Ford Taurus | Mercury Sable | Ford Taurus SHO | 1986-2007Forum for discussion of the Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable and Ford Taurus SHO. Covers vehicle years: 1986-2007
we took our work vehiclet 2002 taurus in for a chirping in the engine. its the 3.0 vulcan V6. its got about 70,000 on it. I thought it was the tensioner. they replaced it at Ford and the sound did not go away. its very loud at idle and gets progressive with stepping on the gas. Its worse when cold and will taper off when it heats up.
Can anybody help me with this? could it be an idler pulley or alternator pulley, water pump or something??? its getting worse and I hope something does not just go bang!!!!!!!!!!!
I think that is it. my office is going to call Ford and see what it costs to replace that syncronizer. What will happen if the thing seizes? I have never heard of a cam syncronizer? what the heck does that do? is this for the distributorless ignition? Since this is a work vehicle, I am not sure about this engine at all. All I know is this car is a lemon. so many things have gone wrong with it.
Thanks for all your help!!! I thought someone on the forums would know what I am talking about and before we keep dumping money into this car for nothing. we now have a (new tensioner) that was no diagnosed correctly!
That syncronizer Times the injectors. The motor will run just fine when it gernades.
I drove mine for 3 months without it. Mind you you will notice a little surging and high idle
from time to time and the M.I.L. will never go out. The motor will run on R.O.M. from the
E.C.M. until the syncronizer is replaced. The part is NOT cheap and unless you have the
timing tool to install the syncronizer or have done this before i don't recommend replacing
it yourself. If you get it out of time you can ruin the motor. You could take the tops of the pistons out. It can be done by yourself but go slow and be carefull. Good Luck.
That syncronizer Times the injectors. The motor will run just fine when it gernades.
I drove mine for 3 months without it. Mind you you will notice a little surging and high idle
from time to time and the M.I.L. will never go out. The motor will run on R.O.M. from the
E.C.M. until the syncronizer is replaced. The part is NOT cheap and unless you have the
timing tool to install the syncronizer or have done this before i don't recommend replacing
it yourself. If you get it out of time you can ruin the motor. You could take the tops of the pistons out. It can be done by yourself but go slow and be carefull. Good Luck.
Now break that down....The motor will run with a seized synchronizer??? The motor will run on R.O.M. from the E.C.M until the synchronizer is replaced???
We are taking it to the garage because its a work vehicle. my office will have it fixed, but since I work on all of mine they asked me to investigate this.
any other problems with the taurus in the 2002-03 year range that you had issues with? We have the heather dial issue with the flapper sticking in the heater box. that is a big pain. steering Rack just replaced, axels, balljoints. I never had so many issues with one car. it has 68,000 on it!!! Oh well, its a work car, I didn';t buy it, so its up to them to fix it!!!
Thanks for your help! greatly appreciate it. If you ever have issues with Nissans, I work on those.
We are taking it to the garage because its a work vehicle. my office will have it fixed, but since I work on all of mine they asked me to investigate this.
any other problems with the taurus in the 2002-03 year range that you had issues with? We have the heather dial issue with the flapper sticking in the heater box. that is a big pain. steering Rack just replaced, axels, balljoints. I never had so many issues with one car. it has 68,000 on it!!! Oh well, its a work car, I didn';t buy it, so its up to them to fix it!!!
Thanks for your help! greatly appreciate it. If you ever have issues with Nissans, I work on those.
Chris
I think you've pretty much covered the usual issues. Your plastic coolant tank is due to develop a leak soon..lol..
JWKO. To answer your 2 questions about the siezed syncronizer. YES to both questions.
The motor runs just fine. The syncronizer doesn't actually sieze. The magnet falls out and trashes the half moon eclips. All the parts fall into and down the shaft. This is usually what siezes the shaft. As i said before my wife has living proof. Her car ran just fine with a busted syncronizer. the magnet and eclips were gone. Just a bunch of powdered metel where everything should have been and there was a hole in the top of the pick up sensor big enough to put my pinky finger in. Ford wanted $287.78 for the
shaft assembly and you didn't get the sensor. The car ran on " limp mode ".
JWKO. To answer your 2 questions about the siezed syncronizer. YES to both questions.
The motor runs just fine. The syncronizer doesn't actually sieze. The magnet falls out and trashes the half moon eclips. All the parts fall into and down the shaft. This is usually what siezes the shaft. As i said before my wife has living proof. Her car ran just fine with a busted syncronizer. the magnet and eclips were gone. Just a bunch of powdered metel where everything should have been and there was a hole in the top of the pick up sensor big enough to put my pinky finger in. Ford wanted $287.78 for the
shaft assembly and you didn't get the sensor. The car ran on " limp mode ".
The synchronizer assembly fits down into the block like a distributor & has a gear on the end that is driven by the camshaft. This shaft also drives the oil pump.....The chirping is caused by bearing failure in that assembly due to a lack of lubrication. If this totally seizes up it will cause engine damage and the engine will not run!
The cam synchronizer is a common failure item in Vulcans, with a working life typically between 80-100k miles. It usually doesn't seem to do any damage if caught in time, but as the gear at the bottom of the synchronizer drives the oil pump it could (worst case scenario) theoretically destroy an engine.
There are two causes for the failure. The first seems to be exclusive to the hall effect version of the sensor, (up to 1997), where a piece of the magnetic tab that sits on the underside of the top of the sensor breaks off and damages the vane (metal tab that sticks up out of the rotating assembly that the sensor reads) that is used to time the engine; this will throw a CEL as the sensor is no longer functioning. The second applies to all vulcans and is what actually causes the chirping, it seems that the rotating assembly in the synchro does not recieve proper lubrication and the bearings start to fail. In either case the synchro itself will have to be replaced, and it's usually a good idea to replace the (cheap) sensor while you're at it.
