Fellow Members;

Well really do not knkow where to start and I was hoping someone could mabe anwser a question/concern I have. This list below will go through what has happend thus far.

1. Bad knocking sound- (alarm in my mind and knew stuff was about to hit the fan)

2. Finally pulled the driver side valve cover and noticed several things. The cam positon sensor was GONE- and the cam gear was loose.

3. Reason for the Cam Positon Sensor being GONE- the cam gear on the driver side was somehow striped off the cam (pressed on type) and it slid forward knocking the cam sensor off. (still knocking by the way!!)

4. QUESTION- do you think this bent the valves? If not then why?

5. Anyone herd of this before?

My e-mail: grissomconst@msn.com

ANY help is appreciated (sorry for any mis spelling above)

 

Hi Grissonconst, welcome to FTE!

Sorry about your engine, that doesn't sound good at all. Never heard of a failure up on the front end of the engine.

What year 5.4 do you have and how many miles ?

 

Well the truck is a 2001- with 102,000 miles on it. Taken good care of but maybe I just got lucky or unlucky how ever you look at it.

My only delima is weather the valves are bent & damaged or not. If not- I would throw another cam and gear in it and see how it goes but if the valves are bent then I can't see dropping that kind of money on it when it already has 102,000 on it.

Thanks.

John

 

I am willing to bet the valves are not bent at all. It is very hard to do in these engines. As long as the timing chain did not come off the cam stayed in place and would not have hit the valves.

 

if you want piece of mind do a compression test but woudn't think there is a problem. 102000 miles isn't very many in todays engines.

 

Do you think the valves would be ok, meaning since the cam shaft gear spun loose and the valves were not working in time with the pistons wouldn't it have bent the valves or is there enough clearance on the valves to keep them from getting damaged?

I am not really worried about the miles I am more concerned about damage to the valves themselves.

I guess I could replace the cam and gear and see what happens but that is a lot to deal with if I do find the valves are damaged and I need to do a head job on the engine.

Thanks for the reply.

 

There is a lot of clearance between the valves and the piston i would not worry about it they should be fine.

 

If that is the case being that there is plenty of clearance then what would i need to do to fix it?