Hi, just wondering how bad it is to drive a truck with noisy cam phasers? The ticking drives me crazy, but it's a pretty expensive job. Truck has 90k on it. Thanks in advance for any info.

 

Short answer: Depends. Typically the cam phaser ticking is a symptom of another problem. The causes are many. First, you have to know that the ticking is indeed cam phasers. The noise should go away at 1200 RPM. If not, its something else, and probably more serious.

If you have verified that it is cam phaser ticking, then the cause could be as simple as bad VCT solenoids, or as complex as blown out timing chain tensioners or a weak oil pump.

I would unplug the VCT solenoids to see if anything changes. You could also just roll the dice and replace them, but odds are that won't fix it alone.

It is pretty difficult to diagnose externally any more than that I'm afraid.

If you can't or don't want to fix it, I'd probably trade it in, since this can cause a lot of issues, including scoring cam journals in the heads requiring head replacement or a wiped cam or wiped rockers or both. I just got done fixing mine and I chose to just strip it down completely. It was a good thing too, my chain adjuster on the driver's side blew out, causing rocker failure and a wiped cam. Journals were a bit singed too, but were salvageable.

I ended up replacing just about everything in the valvetrain area (passenger cam, all 24 followers and rockers, phasers, timing chain and tensioners, oil pump and chain guides) since everything had experienced low oil and I ended up using essentially all Ford parts, and so far I am not regretting the decision to do so. Mine had 150k so the timing components were ready to be serviced. So with all that being said, its a lot of money and a lot of time, therefore If you don't wand to deal with it, like I said, best to trade it in before it quits and it is truly worthless.

Just my two cents.

 

Thanks, I will check into vct solenoids.

 

just drive it and change the oil every 5k miles. Mine sounded like a quiet diesel for about 400,000 miles. I finally replaced the 5.4L on my 2004 F150 at 552,000 miles.