in the vise with aluminum protectors and mesured them with a indicator and a v-stand to 2/100mm. I finally ground the valves with grinding paste in the head, and assembeled them again!
I also blew compressed air through the oil channels. When I removed one of the cams, there were plastic material in the holes feeding the cam bearings.
Mostly one side were clogged up. I also cleaned the oil pipes that lubricates the cam lobes. There where a lot of debris in them! I thaught that just old Fords from the eighties had that
I also took the hydrualic lifters apart and cleaned them out. They also were full of foreign material...
Now to the tricky part to reuse the multi layer steel head gaskets. This is the thing that I was most nervous about. I drilled out the rivets that hold the three peices of steel together and split the layers. It was a little pain to do because they was bonded together in some way, but a sharp knife sorted it out!
I cleaned the layers with spirit that I usally use to clean brushes with.
I bought a can of aerosol adhesive called locktite 3020(30$), that is rumored to be good. I know about it because some racers here buy expensive 500$+ MLS gaskets for their turbocharged cars, and they dont want to buy a new one if they dont have to!
I sprayed ritchly the deck of the block, and both sides of each layer of steel. I guess I used 2/3 of the can.
I dont know the cost of the gaskets but I guess I have to pay at least 300$ for the gaskets here in Sweden.
I took a little syringe and injected some oil in each cylinder, so that the adhesive shouldent stick to the piston rings.
I also reused the head bolts.
And then the cam degreeing again!
I mounted the engine without spark plugs, removed the ECU and fuel pump fuse and cranked it until I saw oil pressure on the dash.
It took me 11 hours to take the engine from the stand until the engine started. I have a car lift, so it helped me a lot!
I think that I have spent around 550$ on the rebuild in total. With new oil and filter!
I think that this is the cheapest way you can rebuild a 4.0L SOHC engine! I just hopes it lasts!
Now I have driven the first 45 miles with it! The only thing that must be fixed is that the sump gasket was destroyed when i took the engine apart, and I used silicone instead, but unfortunatly to little in one place, so it leakes a tiny bit! So far no dropped valves or leaky head gaskets!
Thanks!
Gordon Ekman
I am finally done with the engine rebuild! The car is a 98 Explorer that I got from my dad. It has just under 93750 miles on it or 150000km. He didnt run it much before because the engine rattled and had low oil pressure. As he lives in the contryside, he had the keys in the car, and of cause the police called him and the car had been stolen and abandoned in the middle of the road....
At this state he was so tired of it so he talked about sending it to the wreckers, but then I stepped in. Previously he has replaced the hydraulic tensioners and a couple of rockers that had been destroyed by clogged up lifters. Of cause with no more use than a hole in the wallet....
When I got the car I hoped that just the timing chain had jumped so that the car didnt get any compression. This is a budget story, so I have spared every expense that I could!
So I started to look for timing parts. But here in Sweden the Ford dealership is highly incompetent and extreamly pricey. I looked up the timing parts and some gaskets that should come in handy.
The price tag on this stopped at around 1000$. Of cause I have looked up the American Ford prices here on the site and some parts was outrageous expensive here. The timing cover gasket cost around three times more than in the US. I even work at Volvo and therefore I have a discount, but it was still to expensive.
After a while I ordered a kit from us ebay with all chains for around 350$ with shipping, and with low custom value
The major problem with getting the engine out was the rusted manifold bolts that connects the exhaust pipe. I got one loose intact, one broke and the ather two had to be sawed of with a blade that I held in my hand. I hated the car now!
When I opened the bottom end I found a lot of parts. Tensioner parts, both metal that had been jammed between the chain and sprockets and various plastic parts. The main bearings were scorched from metal parts that had gone through the filter obviously it wass full of crap... The rod bearings were worn down to the copper. The crank was a little bit damaged on every bearing surface. Of cause it wouldnt be enough with the chains.
I ordered Clevite main and rod bearings via Autoshop race engines, as I was buying some stuff for my race car too. The price of bearings is at least the half in the US.
I placed the crank in the turning machine, and polished the bearing surfaces with a old lether waist belt i had in the closet in conjunction with some fine valve grinding paste. The crank still had some small scoring, but it was way better than it were in the first place, and the high spots were ground down!
I assembled the engine the new bearings and the timing kit. The rear chain and tensioners looked good, and didnt neeeded to be changed, but of cause I did it when I had the new the new parts laying there!
When I was about to tighten the front bolt to the auxillary shaft(the shaft that transmittes the motion to the right cylinder bank) I noticed a big play in the rear end of the shaft...
Of cause the rear shaft bearing had worn out and spun with the shaft. The bearing had placed itself on the axle between the bearing bores. That explained the low oil pressure! Thats the positive part!
Luckily the gears to the oil pump, that is on that side of the shaft where still ok. I managed to get the bearing out so that I could get the shaft out.
