im looking for a little education on the SOHC timing chain noise issue. i recently swapped in 99 expo SOHC with 149,000 in to my 98 ranger. i performed this swap out of an emergency. i have done a little reading and found that this timing chain noise is kinda of an issue. this leads me to my questions.

what do i need to look for on this motor to see if this issue has been fixed.

 

If you hear a sound like marbles in a can, beware, it's coming

My 01 SOHC (notorious for this problem) has 140K miles and I have no noise.

 

yep just wait for it. no way to tell if its done yet.

 

well i do here some noise but it only happens every now and then and its more of a tick.

 

I logged on to research the same rattling sound. When I start my new to me 02 4.0 with 95k it sometimes rattles for 30 seconds or so and then goes away, then I start it other times and its quiet. Hot or cold it doesn't make a difference. My brother also just bought an 06 and his is doing the exact same thing. Weird

 

My 01 has rattled since I bought it with 10K on it, its somewhere around 92K on it now. Ive read alot about this rattle over the years and determined that total failure of the chains is pretty rare, most just rattle and never do more than that. I actually have had good luck running zero weight oil after suggestion from Ford and that has quieted my rattle to almost nothing. I would wager if I havent been able to grenade my SOHC after many redline hill climbs and hard towing and driving over the last 10 years that most will not have an issue.

 

There's that, and then my friend had an 00 Explorer that blew his guides with no rattle at all.

I don't think it's the chains that fail, it's just the guides

 

I think I'm going to try and replace the guides myself

 

Good luck, if mine break I'm ripping the whole engine and out and going V8

 

If it's anything like my 2002 Exploder, it had a normal type timing set that connected the crank to the jack shaft and the crank to the balance shaft. Then there was a timing cassette on the drivers side front of the motor and one from the jack shaft to the passenger side in the back of the motor. To replace all of them the motor has to come out, fly wheel / flex plate comes off, balancer comes off, etc.... MAJOR PITA! and the parts alone are $500+. I had read that if you just have a little ticking it may just be a tensioner that is fairly easy to replace and can be bought for <$30, mine (for the drivers side head) was located just to the right of the water neck.

Something in mine let go and the engine started running rough, MIL on, etc....

 

^THIS! lol.

But seriously, I have ~140K on my engine and it has had the rattle since I bought it when it had 33k on it. Zero problems besides routine maintenance and replacing some engine cooling parts due to age.

 

My 03 has had absolutely no problems although well see, this is the 3rd truck it's going to be in. I'm going pretty in depth about fixing all the issues but I don't think I'm going to be doing all that. Plus the motor only has 38k on it.