Should I rebuild the timing???

[Mitchs07explorer]

UPDATE: Everything has sat all taken apart in my garage since my last post. I took a few days off over the last few weeks and today I finally got my engine all back together. Good god I can’t believe how long this project has been drug out. I’m proud of myself but I also have that uneasy feeling of whether I made a mistake or not. Just those feelings you get the very first time you do a complex repair. I know the timing is right and all the components were installed correctly, it’s the head gaskets and the upper oil pan gasket that I’m hoping I didn’t make any mistakes on. I don’t have the time like I used too for my automotive projects.

Also, after getting some good advice here, I opted to buy a Mellings timing kit and not use the Cloyes. Apparently the Cloyes kits have a high likelihood of imploding on you in short order. I can’t imagine going through everything I have only to have a piece of plastic tensioner snap on me less than 100 miles down the road.

 

[Mitchs07explorer]

So after what seems like an eternity I did finally finish installing the heads any rebuilding the timing. I put the engine and everything else back in and attempted to start it. It started and ran fir a few seconds and then quit. Sounded good though so I was scratching my head. I lost interest in the project after so long so I sold the car for $1000. Sold it in 2 days and the guy who bought it said that one of the cam sprocket bolts was loose and that cam was spinning freely. He re-timed it in the car and it fired right up. I think what happened was that I didn’t torque the cam sprocket bolt properly and it loosened when the engine turned over.

Lessons learned -I’ll never buy another junkyard engine
- I’ll only use OE or OEM parts if I can help it
- take my initial assumption on how long a repair is going to take and multiply it by 5

I can’t believe how much money I spent on this project but it’s just another lesson learned. I’m glad the Explorer is running though and someone else will be able to enjoy it for a long time hopefully.