Success of 4.0 SOHC rattlin chain fix?

[Lavanial]

On Saturday 11/22 I took delivery of a 1999 Red Sport 4wd 4.0 SOHC Explorer (112000 miles). I heard the rattling chain when he drove up to meet us. Raising the hood it sounded like it was coming from the drivers side front of the engine....ratttling marbles in a bucket! I brought the truck home to check it out. I have to return it Monday, 11/24 or he will cash the check... So this weekend I found this informative site and saw all the postings concerning chain guides, service bulletins, 02-08-01 00M12, 01M01, etc. Makes me go hummmmmmm. Anyway, the rattle stopped before I got out of town for a 100 mile interstate drive. Later that day I cranked it and heard the rattle again. Today...no rattle...before or after a 200 mile trip. So just a few questions before I get an opinion from a Ford dealership tomorrow:
Does the 1999 engine have plastic or aluminum chain guides from the factory?
Is the only serious damage potential the broken plastic chain guides clogging up the oil pump?
Has anyone paid to have this fixed? How much?
THANKS!

 

[RVZII]

Hydraulic tensioner

Being your noise is in the top left of the engine I'd say its the chain tensioner. Ford has a revised hydraulic tensioner to rectify the rattle on start-up. Being yours is such high mileage I'd imagine you'll have to pay to get it installed. The tensioner is in the front of the engine. You can see it right by the waterneck in the intake. Its about the size of your thumb and about 2" long.
After some proofreading, I realized I'd made it sound like the tensioner is in the intake. Its just near the waterneck in the head.

 

[Lavanial]

Thanks for the info. I'll see what Ford diagnosis' in the morning. Yes, the mileage is high but the price was right.

 

[mikeh]

It's $550 if you take it to Ford or $50 to do it yourself. I posted a writeup on how to do it about a year ago. It's a significant problem which needs to be fixed.

mikeh

 

[RVZII]

Ain't hard

Yeah, it's serious but really don't take much serious work to do. Remove your upper intake, waterneck,(might as well throw in a new T-stat while you're there) unplug and remove the closest sensor, and viola! Someone care to add anything I've forgotten? Oh, I know, theres a little allen plug there. Carefull don't strip the threads out. Use some liquid thread sealer, but not a whole lot. See if you can find mikeh's write-up. Its not hard. Carefull don't let that upper intake fall. I did once. It won't happen again! LOL

 

[izackary]

i've been wanting to do this! does anything happen to the timing though? alldatadiy.com says ford rates it as a less than 2 hour job if i'm not mistaken. i'm surprised they'd charge THAT much. does the dealership sell the replacement parts? or maybe fordpartsnetwork?

By the way, welcome to the site, both of you

 

[mikeh]

Yep, the dealership does sell the kit for $50. In fact that is the only place that you can buy the kit. I'm sure fordpartsnetwork would carry it also. The kit contains a new tensioner with washer. A new little plastic dohicky which gets dropped into the hole. And upper and lower intake gaskets.

It's hard to believe what a dealership charges sometimes. That's why I started working on my own vehicles.

mikeh

 

[mbmech157]

does anyone know of a thread that gives specific instructions on the job so i dont **** it up? Or if you could give them to me yourself then i could do it myself. Thanks, Mike

 

[mikeh]

Here is the link to my thread on how to fix the 00M12 problem.

Dead Link Removed

Have fun,
Mikeh