I have a 1998 F150 4.6L and I am currently in the process of doing the same. Mine was not broken however there appears to be a lot of wear on the cam shaft gears and the chains are way loose, mainly the right hand side. I ordered the cam shaft positioning tool required for my engine just to play it safe. Only took two days to get it. I also ordered the timing chain kit for $270 and valve cover and timing chain cover gaskets. If you went threw the effort to take it that far apart you should replace all. Also check your oil pump to make sure it has not been worn threw.

 

Well, its been a long couple of weeks and I've finally fixed the darn thing. I've learned a lot and figured I would come back and share what I've learned. Hopefully it will help some other poor soul that tries to attempt this themselves.

If you remember I tried many things to save money.

1) Attempting to do this myself when the extent of my knowledge was changing spark plugs and brake pads. Needless to say this was a big step up but I felt it was worth it because the two estimates I had were 1200 and 1500 dollars.

2) I decided not to buy the camshaft and crankshaft holding tools. For the last two weeks I thought this was the biggest mistake. If you choose the same route, be careful, the chain will slip from the crankshaft sprocket when you remove the tensioner or tensioner arm due to spring pressure from the camshaft. Mark the chains and sprockets with nail polish before you remove the tensioners. If you lose it just follow the directions on putting the black or shiny link on the cam shaft and crankshaft timing marks. It didn't make sense to me at first but once I thought hard enough about it this is the one thing that finally allowed me to finish the job. Until then I was moving the chain, testing for binding, putting everthing back together, and then starting over 4 times because I had a knocking. It liked to have killed me. By the way, you can use a long flat head square shaft screwdriver and place the tip in a square plug hole and the shaft on the camshaft sprocket to move the camshaft around to get the links right against the tension.

3) Big mistake #1. Not buying the full kit. I decided to try and just change the guides, tensioner arms, and tensioners since those were the only things damaged. I never would have thought my chains could have stretched. Well guess what, they did and that was the knocking sound. The right chain was so stretched out that it was hitting itself at times. I checked the right and it was stretched by about 1/2 inch and the left was stretched about 1/4 inch. Get the full kit and change it all.

4) There is no need to remove the water pump. Also, if you don't mind being a little cramped you don't have to remove the radiator. I took it apart and put it back together the last time with the radiator in. Taking it out did give me much more room though and I flushed it good with a water hose.

5) PATIENCE - Here is what really got me. Just try taking it all apart and putting it back together 5 times. You'll lose you patience too. Well, for me this means stripping out my crankshaft pulley hole. HOLY S&@$!. I had the dealership take a look at it and they said that I would need a whole new moter because of this but at $6500 for a short block I decided to give a helicoil kit a chance. It worked thank god. I'm thinking about driving up to the dealership so I can stick my tongue out at them and tell them to shove it especially since they lost my stripped bolt which made finding the right helicoil kit tough. I had to go to a salvage yard to find a new bolt. I got one for 5 bucks off a 5.4 L 250 junk motor.

Once I figured the chain link thing out (yes I'm stupid) I put it all back together really believing I had it this time. I put a couple of quarts of oil in and no coolant and turned the motor over. I had a damn knocking and I was pissed. I said to hell with it and put everying back together. Full oil, coolant, all the rest as if I'd never taken it apart. That knocking was scaring me. I waited for the thermostat to open to add more coolant. As soon as the therm opened up a heard a slight tick and the knocking was gone. It now runs great with no knocking or anything.

Good luck to anyone who gives this a shot. I hope you've learned from my mistakes.

 

It's a bit late and the motor has 150+k miles but here is the case for not using any oil but the 5W20 weight reccomended by Ford.
When the motor is cold, extra heavey oil is putting to much tension on these parts from higher oil pressures until the oil thins out from heat and use.
Cold temps make this worse yet.
The tensioners are oil hydraulic off the oil pressure system.
The semi syn Motorcraft oil gets to these parts faster and does not build as much tension on the chains and giudes.
.
Lesson is do not use other oils in the allusion that they are better than MC oil.
I am at 108K and still have a motor that is like new with no noises cold or hot.
Oil/ filter has been changed every 5000 right from the start and pulls a race trailer yet.

