Excessive Valvetrain Noise in the 5.0... Leads to Tear Down

Damn, sounds like a true scientific study took place at your FORD dealership today. LOL!!!! Lawyer up....

S197 GT said:

Well today, they didn't tearinto the motor, and they had 5 new 5.0's show up on the lot. They compared mine to the other 5 and determined it's a characteristic of the motor, since 2 of the 5 new ones also do it.

I said bullshit. How is it a normal characteristic, if 3 out of the 10 they've looked at make the noise.

I told them its bullshit, and that they either fix it or replace it. He told me he's on my side, and wants it done right.

We'll have to wait and see what comes of it tomorrow.

Tiger, yeah I saw that post, and mentioned it. My dealer doesn't have a very Mustang savvy field rep, so they said that something may be coming down the pipeline that they are unaware of, but another dealer may know more if they have a field rep that focuses on mustangs. He is being very honest with me and let me know that their rep is heavily focused on F250s and what would be considered work vehicles.

I'll update again tomorrow.

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Be sure to. I hope it goes well for you.

mustangflanagan said:

What 2 gasstations in killeen. cuz i lost 2 pistons due to bad gas from this area and i had a built shortblock with f.i. granted i have a 3v

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Shell by mall. And valero in Nolanville

Good luck on the outcome

I'm surprised, in cases like this especially with a newer motor and one that will be used in more applications, they usually replace it completely and ship the bad one back to get completely torn down to find issues.

S197 GT said:

Well today, they didn't tearinto the motor, and they had 5 new 5.0's show up on the lot. They compared mine to the other 5 and determined it's a characteristic of the motor, since 2 of the 5 new ones also do it.

I said bullshit. How is it a normal characteristic, if 3 out of the 10 they've looked at make the noise.

I told them its bullshit, and that they either fix it or replace it. He told me he's on my side, and wants it done right.

We'll have to wait and see what comes of it tomorrow.

Tiger, yeah I saw that post, and mentioned it. My dealer doesn't have a very Mustang savvy field rep, so they said that something may be coming down the pipeline that they are unaware of, but another dealer may know more if they have a field rep that focuses on mustangs. He is being very honest with me and let me know that their rep is heavily focused on F250s and what would be considered work vehicles.

I'll update again tomorrow.

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Tiger, yeah I saw that post, and mentioned it

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I thought you might have already read those Post.
But it only took a few minutes to Post the Links just in case you had not seen them.

Good-Luck with the situation !!!

tigerhonaker

Unless something has changed dramatically since I got out of the biz 12 years ago, any major work on the engine will result in a new unit. When the V6 Probe GT's came out it took them a long time to figure out there was an issue with the design of the oil passages in the heads, at which point I replaced a bunch of them.

By '96, there was a Taurus DOHC 3.0 with a very minor front cover oil leak and they sent me a complete engine. Even the factory doesn't trust the techs to do these things right...

302 said:

I've been in the game long enough to know not to believe everything you read on a forum. Until ford comes out with an official TSB, it's all hearsay and uneducated speculation.

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You're almost better off NOT saying you saw it on the internetz. It seems like the minute you say "I saw a bunch of people with this issue online" or "I read about this online", they automatically turn their head and discredit you right away. No matter how thoroughly you may explain yourself, it seems to turn them off.

Wnt2gofst said:

Shell by mall. And valero in Nolanville

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good i am gonna stay away from those 2 and on base gas. i think thats what did me in crappy aafes gas on post.

Which ford dealer is this all happening at? Frontier ford?

I just got the call that my car is fixed! They said that the 5.0 engineer said to pull the valve cover and tighten the cam caps. This supposedly fixes the problem 90% of the time.

I'll pick the car up tonight, and I'll get some good test miles in tomorrow morning.

Hopefully it's all done with, so I can start molesting my ride again!!!

Torch Red GT said:

Which ford dealer is this all happening at? Frontier ford?

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Fremont Ford.

that's great and i hope that's it

I look forward to hearing your impressions of this "fix."

As I'm sure a lot of us 5.0 guys are.

So far so good! No noise!

I'll know for sure tomorrow as I drove it less than 1 mile, but I may have gotten rid of the problem.

I'll find out on Monday exactly what was done, because the mechanic had already left when I got there.

S197 GT said:

So far so good! No noise!

I'll know for sure tomorrow as I drove it less than 1 mile, but I may have gotten rid of the problem.

I'll find out on Monday exactly what was done, because the mechanic had already left when I got there.

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Good to hear. I would be interested to know if it was simply a re-torque of the retainers.

S197 GT said:

So far so good! No noise!

I'll know for sure tomorrow as I drove it less than 1 mile, but I may have gotten rid of the problem.

I'll find out on Monday exactly what was done, because the mechanic had already left when I got there.

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Very good to hear! Looking forward to continued updates on this. The Mustang forums all over the 'Net should be listening to this one.

My question now would be what if any damage may have occurred if the cam caps were "loose"?

tigerhonaker said:

I thought you might have already read those Post.
But it only took a few minutes to Post the Links just in case you had not seen them.

Good-Luck with the situation !!!

tigerhonaker

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Tiger, I just reread my post and your response.

I was saying that I mentioned it to the mechanic. Thanks for the link anyway, as if I hadn't seen it, I would have no idea about the tensioner.

I'll keep an eye out for what will more than likely be a TSB for this, but until then I'll see what comes of this cam tightening...

VTXFrank said:

Very good to hear! Looking forward to continued updates on this. The Mustang forums all over the 'Net should be listening to this one.

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Well, I think I'll keep this fairly close to the chest until I've come to my own conclusion as to if this really did fix it. I'm not quite done with the service department and the master tech especially. Im not satisfied with the "we tightened the cam caps" answer.

05yellowgt said:

My question now would be what if any damage may have occurred if the cam caps were "loose"?

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I want to know how loose they were. I want to know if they still consider loose cam caps to be their example of a "normal characteristic". What are the proper torque specs?. Did they check the passenger side as common sense would tell you too do since you were at it? Any damage done? How couldn't there be with cam caps loose enough to cause such a loud rattle?

Why is ford seemingly incapable of keeping bolts torqued on this engine? First the pressure plate bolts, now the cam caps.. what's next, rod bearing bolts?

S197 GT said:

Well, I think I'll keep this fairly close to the chest until I've come to my own conclusion as to if this really did fix it. I'm not quite done with the service department and the master tech especially. Im not satisfied with the "we tightened the cam caps" answer.

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Oh yeah, I hear ya. Too premature to call it "fixed" anyway. I'm just sayin, if people have been having this issue, it has been posted at multiple Mustang forums, then they should be paying attention to every board thread like this one and follow along to see if it works. But yeah, too soon to go around all the normal places claiming victory.

S197 GT said:

I want to know how loose they were. I want to know if they still consider loose cam caps to be their example of a "normal characteristic". What are the proper torque specs?. Did they check the passenger side as common sense would tell you too do since you were at it? Any damage done? How couldn't there be with cam caps loose enough to cause such a loud rattle?

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From your other posts in this thread, that's exactly what I expected your plan to be. And why I said people need to be paying close attention to this since you seem to be one of the very few who are actually trying to get Ford to research, fix and let us all know if it's a problem we can all expect to have.

Sorry if that's jumbled. I'm dealing with yet another headache tonight.