So, I've got an '06 Super duty with a 3v 5.4L V8. Not the best truck, but it was a stud, one-owner, 109K mile truck when i got it like five years ago. Only put about 20k on it since then.
Here's the issue. No codes (except my driver air bag, as usual), no noticeable misfires, although I THINK I feel one every once in a while, but it may just be my imagination coupled with the bumpy roads. But it has a ticking noise. Like those desktop pendulums with the swinging metal balls. Clearly coming from passenger-side cylinder bank. Which is fantastic, because it's way more cramped on that side. Doesn't matter if it's hot or cold, and it increases in speed with the RPM. I don't notice any performance issues, I don't think, but I also don't drive the truck much, and it's always been a dog that gets downright awful fuel economy. I don't smell any fuel or exhaust under the hood, but I also can't smell for shit most of the time. 24/7/365 allergies.
It did die on me a couple weeks ago when I threw it in reverse, and the RPM's do drop fairly low sometimes when shifting to reverse, but it has otherwise never given me a headache in the time I've had it.
I'm going to pull the ignition coils on that side either tomorrow or this weekend to see if there's any soot. Heard somewhere that the spark plugs can come loose in rare circumstances. My fear is that it's valve train stuff. Doesn't sound like any cam phaser tick I can find on YouTube, but YouTube sound doesn't always come across accurately.
Any Ford guys on here? What are your thoughts? If you had that kind of noise, what would be your first point to investigate?
inb4 somebody says "Trade it in for a *insert brand here*, problem solved!"
Here's a video of those silly pendulum things. Go to 0:35. Very similar to that tick.
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Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:02 pm
TINCANBANDIT
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Location: Mohave Valley Arizona Joined: Fri May 20, 2011 Posts: 13371
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my first thought is an exhaust leak, perhaps at the O2 sensor? Could also explain the other symptoms
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Ticking and loss of power on the 5.4 are almost always a bad cam phaser. 5.4’s aren’t necessarily a bad motor, they just pretty much all have this issue once they get over 75k miles.
Ps. Be extremely careful pulling your plugs! If you’ve never pulled them before consider having a shop do them. They’re a god awful long spark plug and like to come apart when being pulled. Nothing like having to remove and disassemble the head to get out porcelain chunks from a broken plug.
my first thought is an exhaust leak, perhaps at the O2 sensor? Could also explain the other symptoms
Could be. I've never heard an exhaust leak. Or rather, I've never heard a sound that I knew was an exhaust leak on any vehicle, so I have no idea what one sounds like.
Sinus211 wrote:
Ticking and loss of power on the 5.4 are almost always a bad cam phaser. 5.4’s aren’t necessarily a bad motor, they just pretty much all have this issue once they get over 75k miles.
Swell. 10 shop hours means 20+ Phill hours and possibly a new lawn ornament. Oh well. YouTube and shop manuals have gotten me out of binds before.
Sinus211 wrote:
Ps. Be extremely careful pulling your plugs! If you’ve never pulled them before consider having a shop do them. They’re a god awful long spark plug and like to come apart when being pulled. Nothing like having to remove and disassemble the head to get out porcelain chunks from a broken plug.
Oh yes, I'm familiar. Before this truck, I briefly had an '07 F150 with the same motor. Had to do plugs and coils on that one. If it's time for plugs on this truck, and I think it might be anyway, I'm using Champion platinums. I think a friend of mine still has an extraction tool.
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Sinus211 wrote:
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Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:25 am
Traut
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Location: Downtown Newcastle Joined: Sat Mar 5, 2016 Posts: 3440
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Just a wild ass shot. It's not a spark arcing from a plug wire, is it? You'd probably be getting a noticeable miss or LOP, but it doesn't take much to peek under the hood after dark and rev it a bit to check for sparks jumping around off the plug or ignition wires.
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Just a wild ass shot. It's not a spark arcing from a plug wire, is it? You'd probably be getting a noticeable miss or LOP, but it doesn't take much to peek under the hood after dark and rev it a bit to check for sparks jumping around off the plug or ignition wires.
A good idea, but I very much doubt it. These are coil-on-plug trucks, the ignition coil has a boot and a spring that sit right on top of the plug, and there's another plug (a wire plug) and goes into the ignition coil.
And I was just at the auto parts store getting some stuff, among that stuff was a mechanic's stethoscope. I listened around each ignition coil and didn't hear the tick. I'll give Mike three guesses as to what spot I was probing where the noise was at it's loudest.
Just a wild ass shot. It's not a spark arcing from a plug wire, is it? You'd probably be getting a noticeable miss or LOP, but it doesn't take much to peek under the hood after dark and rev it a bit to check for sparks jumping around off the plug or ignition wires.
A good idea, but I very much doubt it. These are coil-on-plug trucks, the ignition coil has a boot and a spring that sit right on top of the plug, and there's another plug (a wire plug) and goes into the ignition coil.
And I was just at the auto parts store getting some stuff, among that stuff was a mechanic's stethoscope. I listened around each ignition coil and didn't hear the tick. I'll give Mike three guesses as to what spot I was probing where the noise was at it's loudest.
my first thought is an exhaust leak, perhaps at the O2 sensor? Could also explain the other symptoms
Could be. I've never heard an exhaust leak. Or rather, I've never heard a sound that I knew was an exhaust leak on any vehicle, so I have no idea what one sounds like.
