That kind of depends on the year. I know the 04's have threaded holes, so a harmonic balancer puller can be used. I think the later years don't have the threaded holes, so you would need a 6 inch gear puller. However, the gear puller will work for any year.
If you are missing peices, it would be a good idea to drop the oil pan. There could be some chunks of parts, specifically the chain guides, in the pan, or worse, blocking the oil pump pickup screen.

 

I have been reading these pages for a week or so and decided to join since I will be attempting this job with some help from some buddies. My 04 has been making the dieseling sound since I bought it 4 years ago with 43k miles. I just hit 61k and it seems to be getting louder. It's always when the engine is warmed up but it has recently started to make a ticking sound when driving. I checked the manifold gaskets and they look brand new. It seems it's apparent that I should start with replacing the phasers/timing components (the dieseling, not ticking) but I'm a little discouraged after reading on some other sites that it did not fix the problem. What would you guys say the success rate is by replacing with these kits?

 

I just made my first cup of coffee, so hopefully this will sound as good in words as it does in my head. I think the success rate depends on the particular motor and what has actually been done "fix" it. We hear a lot about this problem on this should forum, but there are also an untold amount of people that haven't had an issue. My personal opinion is that this starts with the chain tensioners. The seal for these suckeres are terribly thin, and like to blow out. When they do, it allows the oil to flow through the phasers and VCT solenoids at a faster rate, with less pressure. Kind of like a damn breaking. Without that pressure, the top end of the motor will not get the oil to every galley it needs to be. That can burn out the cam journals, cams, lifters, etc. The diesel sound is caused by the phasers, and can cover up other noises the top end may be making. To give credit to the Ford engineers, even though there is a major flaw with these motors, they're so tough they can keep going for a long time with a problem. The best chance of success, to me, seems to depend on being thorough when you open up the motor. You need to be willing to check/replace not just the phasers, but also the chains, guides, tensioners, VCT solenoids, lifters, cams, basically everything. Just replacing a broken part without adressing why it broke will only serve as a bandaid until the new part broke. Hopefully that made sense.

 

This isn't the first engine Ford built that had overhead oiling issues. Anyone old enough to remember the 292 from the late 50's? The fix was to add an external oil line up to the valve covers. Kind of a Rube Goldberg device. My Dad had a 56 Ford with this fix.

 

I may have missed the conclusion to a brief mention of oil. I see the fill cap on my 08 showing 5W/20W oil is called for. I've been told to run 10W/50W and that should quite the phasers until I can get the truck in for repairs.


But then a couple post back it's mentioned that the tensioner seals are thin and many are blown. So my thought is if you don't have blown tensioner seals the increased pressure from 10W/50W oil could cause them to fail.


Anyone want to comment on this theory?
Should there be a better seal?
What do the race car and off road guys run?

 

I don't think running any 10w oil is a good idea. Some of the oil passages are really small, and the thicker oil will not flow through them as well as the 5w. I've heard of 5w30 softening the noise also, and would be a safer bet. On the other hand, I could see where the thicker oil would decrease the loss of oil pressure through the tensioner seals, and allow oil to get back to parts of the head. All in all, it's probably a roll of the dice. I have a back up truck ('94 ranger with 313k miles and still kicking strong), so it's not worth taking the chance. I want my nice truck to stay nice.

 

Yes it makes sense. I certainly want to do it right and replace what I can with the money I have. Is this the kit that most are using?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...lXYwKgsv3vA7HQ

 

That's the one I used. I also picked up some valve covers from O'reilly, and one VCT seal from the dealer for the passenger side. I priced out getting the parts from other places seperately, but after shipping charges it wasn't that much cheaper with a longer wait to get them all in. I think I would have saved $5 using a few non - motorcraft parts and had to wait an extra week. With the kit, I ordered it on a Thursday and it arrived Monday, with free shipping, and all Motorcraft parts.

 

My theory is you can drive yourself crazy trying to come up with solutions and fixes to what basically amounts to poor design from ford. I know, I have done this job twice on my 10 year old f150. The tensioners failed twice, but upon removal there was no visual sign of failure. The seals looked fine but were not holding pressure at start up and presumably while running. My advice would be to keep running 5w20 until you can change the phasers or get rid of the truck. My phases were knocking for almost 60k before I decided to change them the first time.

 

I wish I could say I want to drive the wheels off my truck but with another kid on the way, a supercab isn't really the best situation for the future. That being said, the truck is paid for and I want to be fair to the person I sell the truck to if I decide to do so. Ball joints were the only problem I had with my power stroke but like this one, I didn't drive it much. I'm hoping to get the sound/performance taken care of to give me a better appreciation of what I have before I jump ship. $600-$1000 is worth it to me if I can do it myself......