I called Ford here in Sweden, and got the answer that Ford didnt supply this bearing any longer. But they could sell me a new shaft with bearings included for 1000$. Of cause this was not an option... I tryed to be a little rude to the Ford guy, WTF couldnt they supply spare parts for a engine that is manufactured to 2004 or something? I ranked Ford low before, but after this I am never going to own a Ford again... Sorry
This shaft too were put in the turning machine and polished with the old belt
I mesured the bearing bore with a three point micrometer and the shaft and made a broze bearing from a worn out car lift nut that I had replaced, and hammered it in with some loctite for bearing installations. I had to drill two holes and made a groove in it for the oil.
It took me about an hour to do, an cost nothing. I guess I could get one from Clevite, but It would be expensive and take long time. I didnt replace the front bearing as it looked fine.
I didnt buy the tools for the timing of the chains. They come in handy but isnt needed.
I used a cylinder stop in the nr 1 spark plug hole to find TDC, As im used to do this with my race car. The zero mark in the harmonic balancer was accurate.
The aux shaft was tightened first. I didnt have the torque for this, but I used a list of torque that I got for metric fine pitch bolts in different bolt qualities.
Then I had the nr1 cyl cam lobes pointing up and the plane on the cam parallell with the milling on the cylinder head. I turned the cam so it was under a half mm differance in height between each side. Mesured with a distance plate from the milling machine, placed on the cams planar surface and the depth were mesured with a digital caliper.
On the left bank the middle lobes, cyl 5 should point down. The cams were mesured the same way as the other one.
Sorrily I didnt have the cam holding tools, so I had to be creative again! I took a bit of 180grit abrasive paper and placed underneath every top cam bearing halfe and torqued them up as much as I dared. I also used a big wrench with a 5mm steel plate in the other end of the cam to equalise the torque when I tightened the nuts to around 70Nm. Then I removed the abrasive paper and cleaned and oiled the cam bearings of cause.
After this I rotated the engine 720degrees and mesured the cams again, so that the timing still was ok! And it was!
I mounted the engine together, after welding the sump that was rusted up and seriously repaired from both sides with some chemical metal compound! This didnt seem like as good soloution in the long run. The sump was wery thin in the material so it was tig welded and tested with crack testing spray used for controlling fork lifts.
I wasnt sure that the valves were intact, so I did a leak down test.
Guess what? just one cylinder had about 70% leak down, the rest had 100%! So all the gas leaked out the valves. This sure is an interference engine If i had done the leakdown test before i could have ordered cylinder head gaskets from Autoshop to, but my garage buddy had tried to rebuild the leakdown meter to a compression meter and hadent mounted it together again
I hate that...The cam degreeing was down the drain. I removed the cylinder heads and all the valves were bent of cause. At this time I wasnt surprised, the only thing positive was that I didnt need to change the pistons.
As I said this is a budget bild, so guess what? I straightened all the valves in the vise with aluminum protectors and mesured them with a indicator and a v-stand to 2/100mm. I finally ground the valves with grinding paste in the head, and assembeled them again!
I also blew compressed air through the oil channels. When I removed one of the cams, there were plastic material in the holes feeding the cam bearings.
Mostly one side were clogged up. I also cleaned the oil pipes that lubricates the cam lobes. There where a lot of debris in them! I thaught that just old Fords from the eighties had that
I also took the hydrualic lifters apart and cleaned them out. They also were full of foreign material...
Now to the tricky part to reuse the multi layer steel head gaskets. This is the thing that I was most nervous about. I drilled out the rivets that hold the three peices of steel together and split the layers. It was a little pain to do because they was bonded together in some way, but a sharp knife sorted it out!
I cleaned the layers with spirit that I usally use to clean brushes with.
I bought a can of aerosol adhesive called locktite 3020(30$), that is rumored to be good. I know about it because some racers here buy expensive 500$+ MLS gaskets for their turbocharged cars, and they dont want to buy a new one if they dont have to!
I sprayed ritchly the deck of the block, and both sides of each layer of steel. I guess I used 2/3 of the can.
I dont know the cost of the gaskets but I guess I have to pay at least 300$ for the gaskets here in Sweden.
I took a little syringe and injected some oil in each cylinder, so that the adhesive shouldent stick to the piston rings.
I also reused the head bolts.
And then the cam degreeing again!
I mounted the engine without spark plugs, removed the ECU and fuel pump fuse and cranked it until I saw oil pressure on the dash.
It took me 11 hours to take the engine from the stand until the engine started. I have a car lift, so it helped me a lot!
I think that I have spent around 550$ on the rebuild in total. With new oil and filter!
I think that this is the cheapest way you can rebuild a 4.0L SOHC engine! I just hopes it lasts!
Now I have driven the first 45 miles with it! The only thing that must be fixed is that the sump gasket was destroyed when i took the engine apart, and I used silicone instead, but unfortunatly to little in one place, so it leakes a tiny bit! So far no dropped valves or leaky head gaskets!
Thanks!
Gordon Ekman
