ticking had just occured and much louder than now only at the time of the problem last Saturday, when I guess these plastic chain guides broke apart and clogged up the distribution. all before that, nice sweet sucking sound of 14/mpg
so I bought some Seafoam and poured 1/2 pt in oil. this was on Sunday and so far no huge noticble difference. Not loud tick, but certainly of notice. Might have driven 20 or so miles.
wasnt looking at buying new car but now wondering if I keep pouring more dough into 99 with 76k miles
what is order of magnitude cost of (is it) lifter/valve job for this vehicle
Of course, without tearing into it there is no way of knowing definitely what the ticking is.
If it’s a valve lash adjuster it’s a bit of a job, but not the end of the world.
The ticking could be a collapsed adjuster gone bad or it’s possible that oil pressure problems have contributed to an adjuster or cam lobe problem. Lack of oil can cause rapid wear through the hard surfacing and once that happen the part will disentegrate quickly.
It’ not likely you have a cam lobe problem; just pointing out a what-if.
The valve covers will have to come off and the cams removed or loosened to change the adjusters.
Here’s a pic of what the little rascals look like.
JMHO, but if you go this route and find one bad one they should all be replaced.
Other vehicles also use the same lash adjuster setup and it’s been my experience that some of them may look fine with the naked eye but in reality, are bad.
I use a magnifying glass to examine the wear surfaces. What appears to be smooth, shiny hard chrome may actually be full of microscopic pits which means a short life.
Hope that helps anyway.
what would one expect to exhaust inhours for the two jobs? estimates
i prefer to keep this truck going for the wife and kids than the alternative but if this and the last job start to add up to a bigger % of value, well you know
thanks as always ok
I’m afraid I do not know the flat rate time on this job. If I had to yank a number out of the air my guess would be in the 6-8 hour range.
Don’t hold me to the wall on that one.
The best way to get a handle on it would be to call the local Ford dealer and ask them how much labor to swap out all of the lash adjusters and what their flat rate labor is per hour.
This would give you a number of hours figure to work with for comparison purposes by dividing one into the other. There should be no problem in giving you this info.
The dealer will often have a higher labor rate out of necessity but generally follow a flat rate book closer than an independent shop might.
Hope that helps and good luck.
the nightmare continues
I am away on business today and my wife calls to say the Expedition’s engine just went in a downhill spiral. The ticking went to an almost very loud “grinding” sound which made the truck vibrate very badly. Loud metal on metal. Gosh.
I really wanted to fix this as I wast prepared to look into leasing or buying in the market right now. two of the mechanics say sell it. I just dont think they want to bother. Its a 99 with a book of probably 7-8k…
suggestions? thoughts on what it might be now?
Well, you definitely have one of the more tragic stories on this board.
Grinding usually points to something external like an idler pulley or water pump, or possibly something in the cam chain cover.
It can also be caused by something internal like a rod/main bearing or piston skirt scraping on the cylinder wall.
The latter means scrap metal.
I’M afraid that I’m not much help on this without actually seeing the vehicle.
Selling it is easy for them to say. An Expedition that needs an engine won’t be easy to sell, period.
Since it sounds like this could possibly be terminal, the best option is to find another engine rather than keep flogging this one financially.
Used or reman, I think some of these even pop up on eBay if you could not find one at a local salvage.
Guess I’m not much help here, but at this point I have no idea what the problem is.
Your vehicle is a good example of why I’m always a bit antsy when an engine has suffered an oil pressure problem. One never knows what may crop up later.
Maybe that lash adjuster ticking was caused by low oil pressure and eventually low oil pressure did the engine in.
The only thing I would know to do would be to connect a manual gauge to the oil pressure sending unit port and see how much, if any, oil pressure this engine has. If it’s very low or nil then the engine is a boat anchor IMHO, considering its history.
Sorry I can’t be of more help. 
I agree with OK’s diagnosis of the problem. You need to get it to a quality shop for further inspection. Where abouts are you located?
~Michael
north shore Boston…
this sounds terrible.
the levels from after the first fix with stick the ticking was even balanced on the dashboard guage (whereas when it stalled two weeks ago there showed none)
we have done eveything to keep this truck in good shape, all the routine maintenance. this stinks
showed no pressure thst is at the time of first
my wife says today with the loud grind, levels were looking fine.
looks like fixing this timing chain was a waste as it braking broke everything in the engine
As OK4450 mentioned your story is one of the worst I have heard on this board. Sometimes you do everything right as far as maintenance and you still have catastrophic failure. I wish that I had good news for you but I am afraid I don?t.
Selling your vehicle with a bad motor is going to be difficult at best, and replacing the motor is not going to be cheap.
If you were in Washington State or close to it I could be of more help but Boston is a long way from here. I wish you the best.
~Michael
i will get someone to look at this, maybe it aitn so bad. cant believe this all of a sudden happens and that s it
go wasu
I’m also kind of a ways down the road here in the Dust Bowl.
If the vehicle were mine, it would get a simple oil pressure test with an external gauge.
If it shows bad news then I would consider another engine.
It’s unusual to have these kinds of problems on a '99 with comparatively low miles.
There are just too many details that are unknown to us so we can’t be too exact on any diagnosis; or fairly wild guessing in this case.
Yes definitely get it to a shop and checked out. It could (cross your fingers) be a repairable problem. If it helps I have a good set of heads on the shelf in my shop. Complete with cams, lifter, rockers, timing chain and gears, chain guides, etc?
Keep us posted on the situation I am interested in how this turns out.
GO COUGS (The wife and I are both WSU alumni.)
~Michael
thnks guys.
as you notice this isnt my specialty, love to see it the carbon broke off w the seafoam
took a guess on the cougs. too bad drew just couldnt get it done here or the other two places. real nice guy