Death of an Excursion

[Wes_Tausend]

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I think my gasser 2000 Excursion may be done for, at about 115k on the odometer.

Today I stopped at NAPA to check on cost and immediate availability of a new (not rebuilt) starter. For the few minutes I was in the store, I let my Ex idle outside, as it was just starting to blow a bit of interior heat from the short trip from home.

Apparently during my few minutes absence, the V-10 lost all oil pressure while I was in the store. As I returned, I could hear rather loud lifter noise, not unlike a smallblock chevy I once heard that was out of oil. A quick check of the dash revealed the oil light and no readable pressure on the guage, so I shut it off. It has plenty of clean oil (changed @ about 1500 miles), no leaks. It has always had excellent oil pressure in the past.

It was idling so smooth too....

The engine is normally reasonably quiet on start-up and very quiet after about 30-45 seconds. The starter engagement solenoid has recently been failing to make contact for the run-motor phase in below zero F temps, but it started right up this morning with temps around 30F. The trip to the store was only about 5 minutes. Just lucky it wasn't a few days later, where I would have installed the new starter ($180).

With the dead truck parked in NAPA's lot for the night, I called my wife for a ride and did some hasty checking with local service shops. This is probably beyond me and my shop/lift bay is temporarily filled with a relatives furniture right now. Nobody has much of an idea what would cause such a sudden catastrophic loss of oil pressure at idle. Many shops don't like to work internally on the Triton motors because of special tools needed for major overhaul.

My favorite shop (Ford truck guy) estimated at least about $450 for R&I (remove & install) of the engine because it will supposedly have to be lifted to pull the pan (crankcase) and look. Hopefully, just a loose sump, or failed oil pump could be replaced thusly. It shouldn't have spun a bearing at idle, and that assembly is still quiet, a good sign. I questioned the camshafts too, until I realised that they are roller cams. Flat tappet overhead cams are touchy about lubrication, often wiping the cams when insufficient lube happens. The rollers are probably ok yet. Hope.

So far the best guess was a young fellow at the Ford dealer that noted that the 5.4L V-8's occasionally drop a "fiber" thrust washer off the crankshaft and lose all oil pressure to the top end. One might assume that the similar V-10 has the same thrust management. I asked if the washer was two-piece... "No". I asked if it was installed over the snout then... "No".

I asked, "New Engine?" The answer was, "Yes". By that, I wonder how Ford gets the washers on new cranks?

This is an aging $8000 truck and a rebuilt long-block engine cost about $5k. Installation at Ford is about $1800 more.

I would consider a used engine, but they are almost all high mileage now. I am also still looking at $2500-3000, and I'm not too fond of the 2-valve blown sparkplug syndrome. Every 100k miles, new plugs are due and it appears unpredictable whether they will stay in place the first time, let alone the second 100k "tune-up". Already did that once ($800)... and then noted an oddball coil pack replacement on another cylinder, so maybe done twice.

I don't know what previous owners did for sure, the bain of "pre-owned". I did get Ford service records that implied reasonable care, including the 1st 100k plugs done by the dealer, which I unfortunately took as a plus.

While back at the NAPA store, I was able to look at a blow-apart picture of the main bearings, and sure enough, there appears to be no usual "saddle-shaped" center main with thrust surfaces, and they did have a separate part number for "thrust-spacers", although nothing in stock. In spite of the Ford techs analysis, it might be possible to replace these afterall, if that indeed is the problem.

Anybody else got any more ideas?

Thanks,
Wes
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[Jarlaxle]

carringb wrote:

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:
Great to hear your back on the road. I have to say I don't agree with the techs telling you that the Triton's life is only 120,000 miles. If this was true Ford sure as heck would not be selling very many vehicles!

As Dodgeguy alluded to, they more likely did not want to open it up because they knew that the engine was repairable for a lot less then $7,730! Those engines run well past the 200K+ if taken care of. An reputable shop would have opened the engine up to see what if went wrong and then let you decide what you wanted to do. BTW the tech that was given your job would have pulled the engine and then the truck would be pushed outside until a decision was made.

With all that said I do agree that if the cash outlay was not an issue a rebuilt OEM with 3 years unlimited mileage was the way to go. Good luck and have fun with her.

I agree with all your points. In fact, I wouldn't be the slightest surprised if the dealer stuck the old motor in storage to sell to later.

