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Crank snap

Old Jun 1, 2005 | 08:20 PM
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Crank snap

Hello I have a 97 explorer xlt with a 4.0l my wife was driving it to work and it just shut off got to looking and found that the main pulley was laying in the belt.
The crank broke right out of the motor. Has anyone ever seen this before?
 
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Old Jun 2, 2005 | 06:07 AM
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I have seen the harmonic balancer come apart, this is not uncommon, are you sure the crank shaft broke and not the balancer that the pulley is attached. Take a close look, if it is the crank thats rare. Good luck.
 
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Old Jun 2, 2005 | 06:59 AM
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Don is right, take a closer look at the pulley. But, cranks do break. It has never happened to me but I have seen it for myself. A friend of mine had one break on his van. He used this van for his delivery business. He was not a wild driver so I know this van was never abused. Sometimes things just happen. Good luck.
 
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Old Jun 2, 2005 | 07:07 PM
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Checked

When I pulled the pulley out the ballencer was still connected to the pulley and the bolt that holds it to the crank. The crank broke off at the bottom of the bolt hole.
 
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Old Jun 2, 2005 | 11:16 PM
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Seems like there was a similar thread 2-3 years ago where someone else had a crank snap at the neck. Might try searching the old threads.
Dialtone
 
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Old Jun 3, 2005 | 04:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Cylinder Head
Hello I have a 97 explorer xlt with a 4.0l my wife was driving it to work and it just shut off got to looking and found that the main pulley was laying in the belt.
The crank broke right out of the motor. Has anyone ever seen this before?
The important thing is that you learn by your mistakes.

Man, don't let the wife drive your truck!!

Somebody probably used a rattle gun on it sometime.
 
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Old Jun 3, 2005 | 11:14 AM
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just rebuilt an 4.0 sohc motor for the same problem.it took out 9 of the 12 valves. cost the guy 3000$ to fix.the crank looked like the metalwas a poor casting . sorry about the bad luck.
 
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Old Jun 3, 2005 | 09:24 PM
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I have seen numerous threads about broken cranks in the 4.0, so it's more common than it should be. They always snap directly behind the harmonic balancer.

Just curious, how many miles on it? OHV or SOHC?
 
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Old Jun 4, 2005 | 02:06 PM
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The ohv motor had 80,000 miles on it. I was wondering if ford had any kind of recall on this.
 
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