FordSilly

that video sounds A lot like what mine did, but mine was so bad it could barley run at idle.

joe mcmillan

I bought my 2004 in New Mexico last year and there is almost no rust on the underside. Raining now but when it stops will post some underside pics.
No engine noise either. Had 59,000 miles when purchased and 63,000 now. 4.6 liter was pretty gutless. Put on Edge Evo programmer and much better now for power. No disappointment.

GrimaceTimus

Well...I am pretty sure that my passenger side phaser or chain is the problem. I went and picked up a stethoscope at lunch and had a listen to the valve covers and heads.

The predominant sound from my video is very prominent when I probe the forward surfaces of the passenger side valve cover and front-edge of the head. As I probe along the head/cover towards the firewall, the noise becomes increasingly faint. The driver's side cover and head are much, much quieter.

So...I guess a new timing-kit it is (and perhaps Livernois lockout...I haven't decided). I think I will be putting this off for a couple of months until the weather is cooler. As I have mentioned the truck runs fine and has good oil pressure. I am not 100% convinced that I don't also have an exhaust leak...I'll be crawling under it with the probe to and a good light to check out the manifolds and cats.

rswright11

iTrader: (1)

Well, at least it sounds like you are getting closer to diagnosing the problem. The bad thing is, a lot of the people that "fixed" the issue had it come back later.... Hopefully you won't have that issue too. It would suck to drop that much money into it and have it come back.

Crazy4x4

New Mexico resident here, Albuquerque. Where did you buy yours from. Your right, not much rust on NM vehicles. You can have bear steel for years without much more than slight rust that comes off with a finger nail.

FordSilly

That's what the livernois lock out kit is for!

GrimaceTimus

Agreed...at least my diagnosis has progressed to the point that I can justify buying parts. I egregiously threw $100 at the problem with the new-gen VCT solenoids to no avail...I wasn't about to throw another $500-$600 worth of parts at it without a very thorough diagnosis. The whole "it came back" thing definitely worries me and has me seriously thinking about the Livernois lockout. My issue with the Livernois is it pretty much means no custom tuning (other than the Livernois-provided custom tune to account for the lockouts). Plus it means I take my $600 repair and immediately turn it into $1000+ with the lockout kit.

Update on oil pressure...

So I was on a longer drive yesterday (and it was 110 out) and after 20 or 30 miles of highway driving I had to exit onto some surface streets. I noticed that my oil pressure would come all the way down to 20 PSI right before full-stop and then while waiting at a stop-light (in gear, foot on brake) it hangs around the 22 PSI range.

My Chilton's doesn't provide an acceptable reading for "Full optemp, in drive, foot on brake" PSI ... it just says I should have between 40 and 75 PSI at 2000 RPM. And at 2000 RPM, I have about 62-64 PSI.

Thoughts on this? Should I be worried about the 20 PSI during decel and trim-down?

Also, any evidence to the contrary on my Livernois concerns would be appreciated.

GrimaceTimus

FS ... I almost forgot to ask. Has your MPG been affected by the lockout? Do you know what you are getting for gas-mileage (City & Highway)?

FordSilly

Actually I contacted 5 star tuning I believe and he said that they can do custom tunes and also incorporate the lockout tune, I made sure of that before I purchased it.

Oil pressure that you are having is very similar to what I have, and didn't worry to much about it, I run 5w-30 now (haven't checked pressure since I started using the heavier oil)

If I were you I would try to use the Oem phasers that are on the truck, unless they are separating.

As far as mileage I drive my truck only on the weekends so I drive it pretty hard, and I get 13.5-14.3 mixed city and interstate 75-80, hard accels.

FordSilly

And compared to before I did the kit i was getting 11-13 but that was in winter, so mileage wasn't to much effected.