Hello guys,


My truck was driving terribly after a P0174 code came on, so I went ahead and replaced the intake manifold gaskets...when I removed the intake, I noticed that something was loose in the manifold, when I flipped it over a chunk of valve lip fell off, when I looked into the head intake holes, I found a valve arm sitting in there





Now I need to replace the broken valve(s) which involves removal of the cylinder head (passenger side) and the chain cover I assume, Great!! and praying that I don't have a broken or cracked piston.


anybody have done this before? looking at the Haynes manual this sounds like a major pain in the ***, I do not have the means to remove the whole engine, I have to do this on my drive way, and the book calls for a bunch of "special tools".


I Need a step by step instructions on doing this, my questions are, can I just loosen the chains and mark them with a paint pen and take them off the cam phaser teeth and remove the head as one piece or do I have to remove everything before I get to remove the head?


also if the piston is cracked, can I replace it with the engine in the truck by removing the oil pan?


any help is much appreciated.


thanks


Note:
2004 F150 Triton 5.4L V8

 

My guess you got a messed up piston. Did you truck make any noise at all like engine rattle ect.

 

I have that feeling too, but I guess I won't find out for sure until I get the head off, it was making a grinding noise like couple of times then started to drive like an earthquake in progress.
I thought it was my ball joints wearing out but I guess I was the valve being chewed in there. the truck is sitting on my driveway for 4 months now, I am kinda tired of driving wife's truck so it is time to take care of business. hopefully I don't need a new engine.

 

Several years ago when I worked for an auto dealership, we had a Toyota Tacoma with the 3.0 V-6 that had a chunk break off of a valve and was spit back into the intake manifold. It was then ingested by another cylinder and again spit back into the intake. By the time the owner decided to shut it off and call the tow truck, that chunk had visited 3 or four cylinders. All the affected cylinders had indentations in the pistons and it was questionable whether the damaged areas could be de-burred and left as-is or not. It was at this point that my involvement with this job ended and I don't know or don't remember (God, I hate admitting that) what the outcome was. I wish you the best of luck. Sure looks like the valve stuck open and the piston hit it, based on the bent stem. Two questions; 1) How did you get that stem out? Its bent enough that I can't see how it would come out through the guide. 2) How did a rocker arm get into the intake port? That doesn't even begin to make sense.
Yes you can get a piston out with the engine in frame but its not a lot of fun. My biggest concern would be you put a bunch of hours into pulling the head, and maybe the piston,only to put it back together and discover -the hard way- that parts found their way into the other side of the engine. Assuming its not a super high mile engine, I would check compression on the other bank to see if you have any other issues. If not, then pull the head and see what you've got. Otherwise its engine-in-a-box time ( or complete overhaul). Its not worth the time or money involved in trying to save a damaged or questionable engine if it has a lot of miles.

 

To tell you the truth I have absolutely no idea how did those metal chunks end up in the intake manifold, at first I thought that the previous owner dropped them accidently when he maybe was cleaning the throttle body, but when I peeked into the right cylinder head intake holes only to find the stem sitting there stuck like a magnet into cylinder 4 hole wall, I asked bunch of people if this was even possible no one seem to know, so I am assuming it is a broken valve. I am planning to remove the valve cover and see if I am missing a valve ( that if there is a way to know just by opening the valve cover)


as you said I really don't feel like spending tons of hours taking the engine apart only to find out that I need a new engine or that it was unnecessary.


actually my truck got only 172K (106000 miles) it is fairly low mileage for a 2004 that's why I am in a dilemma right know whether I should pull the head off or not.


I was thinking to use a telescopic inspection camera to see if I can at least assess what kind of damage I have before I take the head off but I am not sure if an inspection camera can feed through those intake holes.


any suggestions are welcomed.

 

You could always use a borescope throught the sparkplug hole

 

I would bet that there is some kind of piston damage seeing how that valve stem is bent, and the valve face is broke.
Also where did the valve spring keepers go?

If you are going to fix this engine you have a lot of work in front of you. A rebuilt engine might be in your future

 

I realize this thread is very old, but I came across it and thought I would reply because of my similar experience. I have a 2008 F150, 5.4L 3V. Truck has 200K miles and was serviced on schedule. I performed a tune up and replaced spark plugs, etc... Not long after that the engine started skipping really bad. (I'm not much of a mechanic in full disclosure). Never the less, I started troubleshooting. A friend suggested that I perform a compression test. When I removed one of the plugs on the passengers side (second or third from the front), the bottom of the plug was beat to heck. This cylinder didn't even move the needle. I bought a cheap Bore-scope from Harbor Freight and much to my disappointment there was a football-shaped hole in the piston, (looks exactly like the piece in your photo). To make a long story short; considering there was 200K on the truck, I decided to replace the engine. When I went to "clean up" my intake manifold I noticed something rattling around inside. It turned out to be a valve stem and yep, a football-shaped meatal fragment. I have a few friends that work on cars and neither of them could say they had ever seen anything like it, (lucky me).

All this time I was trying to figure out how a piston would hit a plug; I recon it was a valve. Anyway, I hope this can help someone that may have a similar experience. Although the skipping on these units 98% of the time is a bad coil-pack; if the coil-pack don't fix your problem do a compression test; if that doesn't move the needle, look in the spark plug hole...