I own a 2003 Supercrew with the 5.4 engine. So far with 6,800 miles I love the truck. After reading some of the threads on this forum I'm getting concerned about the future reliability on my engine.

I was talking to a mechanic who works on all the City of Dallas fleet. He was telling me that there is a problem with the camshaft bolt breaking and trashing the engine and that Ford is ignoring the problem and refused to issue a TSB.

Has anyone on this forum experienced this problem or heard about it. I've heard about the 5.4 launching spark plugs, now this..maybe I should have gotten the SuperDuty diesel.

Jayhawker

 

Your report of the camshaft bolt is the first I have heard. I wonder if it is specific to one manufacturing plant.

 

HI!... It's kind of hard for the 5.4's camshaft gear bolt to break off since there is no cam gear bolt on the 5.4's. See the 5.4 uses a pressed on cam gear on both camshafts 5.4 SOHC). Unless they changed something in "03" . I've never seen one on a 5.4. Here's a few pics.

 

HI!... Now here is some pics of the CROWER STAGE 2 cams on my FOX LAKE heads for my BUILT 5.4. They use the cam gears from a 4.6, which use the center bolt fastener.