2002 Ford 4.0 engine

Royse said that he got a 4.0 replaced free because of the timing chain problem with them. Anybody know any details?

I've been on ford-trucks.com,even registered. I can't figure out how to post on there even though I registered.

I read a whole bunch of stuff over there though about the tensioner and guide trouble with them. Some on the forum say that Ford would fix them at no charge,others say it costs out the nose. I did manage to find a lot of TSBs on that problem.

The rear chain on the right side of the engine in the wife's 2002 Sport Trac jumped. When the boys get here we're going to finish pulling it apart. Has anybody ever gotten Ford to fix this problem even out of warranty?

call the ford dealers direct to see what they say, or get the number for the factory rep and ask them also,,,

Ya,I was going to call the service manager tomorrow. There's a post about a 97 4.0 doing this on that Ford forum. It had 175 replies. According to that,some dealers know about it and will cover it,some claim not to know anything. I was hoping somebody could give me a leg to stand on since I can't seem to be able to post myself on that forum.

if you haven't pulled anything apart, don't, untill you find out if ford will do somthing about it,, if they see that, or hear you played mech, they may not fix it..

Mine was fixed at Ionia Ford, which is now gone so that won't help much.
One of the older mechanics there went by the name "Dude".
Sewed right on his Ford uniforms.
He now runs a light auto repair shop in Ionia. He's not the guy that worked
on mine and I don't know him personally but he may have some details.
From the Ionia Shopper's Guide - Dude's Auto Repair 616-527-9924

A very good friend just went through this with a 2003 Mercury Mountaineer. It had 82K on it. He only had owned it a little over a year. He bought it from a local Ford dealer. The chain guides filled the oil pan with filings. The front chain is right above the oil pump. So it picks the metal up right away. Then it fills the oil filter up and pushes the metal past the bypass valve in the filter straight into the rest of the motor. His motor was shot.

He drove it home from church and parked in on Sat. night. He went to go to town Monday and it knocked when he started the motor. He had it towed to the Ford dealer he bought it off of (Victory Ford at Dyersville, Iowa) Yes I will name them as they where useless and down right lied to him. They told him they had not heard of any problems with the 4.0 motor. He had me look on the Internet. I found thousands of posts about the timing chain issue. So they just flat out lied to him!!!!!

They wanted him to put in a long block at the cost of $5500. He only gave $9500 for the vehicle. We went and brought it to my shop. I dropped the oil pan and pulled some bearing caps off. The crank was shot. Every journal was damaged. I got about two lbs. of filings out of the oil pan.

We went to a different Ford dealer and they told us right away that Ford had an issue with the 4.0 motor. Ford claims to have fixed it in 2000 or 2001. So they rarely cover any repairs out of warranty on any motor newer than that. There is a recall on certain years that quits at 75K. This dealer contacted Ford with the info on the Mercury Mountaineer. Ford would not do anything on that vehicle.

The timing chain system is a poor design. The make the chains go around a figure eight type of guide. This guide is metal. So they have metal running on metal. Plus the chain has a rough outside so it will cut the guide even with oil on it. Why they just did not have the chain go straight between the crank and cam shaft idler shaft is a mystery to me. It is like they wanted more wrap around on the sprockets. The guides should have been rollers or ploy not metal. Plus there is a chain in the rear of the motor that requires the entire motor or transmission to be removed to replace it.

It is a real problem that has not been fixed on the newer models. You will find a lot of Ford vehicles traded off right at 75K. Many trade after they get the recall letter. Others do it on advice from their mechanics. So BUYER BEWARE!!! I would not by any Ford 4.0 OHV engine regardless of the age or miles. The older 4.0 without overhead cams held up well.

It seems that Ford has trouble designing motors. The 5.4 had head/spark plug issues. The 4.0 with over head cams has this timing chain guide issue. The 6.0 diesel is a total junk. The 6.4 is not much better.

I was really thinking about buying a Ford after the bail out of GM and Chrysler. I am terrified of owning a Ford because of their poor engine history. I know many will claim they get hundreds of thousands of mile without any troubles but there are thousands of people that do not have that luck.

I have a 2000 Explorer that did that, I searched through all of the online stuff and did NOT see anyone saying Ford would fix it for free. I did mine, myself, and it can be a REAL pain in the sitterdowner.

The timing of the cams, and crank are critical, and you are supposed to need special tools, and I recomend them. Once you get into this engine, you will be totally amazed at the Mazda stupidity.
How to do it

Ford claims to have fixed it in 2000 or 2001

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For reference, mine was a 2004 Ranger that was just over the 36,000 mile mark.
I actually took it in for a transmission noise.
Once they fixed the tranny noise, also a TSB, the mechanic heard the chains
and they offered to fix them too.
I let them. No problems with it after that, just traded it for a full size.

Well,the darned thing has 269,000 miles on it,so it sounds like we got a heck of a lot more miles out of it than any other 10 of those engines combined. Might be time to count ourselves lucky and start looking for something else. Trouble is,she doesn't want a car or minivan. She wants another SUV or pickup. So this ain't gonna be cheap no matter what. Wouldn't mind having a car again myself.
I'm thinking since my diesel is so old,a 3/4 ton extended cab short box gas might be what I should look for. I can put my extra gooseneck ball in it,use it for long hauls hauling cattle,she can drive it around here the rest of the time.
CRAP! I wasn't wanting to spend a bunch of money right now!

I'm no ford guy, but have been looking at owning one someday. Are you saying there are TWO timing chains? One on front and one on back? Oh my.

There is in the 4.0. Don't know if any other ones did or not.

If you use the aftermarket parts, from ebay, you can do it for about $150, gaskets and all.

My oldest son runs an engine machine shop. He's going to be here in a little while to help finish pulling it out. I'll have him open it up and see what he thinks about rebuilding it. Everything's on hold til he looks inside of it.

Hay_man: How the Ford 4.0 OVHC works is this way. Where the original cam would have been there is an idler shaft running to the back of the block. So there is a timing chain from the crank up to this idler shaft on the front. There is also a timing chain on the front of the idler shaft that drives one head's cam. Then on the back of the motor there is a chain from the idler shaft to drive the other head's cam. Then to make it even better the oil pump is chain driven from the crankshaft on the front as well. So the oil pump sets right under the front timing drive/timing chain. There fore any metal drops right down where the pump picks it right up.

It really is a very poor design in my opinion.

Here is a picture of how they look.

My,oh my, oh my. Thank-you for that. Its a good one to stay away from for sure. I guess one has to really look hard at the way engines are designed now a days.

Thanks again......

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Thanks for those pics JD,that'll help.

So at 269K and 11 years Ford should fix it free, really? The ones that fail early have had a lack of maintenance. The chain design and routing is not faulty, nor is it unusual to any other OHC engine on the market. (Including the do no wrong Toyota and Hondas.) The only thing that makes it unusual is driving the cam's from different ends on each bank and the lack of timing marks. I have several customers with tons of well maintained miles on these with only one failure due to an ignored coolant leak that caused catastrophic overheating.

We see alot of these engines in our shop also. Only a few have had chain troubles that have needed to be repaired so far. Most of those have been from a lack of proper oil changes. I drive one with just over 110,000 miles and use 10w30 syn blend oil. No one should expect warrenty on a gas engine with over 200,000 miles. My $.02.

The chain design and routing is not faulty

Click to expand...

Of course not.
Auto manufacturers just issue TSB's on every part they install. :roll:
Should/will Ford fix it at 269K? Probably not.
They fixed mine, so I offered that info to RRLund as something to look into.