 

I know this is an older thread, but I am about to do the same thing to my truck. It is a 2005 F150 FX4 with the 5.4. I have 200,000 miles on it and have had no problems until now. My engine started out having a spark plug problem that ford will not admit. The spark plugs on those motors are extra long because of the 3 valve heads. The number 5 and 6 broke off into the motor and I had to buy a special tool to get them out. I havnt tried 7 and 8 yet. After that the motor continued to skip which apparently stretched out the timing chain and broke one of the guiders. I have that same metal grinding in the front of my motor when it comes down off RPM's. The only difference is, I have no power at all and it feels like the motor is going through HE%$! My plan is to do this myself...I have already bought the kit and gaskets. My only problem is know how! Has anyone done this yet on their own other than Browneye000 since then. I know this will be a pain, I just want it to be painless as possible

 

At least you bought the whole kit. Be very careful not to strip out the crankshaft bolt like I did. I thought the pressure I was feeling was the pressing of the pulley onto the shaft. Nope... I was stripping out the crankshaft bolt. Beat on the pulley so it is far enough in to be able to tell that there is no doubt that you have the threads in right. I had to buy a helicoil kit as Ford dealer would not resize it for me.

I wish I had more instructions to give you. I ended up using www.alldata.com. Its worth the ~$40 for a 1 time use that can save you hundreds maybe even thousands of dollars in mistakes.

Remember. Make sure you are at top dead center and use the marks on the chain and the pulleys. It doesn't sound right but it's the only way to make sure. Never, I repeat, never try to start the motor without turning the crankshaft at least twice around manually to ensure you have the chains on correctly. Good luck and hopefully I can remember enough to answer any more questions you have. I feel sorry for your knuckles.

 

Thanks for the advice! Have you heard of anyone using the haynes book for the instructions. I was thinking about buying that book and getting the instruction off of alldata.com. I know that you do not have to take off the radiator, but I think I am going to anyways just to flush it and make it easier to work on. I know this will be a bear of a job. Hopefully from watching My friend who works on all our ford lightnings take the motors out and swap them for JDM motors, I will remember what to do and not to do with the timing chains.

 

Had to do the same job on my 97 f150 with a romeo built ( Vin w on the 8th digit vin #) I rented the tool for free at Autozone here in Ohio. The large wrench fits over the bolt heads on the pulley and the other wrench fits on the big nut on the fan clutch. On mine the Haynes manual said it was a left hand thread and in fact is was not, it loosened in the normal fashion of "lefty loosy righty tighty" after two days of fighting I figured it out. The camshaft and crankshaft positioning tools are very hard to find and I marked everything after establishing TDC with # 1 cylinder position. I used a white mark on the cams and where they touch. They will shift somewhat if and when you remove the chains. I then religned everything with a ratchet on the camshaft sprocket when I put it together. I got away with it. I did replace the tensioners, guides as well as the chains. Read my thread 'Timing problem" for more details. Oh yea, I also replaced the water pump too.

 

With that much wear on the chain guides make sure you drop your oil pan a cheack the oil pump pick up.

I bought my '02 F-150 with a locked up motor, as I was tearing into the engine I found the chain guides had worn out the same way yours did, when I got to the oil pick up it was completely clogged with plastic and metal shavings from the guides, causing a few of the rod bearings to weld them selves the the crank. Bad stuff.

 

Ok guys...So I got everything finished up and put back together. I turned the motor over by hand and made sure nothing hung up. I then turned the motor over by starter. When I got all done, I went to start the truck up and all the motor did was continuously turn over like it wasnt getting any spark. I could smell gas like it was flooding. So I check the spark by removing a spark plug and putting it back onto the coil and turning it over. I had plenty of spark on both sides. My question to yall is, what else can it be? If there is spark and fuel in the cylinder then I should have combustion. I know for a fact that the crank nor the camshafts moved while I was doing this. Also, nothing on the guides were broken nor was the chain out of wack when I took it down. Even if it was out of time...wouldnt the motor lope real bad or at least try to start but run completely rough?

 

Not if the valves are open when they should be closed. If that is the case, you have lost the most valuable part of the four stroke engine....compression.

 

Even though this thread is old, but the advice from Browneyed is so valuable for a newbie like myself thinking of tackling this task.

 

I think I may have broken or loose timing chain on my 03 5.4 with only 73000 miles. I have 0 experience in motors, and I dont know If i can do this myself...mechanics want 1,000$+