Timing Chain / Hole in Cover/Housing on 98 v6 SOHC

My 98 SOHC 4.0 just had the timing chain slap/wear through the housing on the way home from work yesterday. I've got 130 K miles. Blue book private party is $7000 to $8000. I am pretty sure Ford did the TSB on mine some time back, and I will track down the paperwork to see exactly what they did. I'm sure its further back than the normal

12000 miles of repair warranty ago.

I was reading all the reports here to figure out what is the best option. The engine lost some oil (through the 1 inch HOLE!)but was running (roughly) when I was able to shut it down after a 1 mile run to get across a 6 lane freeway and down the ramp to a gas station).

My dilemma is - once it fails to that degree, is my engine toast? How can I check this out before I throw more money at it? Or am I in the land of "donate your car to charity" now? (I was planning to put it out on the street this weekend with a for sale sign on it - ironic!). Or is it worth trying the repair (I'm guess this is $1500 to $2000 for all the work on both timing chains, cassettes, and whatever else needs to be replaced plus a lot of labor). If I put the $1500 to $2000 into repairs, and find there is engine damage, then I'm really hosed.

Any thoughts on how to proceed. For now I'm going to have to towed to the driveway until I can consult a few shops and see what my options are.

Reply to
matt
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This is a first. I never heard of this happening to an SOHC. If I were going to repair the truck, I would just get a new engine. I would not bother repairing the existing one. It sounds like a catastrophic failure happened inside that did a lot of damage. Otherwise, you could try to sell it or donate it like you said.

Reply to
SizzleMP

I'm left a little confused by your posting.... Anything that will wear a hole in a case of any sort is going to make noise.... possibly lots of it. You can tell if the front cassette has been done by looking at the the front cassette tensioner bolt located at the front of the left cylinder head. I don't work on them much and if someone doesn't step in and help with the post/no posy bit, I'll have to go looking.

Back to the hole.... there is no way for me to avoid sounding ignorant or abusive. Other than a 600 watt amp and cRAP music, I can see no reason for allowing this kind of problem to get to this point. Strange sounds or activities are some of the ver limited ways that our cars have of telling us they're hurting. Every day we read about inexplicable accidents on clear roads in good weather involving only one vehicle. Far be it from me to suggest undermaintenance as a root cause but it remains a possibility. There are very few catastrophic failures that couldn't have been avoided with timely diagnosis and repair.

Unfortunately, by and large, the general concensus is that "if it moves, it must be OK....".

Reply to
Jim Warman

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