Hi Guys, First time posting so I apologize if I'm doing it wrong.
I am working on replacing the timing setup on my '04 5.4 3V. I got the cover plate off yesterday and sure enough the guides are broken and the chain has been rubbing on the cover. I see a lot of metal when I look down in the oil pan. My question is, if I clean the metal out of the oil pan should that be sufficient to save the engine or has all that metal been thrown up into the engine and will now be catastrophic? I am just concerned about this because I don't want to spend the time and money to do the timing rebuild (chains, guides, phasers, tensioners) to find out the engine is going to die a couple weeks later because of metal shavings that have been thrown into the engine.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

 

Hopefully your oil filter and oil pickup screen have been doing their job.

 

Pull some bearing caps and see what they look like, should be pretty obvious if metal has been circulating in the oil.