timing chains.......

[wetdog]

.........are a worry, arnt they

the amount of explorers i seeing in scrapyards, on ebay, in the trader, and on here with snapped timing chains is starting to worry me.
i dont understand why a chain should snap, and with such regularity.
even with the tensioner issue, they still should not snap, should they?
my chain rattles, intermittantly, wasnt rattling when i bought and test drove it, but it is now.sods law i suppose.
now, i am not a rich man, and my chain lets go i will not be able to afford to fix it, nor will i have a vehicle for work.
so, what do you do?
hope for the best, or sell it and get something more reliable?
or am i being paranoid?

 

[rich uk]

mate my chains have been done im just about ready to get it back from the garage yes it is a worry, but i couldnt imagine loosing my ex ,when shes back I will be a happy owner again! hopefully mate you can save a bit to get it done before it gets bad and catches you out...
rich

 

[kevin p]

Wetdog and rich, my Ex has done 111,000 miles and is quite as a mouse. Rich, what miles has yours done to need the chains changing? Kev.

 

[rich uk]

at 130k and thats with fsh was quiet and then one day clack clack from the rocker cover...possibly yours has been done I thought mine had at that milage...

 

[BIGHVM]

Its a sad thing that around 60k onwards, the timing chain tensioners and guides show extreme wear and make this noise! sadly the noise is telling us that a fix has to be done sooner rather than later- Ford have let us down in the uk with this as many of our cars slipped thorough this modification from ford, and now it seems too late, I wonder what a letter signed by every one of us would do if Ford was to recieve it and think about future sales and all, bearing that in mind I wonder what the outcome would be, after all it would be those engines that never had the fix for a known faulty design!

what do yu all think about this?

 

[shaunskiman]

Mine has clocked up 120000 miles it was rattling on start up last year did sound bad so I had the om12 kit fitted with both tensioners changed and touch wood it's been sweet not a rattle in nearly a year (I hope I've not now jinked it ) so I would say start there youve nothing to lose.
Cheers Shaun

 

[Velocity4x4]

same here didnt rattle when i brought it but now and then i get a rattle im looking into getting a good price on the Tensioner kits if i do ill be able to do the job for a lot less than most places charge ......i will start a thread as soon as i find out

 

[rich uk]

I was thinking if we all had cambelts they would have been changed maybee 3 or 4 times after 130k roughly £150 a shot from a dealer ,so its a bit unlucky that us guys 10 years on are picking up the bill, but if we owned it from new....not as bad.....lower milages yer bad news oh forgot rear chains ..

 

[Ian5700]

If the timing chain noise is deal with at the beginning, i.e. when it appears only at start-up, having the 00M12 kit installed should fix the engine for the rest of it's life. If the timing chain noise is left to develop, i.e. to when it appears all the time, then that is when the timing chains/guides, etc. have to be replaced.

 

[CDW6212R]

If the plastic guides wear out(the original 97-01 design did often), then the plastic clogs the oil pump and the engine dies. If the tensioners don't work right for whatever reason, too much slack in the chains can make them break.

The two cam chain tensioners have mechanical springs inside of them. When or if those springs weaken after (? miles, 75k, 150k...), the tension on the cam chains is not enough, and you get the noise etc.

The weak links I believe are those two cam chain tensioners, and the original guides of those chains. The rear chain is rarely replaced because of how difficult it is to do, the engine or trans has to come out. The two cam chain tensioners are not that hard to do, the rear one is very easy. Those two tensioners(including buying the 00M12 kit) is not bad, around $75.

I suggest that you have those two tensioners replaced if the mileage is unknown, or say every 75,000. The cam cassettes which include the plastic guides are a far bigger deal. Everyone does the 00M12 kit hoping to fix everything. If that doesn't work then they go in to do the front cassette assembly. That requires special timing setting tools, much more work. Good luck,