Yes, the guy at precision tune said its all beat up in there. But I'm seriously thinking about going out and buying one myself and seeing if he was lying.

 

You can get a Milwaukee one for around $250 I thought. I seen an ad in the Blains Farm and Fleet flyer.

 

compression and leak down tests will confirm damage to the piston, ring, wrist pin or a spun rod bearing, including a distinctive loud clunk. Have had one of these in a 302 and it wasn't pretty. Anyway, that being said, do the tests, compare the results to the engine specs and then make YOUR own decision. The piston top can take a beating, provided it doesn't crack or break, and you can continue to drive your truck. The main concerns are the sealing of the piston rings against the bore, the bore itself and damage to your valves, valve guides and seals due to the left over pieces of plug. Humor me on this if you have the time, pull the plug and stick a telescopic magnet in the bore. Pick out as much of the rubbish as you can; if anything is still in there. The 4.0 are not made out of paper, albeit I have heard of some engines throwing rods out the case. Good luck

 

The spark plug was impacted by something and the end was bent onto the electrode. It didn't physically break in the cylinder.

 

Ranger093...you mentioned the E3 plugs, those sound aftermarket. If it's the plug, THEY might owe you an engine for a faulty plug. It certainly wouldn't be the first time the tip of an aftermarket plug broke inside an engine, for now on stick with Motorcraft. Ford doesn't want to do warranty work on their cars so they use Motorcraft parts.

Someone mentioned a leak down test, I agree. Do a cylinder compression test on all 6 cylinders and compare the results. Did you change the oil yet? In not, look at the oil carefully and see if any metal fragments are in it. Also, when you do change the oil you might want to cut you old oil filter open and see whats in there.

You can buy a junkyard block if you want but seriously look into a re-manufactured short block or even long block and sell your heads, block and crank to help recoup the costs.

Unfortunately this sounds like a painful lesson for you when it was only a crap sparkplug....I feel for you here having been through this myself 2x's.

 

Sounds like a detonation. A defective plug or a plug of the wrong heat range, or a surge in electrical power from the coil pack could be the culprit. Mixtures can also be responsible (too lean and too much heat).The scarring is not so much a problem. If you severely pitted, cracked or bent a valve, or if you cracked the top of the piston, then it might be. Change you plugs, gap em correctly, and I think you'll probably be fine. Check the wires, test the coil pack for cracks and OHM resistance and replace all of your plugs and any faulty electrical parts. My .02 cents. Hope it isn't anything more serious.

 

The plug DIDN'T explode. It didn't even fragment. It just got whacked by something. I have no clue what though. Check this video out. It's my performance after the event. Is everything alright?
YouTube - 2005 Ford Ranger BOSS 4.0 Tune, 92 Performance. Air Intake Accleration, 25-100

 

I watched the video...5 Stars!!!

Looks like everything worked out for you. Your truck is fast, I don't think mine moves that quickly.

 

Hmmm, piston slap? Just a guess though. I'm curious though, did your tune remove the rev limiter. Bottom line, if it still works and runs well, just leave it. Pulling the heads w/ the engine in the car isn't impossible, but it will require you invest $200+ in tools. If you do decide to do this, I have the head schematics and the instructions (which I would imagine others on this website have as well). Either way good luck.

 

Set Rev limit at 4500

 

That was a great vid.

Thats one fast Ranger!

 

Alright, thats good lol.

 

Well from what I've read the problem is either a Sticky Lifter or a Spun Bearing. It might actually be a spun bearing as apparently it happens when no oil gets to a rod and then it gets fused to the block. Has me wondering as I had Synthetic put into the truck about 500-1000 miles before that. Weird huh? Hopefully its just a Sticky Lifter because I can just pull the head then. Maybe seafoam the crap out of it. Any other Ideas? The thing runs good but Its that damn ticking noise that pisses me off.

 

How is the fuel economy with the truck right now after this event happened? I mean, I am no mechanic by any means, but I had a 1992 F150 as my first truck that i learned to drive on, and when a hydrolic lifter went and hung up finally the truck got horrific fuel economy. There is also a overwhelming smell of gas that will come (at least in this one that happened) as in un burnt fuel, and it will seem a bit rough running, but really not that bad. That was a small V8 engine though so I would imagine the roughness in a 4.0 v6 would be much worse.

A spun bearing as well could be a problem and form a ticking that you describe. Spun bearings to replace is quite a project, it will take a total engine overhaul. Sometimes bearings can spin if the engine is pushed too hard, that is usually the cause to my understanding. So it comes down to your driving I guess. Do you bring the engine up to 4-6k RPM's frequently? or just once and a while.

The thing that I was wondering from reading all of these posts was what about timing?
If the timing is off a slight bit, it could cause a plug to be hit by a piston. If you had JUST changed the spark plug and this happened I would blame it on the plug, as you know there could have been just a plug that was made on a monday morning and just out of spec. The timing to me could cause something like this, if you want to take a peak inside try and see if autozone or advanced auto parts has a scope. If not try looking on Harbor Freight, I am sure they have one... it may not be top quality but it will work.

I would be leary of what one shop tells you, becuase of course they want you to go through a engine rebuild, and for the price it would cost it would not be THAT feasible to myself personally. This is scarry, and i want to know what went wrong becuase haha I have the same truck, same engine, just none of the fancy stuff.

Could that ticking be a deformed timing chain?

btw, if the head of the piston did not crack upon impact I would not worry that much, if there is not broken ceremic pieces in there that are not on the plug it will be fine.

