Help plz

[Biggamer89]

Hello if anyone can help my 99 explorer sport two door 4.0 ohv about 4 to 5 years ago I bought the truck and purred like a kitten five-speed four-wheel-drive and all of a sudden it starts running like it’s running off five cylinder not horribly probably 5 1/2 cylinder it wasn’t bad enough to stop driving it so I was driving Daily driving and every day it would get a little worse over about a month Period. All of a sudden it starts running really horrible probably four-cylinder and then started having starting issues wouldn’t want to start at all just popped started up shut off and then nothing Sounded like I completely lost fuel or spark or timing. So I figured crank sensor bought a crank sensor put it on it nothing and then I started looking at the fuel I didn’t have a pressure gauge at the time so I just push the needle and gas goes flying so I was pretty sure that wasn’t it. So I bought a cam Sensor and so on and so on I replace parts for five years could not figure it out until one day a guy told me that that truck has two cam sensors and so on and so on I replace parts for five years could not figure it out until one day a guy told me that that truck has two cam Sensors. So I start looking into that and I find the synchronizer instead of a distributor which I wasn’t used to never replaced one but sure enough soon as I put the synchronizer in the back of the engine which is a pain the first time! Anyways it fires right up biggest smile on my face I think I’ve ever had all of a sudden I hear a knocking so I instantly look at the oil pressure gauge and it’s at zero so I kill it figure I must’ve either got the timing wrong so I go back to scratch make sure that I got it all 100% timed Compression stroke Tdc From the zero mark on the harmonic balancer. And bam it hit me I crank the engine over without the synchronizer in the hole so the drive shaft must’ve bounced and landed in the bottom of the pan still not 100% if it did? There’s not a lot of YouTube videos was a waist time watching them! One guy made a homemade tool that you can reach down in there with and grab The shaft and reinstall from the top of engine And get it back in the pump. Well he didn’t show how to make the damn thing so here I’m trying magnets and everything else Hoses couldn’t get it.. But then all of a sudden I go out the next day fire it up no knocking oil pressure gauge is halfway up good oil pressure wtf? Now I’m left with 22 codes no oil pressure and knocking again I have codes for Camshaft Sensor circuit Fault was the very last code I received after running it today.

 

[410Fortune]

Okay so as you know the camshaft synchronizer is just like an old distributor
It is driven off a gear of the camshaft and it drives the oil pump via a small driveshaft

Cranking the engine over with no synchronizer in place bad idea

You had no oil pressure
Now you do

Something fishy back there at the synchronizer
You must revisit that repair and confirm the oil pump drive is in place, ensure the synchronizer is reaching it and seated on it and ensure that the synchronizer is still solid and not broken

You will likely need to remove the upper intake to gain access to the area so you can have a good look

It also helps to remove the two transmission hold down nuts and jack up the back of the transmission/ t case until it hits the floor… this gives you even more room to work back there


If your cam synchronizer lost its “pin” you can have zero oil pressure or a little bit but either way something went wrong back there


The ohv has one cam sensor not two
It has a crank sensor on the front of the engine and a camshaft position sensor and synchronizer on the back of the engine

The synchronizer is installed with engine at tdc on compression stroke and alignment tool in place

I suggest good parts here cheap synchronizer can cost you all this labor and oil pressure

You must test fuel pressure when these running issues occur, simply pressing the valve and seeing fuel does
Not equal adequate pressure your 99 runs with 64 psi and it only takes like 15-20
Psi to fool you at the schrader valve

 

[Biggamer89]

