Pulling the SOHC for inspection

[Roert42]

Modern engines can be a pain to remove because of all the hoses and wire connections, plus the tight engine bays.

The real trick is when it works when you’re done with it.

 

[red78ta]

Modern engines can be a pain to remove because of all the hoses and wire connections, plus the tight engine bays.

The real trick is when it works when you’re done with it.

Haha absolutely!

Today’s goal accomplished. I put the engine on a stand. Modified a small bench I had made bc it was the right width, ended up not using my buddies stand.

My son got home today so we are chilling with him now.

 

[red78ta]

Pulled the valve covers off today, haven’t taken the water pump off yet, kinda going out of order bc I wanted to look down and see if there was any obvious damage in there. Pics of what I found below, tell me if this makes sense to yall… one side is clean and looks great, the other is rusty… makes me think that the PO was driving on one bank (4 cyl) for while, otherwise both would either be clean or rusty… well as I’m trying this maybe not, maybe one side just got rusty bc the cover was busted and so it let in outside air/salt/etc… either case both the front and rear cassettes are broken, the rear chain was still intact and tight, anyway more to look at and figure out in the coming weeks.

 

[red78ta]

Put it on the stand today and removed the water pump and dampener. I was able to fiddle around with the stand and get three mounting points on without removing the dowels. Not ideal but it’ll work and make removing the oil pan much easier. Now I’m pretty much waiting on the spring compressor tool.

 

[red78ta]

Whale waiting for the compression tool I decided to extract a busted exhaust stud. Extractor didn’t work but a hammered in t20 did.

 

[red78ta]

Leakdown test on the left bank yesterday had air leaking out of all the exhaust valves. So I stopped and figured I need to pull the head, and if I’m gonna pull one I might as well pull the other too. Was gonna do that today but went fishing with a buddy and caught a 35.5” king salmon, and when I got home our new kitty Maple has monopolized my time. I’ll get to it tonight maybe once my wife is home from work. In the meantime here is Maple who just joined the family yesterday.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Leakdown test on the left bank yesterday had air leaking out of all the exhaust valves. So I stopped and figured I need to pull the head, and if I’m gonna pull one I might as well pull the other too. Was gonna do that today but went fishing with a buddy and caught a 35.5” king salmon, and when I got home our new kitty Maple has monopolized my time. I’ll get to it tonight maybe once my wife is home from work. In the meantime here is Maple who just joined the family yesterday.

KITTY

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

A 3' salmon... Now that's a smiley! And the kitty will like it too...

 

[red78ta]

A 3' salmon... Now that's a smiley! And the kitty will like it too...

Yes Maple was all over my arms when I got back!

So bad news, looks like someone drove this engine for a long time with the timing cassettes busted, when I went to remove the star bolts from inside the head one of them was acting like it the head was rounded off, and when I looked closer I saw that the chain had worn a groove into the head and into the bolt…. So it’s been running with loose chains for a while.

I was gonna go look at a ranger with a broke frame today but the guy sold it, there’s a 2005 explorer with a 4.0 and supposedly only 60k for sale I’m inquiring about now. We will see.

 

[red78ta]

Ok, so I hammered an E12 on the bolt, and was able to remove it, took both heads off, all the exhaust valves are stuck open, but the bottom end looks ok. I know it had to have had a good amount of aluminum from the head’s churning around down there, but aluminum is soft, so maybe I can get away with a valve job… being isolated in a community that you have to take a ferry or a plane to get to makes sourcing stuff difficult. We will see.

 

[JJMaine]

I bet there are plenty of 4.0 SOHC's running out in the wild after worse timing chain debacles (as long as the pistons and valves didn't have a little get together).

I'm sure you know this but I'd be sure to make sure your heads are in spec for flatness before going through all the trouble to put them back on.

 

[red78ta]

cleaned up the pistons some, still have some sanding to do with finer sandpaper but so far they are looking good (progress pics below the last pic was the worst piston prior to cleaning/wd40 sanding).
I’m gonna think today about what to do with the heads, I’m leaning towards just getting some reman’d heads bc the tools/parts I’d need to buy to fix the heads would cost me about half of reman’d heads (from what I’ve looked up so far). Am I really going to use those tools again? I don’t know. Plus then I’d still have to clean up that one cam and remove exhaust studs… and I haven’t looked into if I need to replace any valve guides. Anyway it’s time to relax with kitten and think about this. I do think this 4.0 sohc will run again though.