Originally Posted by w.smith

can anyone help I have the 05 F150 5.4 3V, 4WD with 200,000+ miles.
had the well known rattle and stall at idle I knew it wasn't good so I tore it down phasers seemed ok but sure enough guides were shattered and down in the oil pan so I dropped the oil pan ( not that bad of a job really ) takes about an hour to drop it, anyway cleaned the pan and figured while in there with the mileage I would throw a set of rod bearings in it pulled some caps and bearings are like new so left that alone but did install a new oil pump, chains, tensioners, guides, phasers, note: phaser on bank 2 pins fell out in my hand when I pulled it, and when I put new phaser bank 2 cam the dow pin felt a little sloppy so I put a new cam shaft on bank 2 ( have spent so much $$$ on it that I could not afford a new cam for bank 1 and it seemed fine, new cam sensors, VCT solenoids, crank sensor. when I had the cam and VCTs out oil ports are clean running 5W20 synthetic, reassembled engine know that timing is dead on. start it up sounds good runs the warm up high rpm then idles down and keeps idling down to about 200 rpms and shakes and rattles but if I throttle it up runs great just won't idle so I tore it back down second guessing myself and everything was good CEL came on giving me P0345 and P0349, 2 codes set and the same codes pending I was going nuts because I did everything right I should also mention that I was supposed to start a new job the next day after this truck went down not a good impression to not be there your first week on a new job but they are very understanding and it is my only transportation, so with little hair left now I ran a fiber optic camera around the engine looking for anything and sure enough when I took the left valve cover off while fighting the metal tube that carries vacuum to the brake booster I found that it hooks to a rubber hose behind the head and runs to the back of the plenum and that I had knocked it off the port ( now that was fun! you can't even touch it with your fingers because its so tight between the firewall and engine so off comes the plenum hooked the hose up to the port reassembled top of engine started it up and runs better then the day I drove it off the lot no noise at all at temp all you hear is the injectors, huge difference in fuel usage to the better. I should also mention that ford installed or said they installed new phasers three different times when I took this truck to them for noise and it was always just as noisy when I picked it up as when I dropped it off to them I raised hell with them everytime and they just had that stupid look on their face and said they all make noise like that and it always stumbled on take off so I went there and made the Service Manager get in the truck with me to show him how it ran he said that's normal so I asked him if it was normal for the engine to use a qt. or more of oil every 3000 miles since it was new he said yeah that's acceptable so I told him to get out of my truck two blocks from the dealership and left. sorry to ramble on but feel like you need to hear the history, but back to present truck runs better then new idles great no noise at operating temp and great fuel mileage but can not get rid of the codes, I'm in Hagerstown,Maryland and we have emission testing here every two years and the C EL active will fail it and you guessed it my truck is due for testing. cam sensor Ohms out at .478and I have .4 volts on hot lead at connector with key on.

Anyone ran into this before? and what did you do?

Originally Posted by carvanitis

Have you tried resetting the codes with a scan tool, or disconnecting the batt for a while? Do the codes come back after doing that?

Originally Posted by Steve Bassen

Yep

Originally Posted by Steve Bassen

Freedom Racing is good people...

You might try unbolting the AC drier or whatever the big tank is near there to see if that'll give you room to move the hard line while it's still attached... I doubt it'll be enough, though.

Originally Posted by benyang

this is a really nice for change the cam phaser,but i got a question about the wedger direction.is the curver portion should face the center of the truck? i got a litter confues about this part.

Originally Posted by 98snakehorse

Bummer, I'll see what I can pull off. Love this truck it runs great other than the tick at warmup, no codes or anything.

Originally Posted by A1A SPORTBIKE

Steve,

This is the best write up Ive seen yet about the Phasers. Thank you, in fact I love you in a very hetero way...LOL. Im doing plugs and Phasers as we speak.

Currently: Drivers side valve cover off. 6 plugs total out at the moment with no problems, giving the passenger side rear 2 plugs some extra soak time since the broken plug removal tool I ordered in on back order. FINGERS CROSSED.

WOW this is a pain though, the wiring harness's stretch tight across the covers. So in order to remove them you have to disconnect about 50 plugs. Using blue masking tape and a sharpie to phase them for reinstall.

Honestly im not to happy with Ford about this problem. My last car was a Porsche Boxster S 3.2 H6 mid engine and it seemed to be more mechanic friendly. Of coarse i did have to remove the convertible top and seats to work on the engine, not to mention a ton of bracing cross members, exhaust and transmission to do repairs. But after all that the car didnt seem this bad to access. A full size truck should not be this hard to access anything on the engine. But what do I know.... I work on sportbike and tugboat engines.

Anyways thanks for the awesome writeup.

Ps: Ill also have a timing wedge for discount sale or loan after this. Its way overpriced new.