Okay thanks I’ll do that I just had that all apart to putting new seals/gasket on Intake EGR O-rings the whole nine installed 3 different Sensors everything on the engine/trans is brand new half was installed trying to figure this out Crank sensor to muffler gasket been replaced kidding! but I new not to crank without synchronizer I just forgot it was out for 30th time lol wasn’t thinking clearly was Frustrated at that point up working for almost a week straight on that and 2 other cars and just thought it was still in when I came back out a hour later after about setting fire to it lol bumped it then it hit me o crap. Not the best at the newer cars and electrical stuff now days but been doing auto Mechanics for 22 years my stuff and daily jobs I take on the side I do everything but newer cars Electrical. But never Accidentally bumped then dropped the shaft in pan or broke one! But everything I am seeing on here is saying the ecm/pcm controls oil pressure and sensor and if sensor is bad then it will send the pcm code plus make it knock and run Rough. Because there’s a washer on the driveshaft for the oil pump and it’s supposed to keep it from popping out of the oil pump and I barely bumped it when I started the job I didn’t have my oil pressure gauge so I wasn’t 100% if I was on compression stroke and no help to finger hole and crank. I put to tdc and installed taking a chance of it being on compression stroke It fired right up but knocked and no oil pres ran great tho But then I found my compression tester completely redone the timing correctly started it had oil pressure no Knock Started smoking real badly because of oil on exhaust was choking dogs out so I shut it off next time I start it back to No pressure and knocking. Like wtf is happening

 

[Biggamer89]

Also I used a automotive camera and the shaft was there I could see the top of it threw a hole that was just a hair bigger than the shaft for the sensor to slide down in and over the shaft but you could not see any other part of the shaft due to the hole. So even if I took the Plenum intake off I still don’t believe that you could see if the shaft is broke or Popped out of the oil pump or anything from what I seen on that camera And I would have to drop the pan to find out but maybe seeing it with your eye instead of Camera you can see more idk Can’t find anyone that’s ever done it from the top or any videos

 

[Biggamer89]

The only way from the top that I know of is a guy made a tool on YouTube made out of brass almost look like a gun cleaning kit the rods from a cleaning kit He took a. Hollow piece of brass rod and then he got another rod that was just a hair smaller inserted that into each other and a spring and the outside rod slid over the driveshaft while the inside rod Push the shaft releasing it once it was aligned back in the oil pump. But he didn’t say what size these rods was or anything and I don’t know the OD of the shaft so I can’t even Try to make one. Did mention that I drinking straw Slid over it But it was very hard to align with the plastic straw so he made the brass one. Definitely could’ve had a better video demonstrating making tool and sizes of brass rods. No info on it was Very upsetting why the heck did you make the video lol

 

[Biggamer89]

Okay so as you know the camshaft synchronizer is just like an old distributor
It is driven off a gear of the camshaft and it drives the oil pump via a small driveshaft

Cranking the engine over with no synchronizer in place bad idea

You had no oil pressure
Now you do

Something fishy back there at the synchronizer
You must revisit that repair and confirm the oil pump drive is in place, ensure the synchronizer is reaching it and seated on it and ensure that the synchronizer is still solid and not broken

You will likely need to remove the upper intake to gain access to the area so you can have a good look

It also helps to remove the two transmission hold down nuts and jack up the back of the transmission/ t case until it hits the floor… this gives you even more room to work back there


If your cam synchronizer lost its “pin” you can have zero oil pressure or a little bit but either way something went wrong back there


The ohv has one cam sensor not two
It has a crank sensor on the front of the engine and a camshaft position sensor and synchronizer on the back of the engine

The synchronizer is installed with engine at tdc on compression stroke and alignment tool in place

I suggest good parts here cheap synchronizer can cost you all this labor and oil pressure

You must test fuel pressure when these running issues occur, simply pressing the valve and seeing fuel does
Not equal adequate pressure your 99 runs with 64 psi and it only takes like 15-20
Psi to fool you at the schrader valve

I just realized I was supposed to click reply on your post. I didn’t I just posted regularly sorry but they are under the same message as the first one thank you for Attempting to help I’ll take any tips at this point I,m lost! I figured my only option was dropping the pan and taking the whole truck apart to get the pan off lol

 

[Josh P]

Are you able to get screenshots of the camera looking down at the oil pump shaft?

 

[410Fortune]

If you had oil pressure for a minute and then it dropped to zero again the drive shaft has not fallen into the pan, because there is no way you would get some pressure

Remove the cam synchronizer again and have a look see down in the hole
As Josh said use your phone camera and get some pictures!!

Your cam synchronizer didn’t compare the new part to the one that came out? There are two different lengths…/