I recently had a check engine light in my van. The cam sensor was faulty they say, but here's the problem when I went to the shop to check on the van they had the old cam sensor. The top was broken! and they had sent the van to the ford dealer to see what was wrong (after they installed the new cam sensor it wouldn't run right) I called the ford dealer and the shop had reversed two spark plug wires and the sycronizer was off two teeth. My question is if the cam sensor was broken could I have driven the van to the shop? The only problem I had when I took the van in was the check engine light was on.

 

If the cam sensor was mangled then the synchronizer assembly that it sits on was probably damaged, too.

Not sure I'm understanding your question correctly, but generally speaking, an engine can and will operate without a proper signal from the camshaft postion sensor (CMP). What happens is, the engine's EEC system will operate in a "default"-type of mode whereby the computer resorts to relying on the PIP (crankshaft position sensor) signal in lieu of the CMP sensor signal. For starting purposes (when there is not yet a good PIP signal to rely on), the computer will guess which cylinder is at TDC on it's compression stroke, and hence it may take several seperate tries to finally hit it right and get the engine to fire up.

 

It may have been running, but not right.... It's also possible that the cam sensor was cracked, and broke in the removal.