Probably shipped it back as a core.

[carringb]

Easiest place for coolant to enter the oil is through the oil cooler. The passages are separated by O-rings, so excess pressure on either side can cause blow-by. In my case, the PCV failed, so it puked a bunch of oil into my coolant (until it got full, and then blew out the heater hose, causes a HUGE mess). A stuck radiator cap could easily to the same too. My original cap stuck sometimes before 265,000 miles, when the radiator exploded. I never though the check the oil to see if coolant got in. But it still runs, so too late worrying about it now!

[Wes_Tausend]

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Thanks, guys.

To clear up cam chain failure discussion here, cam chain tensioner failure on the two-valve will also make a racket from chain slap. My Ford installer told me that situation has even caused a hole in the front aluminum cover on occasion. (Cam phasers are an additional hydraulic control item on newer engines.)

The lost-tension slap, in turn, can slap against the firmly mounted upper guide and severely wear or break it. This would cause the nylon guide to be chewed up, the plastic bits being capable of temporarily plugging the oil sump suction until the next engine start where oil would again flow until re-plugging. It's like a vacuum cleaner plugging with a sock until it is shut off (the sock falls) and restarted, then likely re-plugging later again. This can happen because the split rear thrust washer (front piece) can fall off the crank after severe wear and cause lower oil pressure fed to the passenger side cam, which in turn, drops oil pressure on the hydraulic cam tensioner, allowing chain slap. I believe some of the videos I linked to earlier in this thread explain it better.

My guess as to my cause of the temporary total loss of oil pressure would be plastic debris plugging the sump, or most likely a piece of debris getting stuck in the oil pressure bypass valve (which was probably open after the cold start), possibly a piece of debris from a defective oil filter or nylon guide. Stuck debris (holding it open) in a pressure bypass valve (when cold) would leak pressure off horribly when the oil warmed up. On the other hand, I did run into several descriptions where Triton engines lost pressure at speed and quickly seized up as simple junk before the truck came to a stop. Maybe a failed oil pump, or total plug. Not something I would want, especially out of town.

Several techs mentioned that 125k was an average lifespan for this engine. The young dealer/installer stated that he has replaced several engines in this mileage catagory. Now that may be taken with a grain of salt since they may have been trying to downplay my bad luck. There is one thing that I have not resolved yet, and that is the actual possibilty of some minimal coolant getting into the crankcase. I've heard that Ethylene Glycol is deadly to bearings, but I'm not sure at what concentration. A small amount might be too much, perhaps on the order of sugar in gasoline.

If the Triton intake, or some other joint, can leak coolant into the crankcase, this may severely shorten the life of an engine. This means that periodic coolant changes need to be made on schedule to prevent internal corrosion and leaks. Ethylene Glycol should be changed, or at least tested for ph, every 3 years. By the work-order, I see an oring gasket was replaced on my water pump, but I assume the leak was external and very minor (not visible to me) at this point. Remember, the tech said there was coolant in the crankcase, but he did not blame any particular reason for it upon my questioning.

Since debris (the only reasonable explanation in this erratic on/off case IMO) is known to occasionally plug some oil galleries further down the line in these engines, it would certainly not be safe to drive until the engine is removed and entirely disassembled. In my case, a disassembled 100k+ engine would at least merit refreshing with new bearings etc. The outright cost of the new engine is $4373.33, and the possibly slightly lower cost(?) of "refreshing" has to be weighed against the cost of a pristine new engine assembly. Because of the preceeding logic and odds, the need for a replacement engine became a no-brainer before I even knew the cause of failure.

If a man did his own work, all this would be different, since labor accounted for nearly half this extensive repair bill. And, no, it wasn't easy to part with the cash. This made an unexpected severe dent in our moderate savings, but it was still cheaper to repair than replace, so we bit the bullet.

Because the engine still ran smooth right before removal, it is possible that someone in the service department could have swapped a different toasted block for the $900 core. While I doubt anyone would resell it as is, I do believe our V-10 engine was repairable since it still ran so great after the initial oil pressure failure at idle. In a way, I hope somebody did do this, as it seemed a waste to wantonly discard this particular old V-10 to the core pile.

