I’m installing new heads
while having the heads off and rotating the engine by hand to clean the piston tops and oil the cylinder walls I noticed that it spins pretty freely , obviously with the regular amount of tension you would expect when turning an engine by hand with a long 1/2 inch ratchet .

but there is one spot in the cycle that feels like it’s got a lot more compression , or hesitation if you will. Leading up to Tdc there is a lot more resistance , like a hump I have to clear .

is this normal ? Or should the engine rotate freely with the same amount of resistance at all times freely throughout the cycle(s)?

just want to make sure I’m not having crank shaft problems before I fully bolt on the 2 new heads .

 

That sounds a bit odd. I would think it should spin pretty freely with the heads off no matter where in the rotation it is. The only resistance with heads of is friction in rings and crank/rod bearings I would think that should be minimum. I haven't had the heads off a 5.4 or 4.6 but even the oil pump or flex plate don't seem like they should contribute any more drag at one particular spot

 

that’s what I’m thinking . Son of a biscuit eater . I’m gonna drop the oil pan cover tomorrow and see what I can see. Thank goodness I’ve got 2wd and don’t have to fool with front differential . I have seen some guys on YouTube replace the rod bearings from under the engine .

 

Upon dropping the oil pan cover all the rods and and rod bearings at least look ok, don’t see any signs of a spun bearing , nothing chewed up , no metal shavings or anything in the oil pan. However it looks like the thrust washer here is loose and floating around I can easily wiggle it around with my finger. Can I fix that from here ?

 

Before you go too far chasing this it might be worth a sanity check to make sure you aren't just perceiving something that isn't there.
do you have a small beam torque wrench or one with digital readout so you can turn the engine all the way around and see what torque it takes and if it actually jumps up a lot in one spot vs the rest of the circle?

 

a little back ground first.

well, i was turning the engine yesterday and noticed it. i'm kind of an intermediate level mechanic at this point, from working on my own vehicles for the past few years. I tackled the timing chain job on this 2005 5.4 3v 216,000 miles two years ago , it had 190k miles when i bought it for 3300. i never had any problems with it since then until back in september when i started experiencing rough idle, loss of accelaration, and multiple misfires and random misfires on bank 1.

truck has been in driveway since then. at that time i was also running rich on one bank and lean on the other. vacuum pressure was also low. initially thought i had an intake manifold vacuum leak, couldn't find it with extensive carb cleaner testing, suspected it to be in the valley of the engine on bank 1 behind the alternator and went ahead and replaced intake manifold gasket, mind you after i had already changed egr, spark plugs, maf, throttle body, coil packs, all new rocker arms/roller followers and lifters/lash adjusters. ( i know i'm an idiot, and apparently have money to burn, but i just enjoy working on things and fixing them, its very rewarding to me. i learn from my failures)

we are getting back to the task at hand, but let me elaborate a little further to give you better insight, thank you for taking time to read this and bear with me.

So, i used the dorman intake manifold gasket and i didn't really like the way it fit on the intake manifold, i just didn't it was a little rigid and the holes didn't want to just line up perfectly and snap in perfectly like i thought they should, it just didn't feel perfect. So anyway, I get the intake manifold back on. not running better. may be running worse. get a little white smoke out the tail pipe. at this point, it finally dawns on me to check compression. ( i know i thought i told you i'm an idiot.) So i'm getting consistent readings on on all cylinders, 110-125 or so across the board, except i'm way down to like 60 and 90 on cylinders 2 and 3. so i deduce i have a failed head gasket between 2 and 3, a common diagnosis i understand.

so now i'm in for a head gasket replacement on bank 1. Go to remove intake manifold to pull off head, and the back bank 1 side of the intake manifold isn't even torqued down good it doesn't seem. With me fighting with the intake manifold runner valve metal arms, routing the cables correctly, and messing with the brake booster on the other side, and knock sensors, etc, i don't know if i even got the damn thing seated correctly or not anyway, i'm sure i was in a rush and made a careless error of not getting it seated and torqued correctly, but when it came off it was apparent that it probably was not. Mind you the truck still never left the driveway so it wasn't like i was driving around with coolant dumping into combustion chamber but it probably happened some in the driveway.

so then i notice when taking the head off, mind you after installing all new ford rocker arms and lifters, that the cam journals are gouged up near cylinder 2 and 3. just 2 of them, the lobes are fine, but the journals and the camshaft itself in those journals, just 1 or two of them had fingernail thick semi deep gouges, deeper than i felt comfortable trying to polish out.

So now i'm in for a new head! if i'm in for one new head though I got to get 2! so thats why i have the 2 heads off.

So anyways, after rotating the engine a couple times with the heads off, thats when i noticed that hesitation, and posted here and a couple other places asking about it.

I went ahead and got 1 head back on, and didn't torque it down but just got it to the initial 30 ft lbs. So i'm about to go back out in the driveway now and take it back off, and spin the pistons to see if i'm really getting that hesitation.

But there is not doubt that on that thrust washer, there is two pieces side by side, and loose to the touch with my finger. isn't one supposed to be up top, and one on the bottom, to form a complete ring? because its like theres 2 on the bottom.

I'm afraid when i was running the engine in the driveway that some water/coolant got in combustion chamber back there where the intake manifold wasn't seated good, and may have caused a little hydro lock/ piston rod bend. there was the puff of white smoke, and then i killed the engine, didn't think to look at temperature to see if it was running hot, and i noticed a little coolant in the oil when i drained oil pan, but it wasn't alot.

I will pull the block and put in a new crank shaft and all new pistons on this thing if i have too i don't care. i love this truck and i love this engine, when it works correctly.

i'm gonna go check for the hesitation again, and watch the crank from the bottom as i rotate the engine and look for any signs of mischief, will update here.

what do you think about those thrust washers though?

 

and also i have do have some torque wrenches, will report back with the difference in torque between the freespin and the hesitation. hopefully i'm imagining it. but i don't think i am.

 

You may gain some insight by viewing this FordTechMakuloco video. It talks about crankshaft end play.

 

funny i'm actually watching this as we speak

 

It’s official boys , read ‘‘em and weep.


Well at least that explains the scoring in the cam caps . So what’s the fix boys ? Assuming I’ve got the block out on the bench . What do I need to do take the crank shaft to the machine shop and tell them what ?