Hey all, well it's looking like I have a small leak in my head gaskets. I'm using some oil and coolant, slowly. Still runs ok, but it's smoking and I'm losing fluid.


That said, I'm hoping I can make it til the spring since it isn't my daily.


At that time, should I replace the cam phasers? The truck is an '01 with about 108k on it.


I know they're a problem on the 5.4, not so sure about the 6.8.


Thanks in advance.

 

There isn't any cam phasers in a 01 V10 or any Triton motor until 04 when the 5.4 got them.

Denny

 

Ah, I obviously did not know that. I thought they were on all the ford modular engines.

 

The Triton V10 was never produced with variable cam timing, hence no cam phasers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_M...6.8.C2.A0L_V10

 

Ok, so that eliminates one headache compared to the 5.4 3V. As I understand it, the weak point was the timing set? How long are they generally good for if well maintained?

 

It all depends... Some last forever, some start to make noise early, and as much as I took care of my '01, while simultaneously beating the every lovin' crap out of it RPM wise, mine started to sound a little funny once in a while on cold startup like a tensioner just wasn't getting enough oil to keep it tight against the chain. Put 10w40 in it during the summer, and it went away. I sold it two years ago with 60K miles. I have a feeling it had something stuck in the oil port to the tensioner, or the seal at the tensioner had failed, allowing pressure to dump past it. Oil pressure was perfect. There was actually a run of vehicles with bad seals on the tensioner on the 3-valve 2013 V10s which caused problems for extended-idle vehicles like bucket trucks. I have a friend that bought a 2016 (I think) F450 with a tow bed, and he had some On EDIT: cam followers fail that fell into a program Ford had going for the issue

But the 2-valve has been pretty solid overall. Keep listening for noises during cold starts, and if it sounds a little "slappy", the chains might be getting loose.