Let me know if any of that helps, if not I could always dig out the text books about mechanic work again ( I went to college to teach the stuff at a high school level, or college level... now I put roofs on houses.... hahaha better money!).

 

Well this video is whats happening. Just snapped it tonight. Also yes my Fuel Econ has gone down. Not sure if its because I have a heavy foot or not but I've lost around 30-40 miles a tank. Used to be at around 240 Miles per tank. Now around 200.
Plug Didn't explode simply got smashed, no pieces anywhere just the metal end all bent up.
I constantly pass people and hit around 5k rpms but not for long.
I just added Lucas Oil Stabilizer to see if it would fix it. We'll see if it helps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoU9Sk9wtQ8

 

After listening to that video, I am not 100% sure. But I would say that noise is a slight knocking in the piston rod.

I mean it seems slow enough to be noise created by the rods instead of by the valves. Plus the depth of the pitch of the knocking sounds to be sounds as if it is a rod knock.

It is hard to tell though, since it is a video and not in person in front of me. I do not actually know what the clearances in these 4.0's that we have are between piston top dead center and the spark plug area. What I am curious about is have you installed a new spark plug? (i am sure you have to make the engine run)... But remove it and check what it looks like. Spark plugs can tell alot of a story of how a engine is running, also you can see if there is any more signs of collision between the two.

Now my thought is, maybe this was there before the engine misfire, and it has just brought your attention to this problem?

That is quite poor fuel economy. I see about 340-380 for a fuel range per tank on my truck that is just stock. I am not a granny of a driver, but I am not super hard on the truck. If you are constantly hitting high RPM's in this engine, I do not believe that it was designed for such use.

What you can do is try bringing it to another shop, as in possibly Ford themselves. I am sure they have the diagnositic tools to tell you what is happening. You need to listen to spots of the engine to ensue that you are correct on the noise before tearing into it. I cannot think of the tool name currently but it is the same kind of tool that a doctor listens to your heart with but it has a long stick attacked to it and you can listen to the engine block in certian spots. Also try using a scan tool and checking the values of the engine and comparing them to a stock 4.0 V6 engine. If they are super different maybe there is a problem there.

But my opinion it is a rod knock from the depth of the noise. Try making another video with the camera in the wheel well of the drivers side of the truck and SLOWLY accelerate the engine. If it is a rod knock it will only get worse over time. For that time drive nicer on the engine, until you plan on installing a new engine or something. I don't know if it would be cost effective to rebuilt a 4.0 V6, unless you could do it all yourself and had the know how (it is not that hard).

I hope that helps, if you have any questions or more videos I'll check back on your thread, if you have a question for me give me a PM

 

Never once have I ever gotten over 280. I've had the truck since 46k miles. It's got 4.10 gears and 4x4 just like yours. You have the EXACT same truck as me, and I Never once have gotten that mileage. Thats around 21 miles per gallon!! Now either you do alot of only freeway driving or my truck has some SERIOUS issues I never knew about.

 

a "stethiscope" is what you need to listen to the engine noise. Rod bolts could be stretched. It is unlikely that it's a lifter, since your lifters are solid and are mounted on the cam (non-pushrod motor,use a jackshaft for timing). If you have to pull the head, I can send you the info to pull it w/out having to pull the motor. In the meantime, Marvel's Mystery Oil, is all I can see. See if a quart will take the noise away. HTH

 

I would not run that lucas oil stabilizer for long. From what I have read elsewhere it thickens most oils which cuts down oil flow and it also can make the oil foam in certain engines (or if you use too much). I tried using it in my my truck to get rid of piston slap noises but it starved the engine of oil and made the problem worse.

If you bring the engine up to 6000K before it is fully warmed up you have good chances of spinning a bearing.

 

I do do alot of freeway driving, when the truck was in tip top shape before I trusted ford to do the routine service for it and they were not (please, it was just that specific dealer, I have my reasons for believing this and I have confirmed this to a point that I am going after them for their last shannigans).

I once on the freeway going at 59mph the whole time got 23-24 mpg. Cruise control is the key, and keeping it at 2000 RPM and under while cruising. And not going over 2250-2300RPM accelerating.... It may seem slow, but if you drive a truck that way the engine will outlive the rest of it. It's amazing, then the truck started to fall apart, now its on jack stands in my garage for the 2nd set of wheel seals, and rear brakes. But i'm thinking I did them wrong the last time.

If I was you I would check around for a used engine. Rod knocking can be delt with by adding products such as marvel, but its never the same. Start saving up some money each day you drive to work, and you will have a used engine in no time. I can't imagine a place would charge you too much to install the engine. I bet you could do it yourself if you wanted to if you had some hoist equiptment from like harbor freight.

I mean and when you have the broken engine out, you can do 1 of 3 things.

1. bring it to a scrap yard, the metal is worth a chunk of change.
2. Rebuild it on your spare time (if done correctly, and you take all the time and care to rebuild it to stock specs it may last a few hundred thousand miles.
3. Sell the engine online to someone who wants to rebuild it.

Either way, if you can find a used engine for 600-1000 bucks, you could easily get 150-200 for the metal scrapped... or 200-300 for it to be rebuilt... or part it out..

People do need heads, and blocks and cranks and stuff. You may even make money off of it in some sick way.

Thats just what i would do. I have rebuilt engines before, but it is really time consuming and detail orientated...

 

I messaged JDO