EDIT 3/16/14

A recent conversation, with a mechanic with whom I went to high school, brought up a possibility of which I was unaware. He claims that the newer low zinc oils do not show up as milky with coolant in them. He refers to many GM vehicles that he had worked on where there was known coolant in the oil pan, but coolant was only evident upon draining them. There may be some merit to this as he is very experienced, perhaps 40 years in a shop. I find it hard to believe because an emulsion is an emulsion, and emulsions are always cloudy (milky) in my experience. Maybe I am wrong.

Wes
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* This post was edited 02/27/14 01:58pm by Wes Tausend *

[carringb]

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:
Great to hear your back on the road. I have to say I don't agree with the techs telling you that the Triton's life is only 120,000 miles. If this was true Ford sure as heck would not be selling very many vehicles!

As Dodgeguy alluded to, they more likely did not want to open it up because they knew that the engine was repairable for a lot less then $7,730! Those engines run well past the 200K+ if taken care of. An reputable shop would have opened the engine up to see what if went wrong and then let you decide what you wanted to do. BTW the tech that was given your job would have pulled the engine and then the truck would be pushed outside until a decision was made.

With all that said I do agree that if the cash outlay was not an issue a rebuilt OEM with 3 years unlimited mileage was the way to go. Good luck and have fun with her.

I agree with all your points. In fact, I wouldn't be the slightest surprised if the dealer stuck the old motor in storage to sell to later.

[dodge_guy]

The 2 valve V-10' s don't have cam phasers to my knowledge. Those are in the 3 valve motors!

[Perrysburg_Dodg]

Great to hear your back on the road. I have to say I don't agree with the techs telling you that the Triton's life is only 120,000 miles. If this was true Ford sure as heck would not be selling very many vehicles!

As Dodgeguy alluded to, they more likely did not want to open it up because they knew that the engine was repairable for a lot less then $7,730! Those engines run well past the 200K+ if taken care of. An reputable shop would have opened the engine up to see what if went wrong and then let you decide what you wanted to do. BTW the tech that was given your job would have pulled the engine and then the truck would be pushed outside until a decision was made.

With all that said I do agree that if the cash outlay was not an issue a rebuilt OEM with 3 years unlimited mileage was the way to go. Good luck and have fun with her.

Don

[shadows4]

Glad to hear you got it fixed Wes.
I must admit I am just a little bit envious. I miss our Excursion. Sometimes I think it wouldn't take much to trade the 7.3 for another V10. The TT we had weighed as much as our current 5er does. I think our V10 Excursion pulled just as well as this diesel does.
Good luck with the new motor, John

[93Cobra2771]

Glad to hear an update. And the tech was right, you would know if the cam phasers were going. They are absolutely nasty sounding.

Disappointing they forgot to let you inspect the motor, but it is what it is.

If the trans goes, check with the Ford dealer as well. Friend of mine had his done on his SD, and Ford was the best deal. Unlimited mileage warranty for three years I think?

Anyhow, glad to see it's on the road.

[mudfuel07]

Glad to hear you're back on the road!

[Lessmore]

Wes,

You made the right decision in my opinion. Always wise to go with what you know will be good.

Les

[Wes_Tausend]

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Thanks, Kevin

The overall feeling was that the old engine was probably so worn as to not be worth a partial repair. Several service techs told me the life expectency of Triton motors is about 125k. I know many go longer... but.

Wes
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[dodge_guy]

Glad your going again. When i was a dealer tech if the customer wanted to see something such as you asked to see, we would do so considering they are the ones spending thousands of dollars. Maybe something simple could have been found and fixed for $500 you never know!

Now get out and start enjoying the new motor!

[Wes_Tausend]

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Just to follow through on my comments on this thread, we got our repaired Excursion back from a Ford dealership on Saturday, Mar 22rd.

We decided that it was cheaper to repair than replace the entire vehicle with a well "experienced" stand-in, which is essentially like buying a chancy unknown, used motor, especially at this lower, under $10k price range. Besides, as others on here noted, the Excursions are becoming somewhat rare. Actual listed load capacities are well under-rated, and easily improved after only minor modification. The HD frame itself is equivalent to some F-450 trucks.

The new engine is somewhat quieter and just as smooth running as the old one. For the five years we've owned it, the old engine had what sounded like slight worn lifter noise when cold. Power performance was still good to the end, but the Ex did burn a quart of oil about every 2000 miles when towing. The mileage now stands at 118,400 and was at 108k when we got it. After break-in, I may find sudden better "towing" power as a gradual degradation is harder to notice.

