My 00M12 Experience

[jahribar]

I have a 2001 Explorer Sport 4x4 with a build date of 12/2000 and was having many of the same problems others have described related to 00M12, specifically the P0171 and P0174 codes along with increasing rough idle. I purchased the kit from Ford and yesterday took a crack at changing the O-rings. I can't remember who created a link with instructions and pictures to do this repair but I printed them and went at it. From the start something didn't seem right. The instructions had pictures of parts that mine didn't and other things that seemed odd. My manifold looked like it was a two piece with a seem about half way up but it wasn't. It was only one piece. After I took the manifold off the O-rings that came off my engine didn't look at all like the ones in the kit. Mine were much thicker. So I went to the Ford dealership parts dept and they were stumped. They even talked to a few technicians and the technicians said the O-rings were correct and when they got hot they would expand. I didn't buy this so I went home and brought the manifold with me back to Ford. Again they were stumped since my manifold didn't look anything like the one in their parts system. Again two technicians looked at my manifold and were baffled. We went back over my engine size and specs. Someone asked me if it was a Sport or Sportrac or XLT. I told them Sport and it was like a light went on. The parts gut eventually found the correct O-rings. Ford part number 1L2Z-9461-CA GASKET. They come in a bag of six and cost about $16.00. So for my 2001 Explorer Sport with the 4.0 SOHC engine, the 00M12 kit is useless. On another note it was still idleing rough after I replaced the O-rings. Back to this forum and discovered a vacuum leak could cause this problem too. Found a broken vacuum elbow by the water pump and replaced it. Everything seems OK for now. Can't believe I'm the only one with the one piece manifold! Thanks to everyone who had some input on this forum.