Quote:
Originally Posted by epdarks
How many miles on your truck?
Did you find any metal shavings in the motor? Or are you (they) just speculating due to the worn case?
Since the guides are so cheap (parts), and it sounds like you already have the motor open, would it not make sense to flush the motor and throw new chain guides on it?
4.6 motors are so hard to find, it was one of the factors that made me leery about the 4.6. You could think about swapping in a 4.4... in my speculation it should bolt right up and run on the existing ECU.
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It's got around 140k miles on it.
They drained the oil and pulled the pan to recover the plastic bits of chain guides, which also revealed the metal shavings. Not only are the guides toast, but the timing gears teeth are rounded over.
I don't know enough about the engine to determine if it can be flushed out or not, but if any of those metal flakes plug up an oil return a bearing could starve and burn up. I'll ask him tomorrow though. He said outside of the timing components, at a minimum we should also replace both vanos units because any amount of metal particles will surely destroy them in short order. And the cost of those units combined with the timing chain repairs makes a used engine a better choice cost wise.
I briefly considered a 4.4 swap, but I can't get my head around it. Feels like I would be putting a 6 cylinder in a corvette. Just kills it, but who knows somebody might buy it. I sure won't want to keep it after enjoying the power of the 4.6! If I can't get this motor issue resolved I'm going to put it on craigslist and let somebody who has the time to tinker with it take over. I rebuilt the motor in my F350 last winter on the back lawn under a portable canopy. After that experience I have no desire to do it again on a much more complex engine!