What I learned when pulling the motor - motor mounts & timing assembly | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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What I learned when pulling the motor - motor mounts & timing assembly

natenkiki2004

Blue Bomb!
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Location
North Idaho
Year, Model & Trim Level
1991 & 1994 Explorers
--- Story ---
First off, I'm about as green/newbie as they come. Before I got my Explorer, I had only really changed oil in a car 2 or 3 times. That and some minor small engine work are pretty much all the hand-on experience I've had with mechanical work. That is one of the bigger reasons why I decided to get it, to learn how to turn wrenches in a practical way.

Fast forward a year after purchasing the Ex and I've learned oodles and poured more money into the Ex than it's worth but all in the name of learning. But I'm left with a big problem, an oil leak. It always leaked but was a couple of drops and coated the underside of the engine. The leak got much worse though, last time I cared to check, it was 1.5 quarts in 400 miles, about a drip every 5 seconds the engine is running. Not acceptable, especially being a work truck, visiting people's homes and leaving puddles is rude. Long story short, I figured it was either (or both) a oil pan or rear main seal. Rather than messing with the axle and trans, out came the motor with the help and guidance of a friend.
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A lot of the info I used during the pull and the repair, I got from this site so I won't bother re-sharing it but I will share specifics that I didn't read about. I'm not finished with the repair work yet, the engine still has to go in so I'll be updating this thread with more info as I learn.

Motor mounts -
They were cheap enough that I bought some when ordering parts. Later I read that you can't replace them without dropping the front differential. Bummer, thought I had wasted $22. I decided to give it a shot anyway and pretty quickly, I found a way and successfully replaced the motor mounts. I took a video explaining the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB2dWahPB8A
The jist of it is, you need a 18mm short socket, universal joint, extension and impact gun. They both came out pretty easily. My only issue in the process was that the passenger side, I had to lift it and angle the stud a bit to get the nut started. It also would have been good to have a helper hold the mounts in place.

OHV timing chain & assembly -
Thanks to Anime for recommending this. I was hesitant to do this at first since it required removing a few things that I didn't need to mess with to fix my main issue but I'm glad I did. I was concerned about keeping everything aligned and not skip a tooth on the chain. To anyone looking at doing this job, that's impossible. Both sprockets are keyed and you simply keep that in mind while keeping the chain tight on the drivers side (tensioner goes on the passenger) and boom, it's done. Mine did not have a gasket under the tensioner and the "timing cover gasket set" didn't include one (the tiny one it does include is for the oil pump pickup tube of all things...). The tensioner seems to work by ratcheting. I believe oil pressure keeps the tensioner tight but there's also a ratchet type teeth on the shaft so the tensioner can't really retract. This provides tension all the time which means that if you lose oil pressure, the timing chain will remain mostly tight and is impossible to skip a tooth. Both the plastic guide/tensioner pieces were worn but not excessively at 227,000 miles. The crankshaft sprocket looked like it had the most wear but only a barely noticeable difference from the new one. I feel like the stock setup could go 400,000 miles as long as it's not abused with a lack of oil changes. There was no noticeable difference between the old chain and new. I'm glad this is done so I don't have to worry about the timing chain/assembly and the timing cover gasket is changed which was getting pretty crusty, surprising that it wasn't leaking.

Oil pan gasket -
This looks to be the main culprit to my oil leaks that I fought. After seeing this, it makes you re-think the 'seal' products out there. I shot a quick video about my pan gasket:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pj_933njSg
It hardened up to the point where it felt and behaved exactly like super brittle plastic. The bottom line thing I learned about this was that if you're dealing with an older vehicle like this, snake oils/mechanics in a bottle will most likely not do a damn thing for you. When a gasket/seal has gone to this stage, nothing will soften it up and make it behave again. I had put in a bottle of rear main seal stop leak just to try to slow it down until I could repair it. It didn't even slow the leak and the only thing I noticed that it DID do was seal up my drain plug real nice and make a clot at the bottom of the pan. The oil seals I replaced seemed pretty good but to be fair, the rear main had been replaced before. Front looked like it could have gone a while still.
 






This is in my future my leak hasn't been that bad lately. Since i put Bar's Stop Engine Leak into the motor that stuff is like thick Molasses. I think having the motor out made it easy to change the motor mounts you think?
 






Yea, having the engine out made the mounts easier, that's for sure. I don't know if the engine can be jacked up enough to get the mounts out. The mounts do tilt in towards the center of the vehicle and might pop out that way rather than having to lift them straight out if your engine is in the way.
 






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