The problem manifests itself a chirping coming from the transmission (driver) side of the engine. It can be very hard to pinpoint, when mine started to fail the sound appeared to come from different places as I moved around the engine bay. When my mechanic took a stethoscopey thingy to my engine bay, he concluded that it was ghosts and I should "come back if it gets worse". From reading posts on here, and my own experience, the chirping responds to RPMs, most pronounced at idle and eventually drone out to a whine at driving speed. It also seems to be affected by heat and humidity. Mine stopped making noise (when it got cooler outside) the better part of a year before I replaced it, but I suspect that if I hadn't it would have started again when it got hot.
There's a cheap way to replace the assembly, and an expensive way. From what I've read on here, dealers/mechanics will charge $150-$170 for the assembly, as well as 3-4 hours of labor for the replacement. I found the part (Dorman#689-107 for my 02') on RockAuto for $40 and it took me an hour to install it. RockAuto's catalog will guide you to the correct part. For mine, it was listed under camshaft synchronizer, but I have read about it possibly being listed as a distributor for earlier years. The actual replacement of the part is as simple as undoing 1 clamping bolt, removing the old assembly and installing the new one. The most time consuming part for me was cutting the plastic tray that guided the wire bundle that ran directly overtop of the assembly so that I could even get to the synchro. Whether you are comfortable with doing this yourself will depend on how stubborn you are, and whether you think you're up to digging your way to the sensor/synchro. That's the hard part.
There is some risk to doing it yourself, but only if you do it incorrectly. The cam synchronizer is integral to engine timing, and if the new assembly is not installed with the exact same orientation as the original some serious damage could occur. Luckily, it's not that easy to mess up if you pay attention. The teeth on the bottom of the synchronizer are big enough that the vane rotates approx 10 degrees for each tooth. After removing the sensor from the top of the assembly and before touching the clamping nut that secures the synchro; if you mark the relative position of the synchronizer body on the block, and mark the position of the vane on the synchro body you can install the new synchro in the exact same position. If you make accurate marks and pay attention, it will be obvious if you are off. I replaced mine with this method and have driven approx 150 miles since without a CEL to be seen, nor a squeak to be heard.
Mine ran just fine. The upper part where the " half moon eclips " used to be was sheared
off. The bottom half of the shaft where the gear is for the oil pump was still intact and
turning. the shaft snapped in the middle of the bushing. there are two bushings on that
piece. One under the oil hole and one above the oil hole at the top. As long as the shaft doesn't snap between the bottom of the cam gear on the syncronizer and the top of the oil pump drive,about 2- 1/2 inches in length the motor will never shut down because the oil pump is still being driven. The bottom part of the pump drive sits in the block, the other bottom bushing. there is no place for the shaft to go. The only thing that will shut down the motor and ruin it is if the roll pin breaks that holds the cam driven gear to the syncronizer shaft. That will shut down the oil pump. the older engines, The flat head, 235.5 chev, and there are 3 others i can't remember, have the oil pump drive the distributor so when the oil pump seizes the engine shuts down immediatly. No damage. the Vaga had an oil pressure switch that if the motor lost oil pressure the engine shut down. Too bad they don't make them like that any more. Maybe that is a good thing ?
My daughter has a 1996 and the same noise was present. I am a tech so I have seen this before. Until now I thought you could only get the part from ford. I searched around and found one on ebay with a Dorman manufacturer part # and ordered one from my local parts store. It came with the sensor and the alingnment tool for around $40. I installed it today and it works great. Good luck to all!
All of you guys are great and I love to read everyone's comments! The syncro.assy or any cam sensor for that matter sole purpose in life is to locate number one TDC for the PCM! If the cam signal is missing the PCM will repeatedly fire the coils and injectors until the engine starts. When installing the syncro assy on these engines I use a lab scope to degree in the syncro.
I had the dreaded tranny side chirping develop over the course of the past few weeks - we had a cold spell up here in my neck of the woods and after the weather warmed up a tad I really noticed a continual chirping - it used to only happen when the engine was cold in my 03 sable w/71,000 miles on it...
Anyhow, Advance Auto had the Dorman #689-107 near me - it cost $70.00 which is a few squid more than what you can find online but I bought it yesterday and changed it within a couple of hours. The Synchronizer came with a new sensor and an alignment tool. If you have ever pulled and replaced a distributor - this is just as easy if not easier.
Be careful to mark the outer housing after removing the sensor so that it lines up close w/the block after pulling the original and replacing the new one. I also jacked up the passenger side of the car under the engine cradle to let the wheel hang, pried open the wheel-well shroud with a hunk of 2x4 and cranked the engine by hand till the alignment tool dropped into the synchronizer while it was still in the block (note - for this 2 people may be required as I'd imagine you could easily shear the alignment tool which is plastic if you just laid the tool on the synchro while cranking by hand).
You may also want to consider removing the plate that holds the accelerator and transmission kickdown linkage as well ast the intake box cover and flexible snorkle. There were also a few electical connectors on sensors that I moved out f the way as well as 3 spark plug wires. Also - someone else mentioned that you kind of have to cut away the piece of plastic that houses the wiring running over the sensor & under the intake manifold & I concur that piece of plastic is a PIA - I cut mine w/a hacksaw blade and a drywall saw. Prior to installing I prelubed the synchronizer with some oil by squirting in some fresh oil into the little hole along the side of the synchronizer shaft and working the shaft around several times.
On a 1-10 scale of "difficulty" I'd rate this a 3.5 at best and am only scoring it that high cause that piece of plastic is a pain.
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Now break that down....The motor will run with a seized synchronizer??? The motor will run on R.O.M. from the E.C.M until the synchronizer is replaced???
Re: 2002 taurus chirping in engine vulcan v6
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