We chose a Ford OEM remanufactured engine because Ford seems to offer the best warranty at a competitive price. Ford offers 3 years, with unlimited mileage and no exclusion for use in HD commercial service. Although our fuel-thirsty truck will probably never get very many miles in any type service, Ford's extraordinary confidence in quality inspired our basic confidence. Ford also seems to offer a better labor rebate for any warranty service that may be needed nation-wide, hopefully making any warranty claim a more welcome reception.

A local Jasper Engine installer, in a medium sized shop, estimated a cost just over $8000 (per engine installed only), while the Ford dealer bid $7700, including a new starter (the old starter recently failed to crank in extreme cold unless I put a heater under it). Actual Ford remanufactured engine replacement cost was $7730 plus tax, or $8050.22 total. The Ford engine alone was invoiced at $4373.33, instead of the $5200 that Parts 1st quoted me. It may have seemed initially cheaper to have a small shop do the new engine install, but in case of a multi-thousand dollar warranty argument, I feel more comfortable up against a larger shop with deeper pockets. I believe a small Mom-and-Pop shop would have difficulty absorbing a full $8k in case of a "faulty-install" warranty declaration by Ford (or any other brand rebuilder).

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OLD ENGINE?...:
I am an intensely curious person. The initial agreement was that the Ford dealer would pull the pan, call me and I would be able to personally inspect the open crankcase of the failed engine right on their shop floor. In reality, I had early doubts this opportunity would actually happen, because I know the hurried technicians often work by commission, and I expect they would resent, and avoid, this extra "wasted" time. Unfortunately that may be why the Ford dealer shop didn't notify me or even open the engine at all. So the real cause of lost-oil-pressure-while-idling remains a mystery. I would have liked to leave all readers with some valuable insight, so sorry 'bout that.

After we made the final decision to just replace the yet undiagnosed engine, there was nothing to lose by trying to restart it, and in case of recovered oil pressure, simply drive it to the dealers shop rather than tow again (we towed it home). That is exactly what happened. After a start, the oil pressure quickly returned to normal, almost identically as it would after a brief instant following an oil/filter change. The engine then ran reasonably quiet and smoothly to the shop where I left it idle a bit to semi-warm-up while I went inside. A service advisor came out, listened to it at my request and agreed it ran quite well. Still, I had no faith it would continue to do so.

It took a few days for the new engine to arrive and the Ex was in the shop a couple of days before the dealer called to say it was ready on Friday. They initially forgot to install the new starter (a bit disconcerting) thus the actual next-day Saturday pick-up date.

Since they did not let me analyse the open crankcase, the service manager did let me at least talk to the technician. The tech said that he thought there was coolant in the oil when he drained it. He had no idea why this would be so.

I have some doubts about this coolant theory, since the oil did not appear milky when I checked the level right after the oil pressure failed. I also do not see how this would cause total loss of pressure at idle unless there was a huge quantity of coolant in the oil. The oil level was right properly where I expected it to be, rather than high as it would with significant coolant added to it. The coolant system was also still full enough for the heater to work on the way to the shop. Loss of coolant, if any, had to be minor.

I inquired if the sump could have been plugged by plastic nylon bits from the cam chain guides, but the tech assured me that failed cam tensioners are very noisy from chain slap, and I believe that to be true too. The old engine still ran quiet, so if plastic bits are in the oil, it isn't from total guide failure because we both agreed the failed engine was not noisy. He drove it in the shop. There remains the possibility that a crank thrust washer fell out into the pan, but that possibility doesn't really account very well for thee brief loss, and return of, oil pressure.

Eight thousand dollars later, the precise cause of the entire episode is still a mystery to me. With a little luck, the aging tranny will hold; it's the only really expensive thing left, knock on pavement.

Thanks to all who commented with suggestions. It did help to make the decision more palatable, the decision to repair the elderly King of SUV's.

Wes
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[Wes_Tausend]

93Cobra2771 wrote:
Well over half of the Fox body cars I've seen wrecked were rear end damage. For the reasons mentioned above.

I hear you on hiring out the v10 install. Too little time on my hands any more. 😞

Yes, the factory rear suspension was not the best handling. FFR offers a great handling 3-link that will even work on an old LX with modification.

Thanks for asking about the Roadster. You are welcome to PM or email me if you have any more questions, Richard.

Wes
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