If you get good at fixing the common woes of an Explorer with enough room to make a profit you can ignore everything else. Craigslist is full of opportunities.

In reply to MrJoshua:

I was actually thinking similar today. At this point I could diagnose a common no start on a Explorer in 10 minutes during a normal car inspection.

Stampie wrote: My fear is timing cassette as they call them. Apparently there's a central shaft that runs the driver's side timing chain on the front and the passenger side on the rear. What berking Ford engineer decided that pulling the engine was a requirement to replace a timing chain.

Many 4.0 SOHC engines have met their maker due to faulty chain guides that wear too quickly. It seems to be more common on engines form 98-02ish. They supposedly revised the tensioner/guide design with improved materials some time late 02 or 03. It's still a stupid engine design.

Just an update. I was on vacation and that slowed down things. While I was gone Chris and Carol did a compression test but only on the driver's side. They all came out good. I of course wanted them to do the passenger side but was vetoed since I wasn't present. Once I got back Chris and I looked at it Saturday. It actually started that morning but the lifters needed to pump up and Chris hearing the noise turned it off. No start after that. We messed with it more last night but still no go. Carol and I are planning on working more Friday or Saturday and then it'll get a proper compression test.

Labor

Stampie 11 hours
Chris 7 hours
Illegal child labor 9 hours
Carol 2 hours

STM317 wrote:

Stampie wrote: My fear is timing cassette as they call them. Apparently there's a central shaft that runs the driver's side timing chain on the front and the passenger side on the rear. What berking Ford engineer decided that pulling the engine was a requirement to replace a timing chain.

Many 4.0 SOHC engines have met their maker due to faulty chain guides that wear too quickly. It seems to be more common on engines form 98-02ish. They supposedly revised the tensioner/guide design with improved materials some time late 02 or 03. It's still a stupid engine design.

It is a real mess. I had one, a 98.

BTW the early ones had a recall on the timing chain guides and assuming the recall got done, they lasted. I owned mine for over 10 years and sold it running fine.

This morning Carol and I got back on the Explorer. The last time it tired to start it had been sitting for a while. Since it's been a week we have it a go.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/i4pZWLQeNPs

After that nothing and I think the smoke was from the intake. Next move was compression testing the passenger side since we knew the driver's side was good. All zeros across the board so it's as I expected and timing chain on that side. Now we get to decide what to do.

Donor engine from a junkyard might be easier if you have to remove engine to do chains anyway.

In reply to maschinenbau:

Yea our options are:

1) Sell as is and take the loss.

2) Part it out and break even or maybe a little ahead over who knows how long.

3) Pull engine do timing chains.

4) Junkyard engine which is just one more pull engine but no messing around with the timing chains and actually cheaper than timing chains.

Everyone should be back in town this coming weekend so we'll sit down and figure out what to do.

I say junkyard engine

I say small block chevy, cut the roof off, slam it, and run the challenge in 4 hi with all 4 slicks.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

Just one problem with that. It's 2wd.

Ok. Sfa swap, THEN.....

In reply to Dusterbd13:

Only SFA I have is the Dana 60 in my K30 and I assure you that ain't going into no POS Explorer.

We're back on her. The Challenge got her put on the back burner but she's top priority now. Today we started pulling the engine. For a modern engine it wasn't that bad, we got everything ready for it to be pulled except the fuel line. The transmission bolts were the hardest but that's the case for all engines.  We're going to order the quick disconnect tools and pull the engine out next time. 

Updated cost and labor:

Cost

Explorer plus fees/key $552.50
Title plus sales tax $110
Towing $65
Hood struts and glass $20
Spark plugs $15
Total $762.50

Labor

Stampie 16 hours

Carol 7 hours

Chris 12 hours

Illegal child labor 12 hours

And two months later we got the engine out.

Updated cost and labor:

Cost

Explorer plus fees/key $552.50
Title plus sales tax $110
Towing $65
Hood struts and glass $20
Spark plugs $15
Total $762.50

Labor

Stampie 22 hours

Carol 10 hours

Chris 18 hours

Illegal child labor 18 hours

In reply to Stampie :

Were you sitting on the stool supervising while they did all the work?

I wish. You don't know how many times we cussed Ford out while removing the engine. 

Today was timing chain day. After we got it apart we saw that the guide on the passenger side had come apart. The timing on that cam appears to have slipped 30 degrees or so. Then we spent a long time trying to figure out how to get the cam back in timing. I'd bought a Ford tool for that a few weeks back but figuring out how to use it was hard. 

Old timing parts

New chain

Updated cost and labor:

Cost

Explorer plus fees/key $552.50
Title plus sales tax $110
Towing $65
Hood struts and glass $20
Spark plugs $15

Timing chain $250

Total $1012.50

Labor

Stampie 25 hours

Carol 10 hours

Chris 21 hours

Illegal child labor 18 hours

We're still working on it. Got the engine mostly in place.  Here's how you do it Stampie style.

And here's it starting to go in.

Naked stampie in an engine bay. My weekend is now complete.

Stampie said:

 

And here's it starting to go in.

 

Stampie said:

 

And here's it starting to go in.

Scared to ask what is "going in" for the first picture......maybe spare those details.

Enyar said:

Stampie said:

 

And here's it starting to go in.

 

 

Scared to ask what is "going in" for the first picture......maybe spare those details.

The laughing emoji is woefully inadequate to describe the lolz I got out of this.

I hate Ford Explorers with a passion now. Their only purpose in life is to donate 8.8 rear ends to other vehicles. 

Since the last update we stopped working on it because of the Challenge. After the Challenge we finished putting the engine in only to find out the fuel pump had died in the mean time. Got another fuel pump got it installed and finally tonight she started up for the first time in the 18 months since we started this asinine flip. We've lost the egr valve in the meantime and the battery is berking sol so we'll hit the junkyard this weekend.

Lessons learned. Don't flip by committee. We've had long talks about how we should have cut our loses 17 months ago and sold it to a junkyard for $250.  There was too much talk and worry about losing money. Instead we loss 17 months where we could have made the at loss back and 10 fold on other flips. 

Oh wow you still have this! That's a long job!