I have a 07 f150 with the 5.4L in it. It only has 89k miles on it. It started missing so I had the plugs and coils changed. Fixed the miss. Then I'm leaking power steering fluid. Changed the pump but didn't fix it. Checked the hoses and the reservoir and couldn't find anything. Then I noticed a price of my valve cover missing. It had to have been the timing chain that did it but I want to know what may have caused it. Any ideas fellas?

 

um what? If you have no missfire no way in hell could the timing chain be loose enough to come through the valve cover without major engine failure. Take a picture if what you are talking about.

 

I have a edge evolution programmer and no DTC's were showing. I can't post pics on here I'm on my phone. But thats the only possible thing I could thing of that would do it.

 

A timing chain is kept tight on the cam/crank sprockets by a tensioner and guides. For a chain to physically hit a valve cover it would have to either leave the cam/crank sprocket and if it was going fast enough maybe could do damage to a valve cover but to puncture it? I dunno I highly doubt it. Either way if the chain came off it would cause the cam/crank timing to be off causing pistons to smash into left open valves possibly trashing the inside of the motor and cylinder head and valves. The truck would run like dog turd too.

I think when you did plugs and coils you damaged the valve cover, or when you did the powersteering pump possibly using a prybar to pry on the cover to get the pump loose?

[edit] Today at work even, I had a nissan frontier with a inline 4 timing chain come loose. It had 200k miles on it and the chain wore through the guides all the way touching the tensioners. Both tensioners were loose to the point they didnt do a damn thing. However with the chain being so loose at this point it still only jumped 3 teeth on the timing gears and the truck still was (barely) driveable. I still couldnt just take the chain off despite no tension and it being stretched. I still had to remove a sprocket to remove the chain.

If you have picture mail send me a good pic to my cell phone. phone number 48 zero 2 zero 3 four 580

 

I didn't do the plugs and coils and I know the hole wasn't there before. No pry bar was used to get the pump out. Nothing touched the cover let alone hit it hard enough to knock a chunk out of it. You can tell by the way the hole looks that it was hit from the inside. I'll text you a pic of it. And I was driving for quite sometime today before I found it. What got me looking is I could smell power steering fluid burning. I was in town at the time. I drove it a good 20-30 minutes afterwards and it drove like it always has.

 

Ive never seen it on a 3v but it is known on the 2v's that if you let the tensioners go bad, after a while it eats a hole through the timing cover. So it is possible. There is enough slack in the chain to hit the cover in certain areas. Without jumping time...

I have never heard of one that "broke a chunk out" but only wore them through...

 

It's not completely broke off. The piece is still attatched. It wasnt rubbed through it was hit by something inside there maybe repeated knocks at the same area but definitely no rubbing to where itd eat a hole in it. It will all be broke down tomorrow hopefully. By the end of the week at the latest. I'll let y'all know what it is soon enough.

 

You would have heard that... over a period of time

 

Is it a hole in the valve cover or timing cover? Also I'm confused about the power steering leek. If it's leaking power steering fluid this would have nothing to do with the timing or valve cover. Are you saying it's leaking oil now which would make sense with a hole in the timing or valve cover? Please eleaborate. As others stated here the chains will wear a hole in the timing cover when the tensioners fail but and sometimes no codes will show.

 

Heres the pic he sent to my cell phone last night. It looks to big to be a chain grinding through a timing cover or in this case valve cover. It is exactly where the chain is though which is odd, but that would have to make noise for a while or something

 

The phaser come apart? Probably the only way to tell is to remove the valve cover and see whats going on. Time for set of the those fancy ford racing valve covers.

 

The theory of the mechanic is that the tensioner come off and the chain doubled up right at that spot. There is a rattling that we think is probably the tensioner bouncing around. He said there's a 3 week wait. Slip him a little more and he'll move it up. We'll see what happens. I'll keep y'all posted.

Edit: He's even gonna put my remote start in for me! No more cold truck in the winter morning!!

 

Me and Langston talked about possible phaser came apart last night in text. I dunno though it just seems like you would notice driveability problems if a phaser took a dump as the truck cannot control the timing as it should.

 

Yea. The only reason I found it was because I could smell burning oil. It drove just like any other day. If it hadn't of been for the smell there's no telling when I would have found it.

 

I have seen the cam timing chain gear bolts come out and get launched thru a cam cover. The gear still stays on the cam but will move back and forth a little.