If the tensioner seal were to fail would that degrade oil flow to the journals?

 

Remember the early modulars did not have tensioner seals that only came later when they went to the plastic tensioner. Parasistic oil loss from the tensioners was minimal but did exist. In fact our testing showed it was not significant enough to cause lubricating issues. You will lose some oil pressure from a bad tensioner seal and that can/may (I never was convinced myself) cause lower pressure to the tensioner allowing an out of control condition at the chain and generating damage to the guide. However which came first the chicken or the egg. Did the debris plug the screen and cause oil starvation which allowed the tensioner to fail or did the tensioner seal fail allowing the the same condition? These are questions I had to ask when I was performing teardown analysis. It is basic forensic investigation. Your chain guide is severly damaged and those pieces had to go somewhere and that somewhere is your oil pan.. Now look at the oil pump/pan pickup tube screen to see why you lost oil supply, it should be evident... With a failure from this condition I personally would not waste any money on this engine. It would be rare that only the passengerside head was damaged from this event. To risky for me to invest any money in it. JMO

 

Under the driver's side valve cover looks perfect. Far from the passengers side. I'm going to pull the head and maybe the oil pan today and see what I find. If I find plastic pieces plugging the restrictor in the head I'll be pretty concerned about the same plastic in the crank journals. We all know pulling an engine at a junk yard is probably easier than pulling one head at a junk yard.

 

It's entirely possible the chain guide simply wore out and came apart, how frequent were the oil changes on this truck?

Not sure how many are old enough to remember the old GM cam gears with the nylon teeth moulded to an aluminum gear but as the got old they became brittle and then they'd fail and they'd fail faster with less frequent oil changes due to the contaminants in the oil.

The Ford 4.0 SOHC has had some issues with those guide/tensioner arms as well.

-Steve

 

DYNOTEHC & Tasca Parts, thanks for the help guy's.

For a while I was holding out hope on saving some money for my family and just replacing the right head, oil pump, timing kit, and gaskets in several places. That was until I pulled the pan today. I was about to remove the right motor mount to drain the coolant from the right side of the block so that I could remove the cylinder head without filling the bores with water. I decided to pull the pan first and then sort of gave up on pulling the head.

The pickup is plugged pretty much solid and there is brass colored flake in lining the bottom of the oil pan. UGH. I'm not very comfortable replacing the head and oil pump and ending up with a good engine after that.

Should I just purchase a rebuild kit, have the block checked and cleaned at a machine shop and rebuild it? Or, try my luck on a junk yard engine? I'm afraid most of those trucks in the yard ended up there because of bad engines or transmissions. If I pull a junk yard engine I'll probably replace the oil pump and do the timing parts as well.

The oil changes on the this truck were mostly kept up with from what I know. The flake in the pan may be from normal wear as it probably wouldn't drain out given the oil plug location. The truck never had a low oil pressure light illuminate and the "gauge" showed normal when I shut it off last.

 

That thing looks pretty well smoked, I'd look for a replacement. Just judging by the coloration of the inside of that motor is doesn't appear to me that it was receiving frequent enough oil changes, at least not its whole life.

Could be that the guide came apart and blocked or partially blocked the oil pick up which then starved the heads for oil. That amount of metal in the pan doesn't look remotely normal to me either.

-Steve

 

It's time to either rebuild the entire engine or replace it. Don't just throw money at a cylinder head, you will be sorry. Too much metal has already gone through that engine. Have a look here. I'm rebuilding the engine in my son's 2002 Mustang.http://mustangforums.com/forum/4-6l-1996-2004-modular-mustang/711028-2002-engine-rebuild.html

Go to page 4 to see the carnage pics. Page 5 has the pics of the cam that ate the journals and cam bridges. In the case of this engine, most of the cam bridge bolts were loose, causing total engine destruction. I'm shocked that it had not seized completely.

 

Forgot to mention, his car had 143K miles. He bought it like this for $2400.

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The head is junk. There is no saving it. There are no cam bearings. The cam rides directly on the head. Once it's torn up like that, it's a door stop. You cannot repair it.

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Yea, I agree that the engine needs to be rebuild or replaced. With the machining work, cleaning, and parts I'm estimating a rebuild to cost around $2,000. A reman engine locally is about $2,500.

I almost had a break through at a local LKQ pick your part yard. Yesterday I went to one to check out an '02 F-150 5.4 that went into the yard on 9/25. I turned the corner to see someone working on the truck. When I asked what they were pulling they of course said "the motor." This yard only wants $275 for engines. This was probably a good engine as the truck was wrecked. That would have been a great deal but such is life.

Right now I'm looking at engines on eBay believe it or not.

 

If you want to keep the truck for several more years, I'd go for a Jasper reman. Otherwise, keep looking at the junkyards.

Try this site:

http://www.car-part.com/

I see a ton of 5.4's there from $300 up to $3000. You can sort by price or by distance from your zip code.

 

Would a motor from an 04 Expedition with the 'L' VIN code work? I'm guessing it will with that code and being 2V. I'm still searching for a good used engine.

 

That should work just fine.

 

The factory engine is out and a sub 145k'ish mile replacement engine is sitting in the bed of my truck after picking it up today.

I'm planning to replace the guides, tensioner arms, and tensioners with Ford OEM parts before installing the engine into the truck. I'm also going to install a Motorcraft water pump for preventative maintenance.

 

Might want to replace the spark plugs and possibly the coils too.