Timing Set - Complete Failure Imminent and Need Help

[obie]

So, I'm having some pretty severe and sudden issues with it. Haven't had any issues before with noise from the timing set, until the other day while driving through a neighborhood. Started hearing clicking coming from the front driver's side wheel well while driving. Thought it would have been the CV shaft or the front driveshaft.

Started looking around, CV was good, driveshaft was good, so I started it back up to pull out of the garage. Heard that same ticking noise and pulled out the stetho. Got ticks coming from the front center, somewhere in the drivers side, and lower rear passengers side of the engine. Which sounds like the entire system is gonna fail. Probably what started causing my vibration issues. Been trying to track that down for two months and had ruled out the engine cause it never happened in idle or revs during park/neutral. But after that noise started, I could finally feel it coming from the engine itself.

Anyone have any idea how bad I'm looking at? Or maybe how much longer I can push it? Gotta have this truck for work and I put around 200 miles a week. I lose her, me and the wife are straight up ****ed. Wife's van has a blown head gasket and blown piston rings on cylinder 3 so it's not driveable, which means no backup vehicle. I also have no damn money to fix it. If it is indeed the entire timing set, that's over 500 in parts, and I would still need the OTC tool set. Trying to sell off parts from the old Explorer project but can't even spare the 20 for the elite membership now. Hate sounding like a whiner but I'm half venting and half asking what the hell to do.

 

[Tech By Trade]

Pull the engine, and start looking at one from a wreckers. Trust me, its a lot less work.

 

[obie]

Pull the engine, and start looking at one from a wreckers. Trust me, its a lot less work.

I'm not worried about the work. I've done OHC timing on diesels when I worked on construction equipment. Money is the big problem. OEM parts are out of the question, so I'm looking at the $300 Cloyes kit. The OTC set I can't find for rental anywhere, and the cheapest is from Sears for $180. I've got about half that, pending a body lift kit sale.

Seriously debating selling my entire Superlift kit and all the parts for the coilover conversion.

 

[Jermsy]

So, I'm having some pretty severe and sudden issues with it. Haven't had any issues before with noise from the timing set, until the other day while driving through a neighborhood. Started hearing clicking coming from the front driver's side wheel well while driving. Thought it would have been the CV shaft or the front driveshaft.

Started looking around, CV was good, driveshaft was good, so I started it back up to pull out of the garage. Heard that same ticking noise and pulled out the stetho. Got ticks coming from the front center, somewhere in the drivers side, and lower rear passengers side of the engine. Which sounds like the entire system is gonna fail. Probably what started causing my vibration issues. Been trying to track that down for two months and had ruled out the engine cause it never happened in idle or revs during park/neutral. But after that noise started, I could finally feel it coming from the engine itself.

Anyone have any idea how bad I'm looking at? Or maybe how much longer I can push it? Gotta have this truck for work and I put around 200 miles a week. I lose her, me and the wife are straight up ******. Wife's van has a blown head gasket and blown piston rings on cylinder 3 so it's not driveable, which means no backup vehicle. I also have no damn money to fix it. If it is indeed the entire timing set, that's over 500 in parts, and I would still need the OTC tool set. Trying to sell off parts from the old Explorer project but can't even spare the 20 for the elite membership now. Hate sounding like a whiner but I'm half venting and half asking what the hell to do.

Hey, so I've owned 3 different sport tracs over the years and never had this problem until a few months ago. I had that same tick and it scared the crap out of me. I got a stethoscope and listened over each valve and couldn't find it but I put it over the aluminum section adjacent to the power steering pump and could hear it super loud right there. Did some research and found out it was the timing chain tensioner. You can get replacements from stand alone autoparts stores from $40 to $80 but I found one on amazon for $20. https://www.amazon.com/Explorer-Ran...5&keywords=2001+explorer+sport+trac+tensioner there are a ton of tutorials on youtube on how to change this. You'll need to drain half of your coolant, remove the breather tube from the throttle body, and remove the thermostat housing. you can access the tensioner from there with a 27mm deep well socket (you can rent a socket set that big from oreillys loan a tool). Make sure you prime the new tensioner with oil. put the new one in with something like 40lbs torque (can't remember exactly). I did that and haven't heard a tick since.

Edit - I just saw where you were having a tick on the bottom passenger side as well - there happens to be a second tensioner there as well.

 

[Tech By Trade]

Check out Streetrod2000's guide. Cloys is the second best but people have been having problems with them too. I went with the Engine tech kit and it was alright but the tensioners were garbage. I have swapped them since. I cant suggest the Engine tech gasket set, seemed to be a half assed chineese knock off. As for the OTC timing kit, if you buy it, you can easily get your money back listing it on craigslist down there (kijiji up here). I have mine out for rent, 50 bucks for 2 weeks is what I charge. 200 dollar deposit. Lots of interest. I bought it used for 200 bucks on Kijiji. Not much point in putting all that other junk (lift and coil over) on if the damn thing wont run. Just a pretty looking paper weight.