Sinus211 wrote:
Ticking and loss of power on the 5.4 are almost always a bad cam phaser. 5.4’s aren’t necessarily a bad motor, they just pretty much all have this issue once they get over 75k miles.
Swell. 10 shop hours means 20+ Phill hours and possibly a new lawn ornament. Oh well. YouTube and shop manuals have gotten me out of binds before.
Sinus211 wrote:
Ps. Be extremely careful pulling your plugs! If you’ve never pulled them before consider having a shop do them. They’re a god awful long spark plug and like to come apart when being pulled. Nothing like having to remove and disassemble the head to get out porcelain chunks from a broken plug.
Oh yes, I'm familiar. Before this truck, I briefly had an '07 F150 with the same motor. Had to do plugs and coils on that one. If it's time for plugs on this truck, and I think it might be anyway, I'm using Champion platinums. I think a friend of mine still has an extraction tool.
Don’t stress shop hours too much. My wife’s ‘15 pathfinder lost a bearing on the main fan at under 40k miles(known issue). Dealership was booking 5 shop hours (the fan is so big you have to take a bunch of stuff out to remove it). I did it in under 2 hours in the driveway. Messed up part is the dealership only installs Nissan OEM parts so it probably would have only lasted another 40k miles or less. I installed the aftermarket “improved” fan assembly and saved almost $1k.
Cam phaser is a little more complex but I’m sure you can do it. I sold my 5.4 f-150 before dealing with it. I’m curious if they have an aftermarket part that lasts longer than the OEM.
OHH gonna take a wild guess like mike said yep cams. 04 with 147k did the same. Glad i didn't mess with the plugs shop broke 2 of them. About 8 months later 5th cylinder crashed. new engine and its never ran the same or I just got used to the ecoboost
Forgot to mention if its your cams just replace both of em.
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Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:24 pm
mcyclonegt
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Location: West Olympia Joined: Mon May 28, 2012 Posts: 6816
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I had an engine once that had a similar tick. Drove me nuts. Was a bad injector. With it running, pull the plug off the injectors one at a time. Obviously it will create miss, but the tick could go away. It’s a shot in the dark, but it’s a free test.
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I had an engine once that had a similar tick. Drove me nuts. Was a bad injector. With it running, pull the plug off the injectors one at a time. Obviously it will create miss, but the tick could go away. It’s a shot in the dark, but it’s a free test.
Could an injector fail like that without throwing a code? Well, worth a shot. Will report tomorrow. Might be worth a $10 can of seafoam, too, I suppose. I don't hear the noise on the stethoscope when I touch the probe to the valve cover directly. Only when I touch it to one of the front valve cover bolts. Which is kind of odd to me, but that may be normal. The valve cover isn't really in direct contact with the block, the bolt is.
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Sinus211 wrote:
Z66 and I still fuck on the regular.
zombie66 wrote:
Mikey is a Bossy Bottom.....
Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:10 pm
stompah
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Location: Renton Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2015 Posts: 2107
I've heard about those locking blocks. Lose a little top-end, but gain a little low-end. When I eventually get to the timing rebuild, or have a shop do it, I will be installing a high-volume oil pump. From everything I've read, this almost always boil down to oiling problems inherent to the 5.4 design, specifically the passenger side. So, more oil, less problems. Haven't decided if I want to lock the new phasers or not.
Sinus211 wrote:
Don’t stress shop hours too much. My wife’s ‘15 pathfinder lost a bearing on the main fan at under 40k miles(known issue). Dealership was booking 5 shop hours (the fan is so big you have to take a bunch of stuff out to remove it). I did it in under 2 hours in the driveway. Messed up part is the dealership only installs Nissan OEM parts so it probably would have only lasted another 40k miles or less. I installed the aftermarket “improved” fan assembly and saved almost $1k.
Cam phaser is a little more complex but I’m sure you can do it. I sold my 5.4 f-150 before dealing with it. I’m curious if they have an aftermarket part that lasts longer than the OEM.
The aftermarket solutions seem to be three-fold. One is the locking blocks mentioned above, two is using one of the Melling high-volume oil pumps, and the third is using metal chain tensioners. OEM tensioners are plastic, but older Ford tensioners were these metal ratcheting things that held up better, and there's a company making billet aluminum guides and tensioners. Apparently aftermarket cam phasers are ill-advised.
Haven't decided yet if I source the parts myself and tear my truck apart in my driveway for $1100-1400, or pony up the $3500 to have somebody else do it.
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Sinus211 wrote:
Z66 and I still fuck on the regular.
zombie66 wrote:
Mikey is a Bossy Bottom.....
Fri Aug 13, 2021 10:26 pm
Free Boer
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Location: centralia Joined: Mon Feb 13, 2012 Posts: 1352
Main cause of cam phaser sticking is lack of using the proper oil type and viscosity, along with lack of frequent enough oil changes. There's a product I've used with quite a bit of success, as long as it's used correctly. It's made by BG and sold by the Wagonmaster group. It's called EPR, or Engine Performance Restoration. Works better than Seafoam, Rislone or ATF. If you can't find the kit on Amazon or in a local shop, PM me and I'll call my distributor for you.
I had a high mileage Ford in with like symptoms, would also die at stops or run quite rough till it was shut off for a few minutes then re-started. The EPR treatment cured it, and it has run fine since.
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