themamba24

Hello,
I have a 2005 V6 Mustang with 91,000 miles currently on the engine.

Basic run-down:
-I bought the car with 74,000 miles on it in August 2014. About 10,000 of the miles I put on the car were long distance road trips (One from MS to CA, and one from CA to TX)
-I haven't had any issues with the car in the time I have owned it, other than a water leak through the cowling and cabin air filter due to leaf buildup.
-I am due for an oil change, (it's been 4,000 miles since my last one)

Last couple of weeks with the car:
-Car had been running great, no issues
-Took car into a new mechanic for a 90K service checkover and had them give the car a full inspection on 4/26/16. They found nothing seriously wrong with the car other than a few minor issues. The issues they found:
1) Power steering pressure house is leaking
2) Could use coolant and brake fluid flush
3) Could use an alignment

Since taking the car to a mechanic:
-Haven't driven long distances, mostly driving <7 miles at a time to work and school reaching top speed of 75 MPH
-Today I drove a bit further around 15 miles, and pushed the car a bit getting up to 85 MPH.
-Drove about 7 miles out (almost all highway, I pushed the car here) to hike then about 5 miles back to grab a bite to eat, parked and nothing was wrong with the car at this point.
-Get back in my car start it and the engine is rattling/flapping LOUD. Drive it home about 2 miles and it is still rattling. Temperature gauge is holding steady and on the way home the check engine light comes on. No other lights come on. It is consistently rattling at the same pitch and loudness at all times when it is both idling and driving.
Here is a video of the noise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxh...ature=youtu.be

Steps I have taken:
1) Checked fluid levels:
-Coolant is running a little bit low but still at around 75% of full capacity, level is about 1/4 an inch below the cold fill line range.
-Oil within acceptable range but the engine is still hot so IDK.
-Power steering fluid is fine
2) Smelled/ looked at the engine:
-Definitely smelled like something is burning. Not an overwhelming smell, but enough to know something is wrong.
-There was a minor amount of smoke coming from the engine (only visible when I popped the hood) when I first got home that subsided within a couple of minutes.

3) Checked under/around the engine for any leaks:
-Looked under the car and sure enough there was some fresh oil on the ground below the engine. I know for sure it is oil and it is right below the firewall on the passenger side.
-Saw some oil pooling up by the firewall under a hose on the passenger side. The source of the leak must be coming from this area.

4) Ran a diagnostic on the check engine light and the following codes popped up:
"P0172"
"P0300"
"P0301"
"P0300 Pd"
"P0301 Pd"
"P0302 Pd"
"P0303 Pd"
"MIL ON"
"MONITRS"
"0 Inc"
"8 Ready"
"Misfire"
"Fuel"
"Comp"
"Catlyst"
"Evap"
"02 Snsr"
"02 Htr"
"Egr"

The research I did on the codes and it appears to to be two things:
1) "System Too Rich (Bank 1)"
2) "Cylinder 1, 2, and 3 misfires"

5) Took car back to mechanic (90k guy). Firstly he thought the leaking oil was from an AC hose and not relevant to the noise. Second he diagnosed the issue as being a failure of one of the timing chain tensioners. I consulted my mechanic where I grew up and everything seemed legit (especially given the failure rate of tensioners in 05 mustangs) so I had him go ahead and replace the tensioner, but the noise is still there.

6) He thinks something else may be wrong with the timing chain, rail, and/or engine and now he wants to go back into the engine and take everything apart to see what exactly is wrong. I asked him why he didn't look at the engine and timing chain while replacing the temperature and he claimed that only one part of the timing chain is visible in the process.

What are all of your thoughts on this process? Any help is greatly appreciated. I am not as intelligent regarding mustangs as most of you here so any help is great. Is taking apart the engine and looking at the timing chain and rail possible for a novice?

Thanks,
Blake

movielover40

You would think the timing chain would be good for more than 90,000 miles.

I have a lot more miles on mine with factory timing chain still on it.

svastano

Yikes that's loud. I would not drive it in that condition! Have no ideas for you sorry.

JimC

The 4.0 is so cheap that it is probably less expensive to pull that engine and drop in a replacement. Check car-part.com or ebay and compare the costs to the work that he needs to do. The timing chain on the passenger side is on the back so you usually have to pull the engine anyway to work on it.

I'm not aware of an inordinate amount of failures. My 2006 had 203,000 miles on it when I sold it in June 2012 and had been boosted for most of its life (first with nitrous and then with the Xcharger). It has 245,000 miles on it now and the current owner said it is still running strong.

tx_zstang

It's possible there's some other issue on the passenger side, like maybe the coil wires are hooked up wrong; although just driving and stopping should not have caused that to happen.
But do check the wires on the coil pack.

It almost sounds like cylinders 1-3 are not firing at all or only some of the time; that would explain the rich reading, and the misfires/non-firing would explain the reason why it is rich.

Sadly though, it does seem to point to a possible timing-chain issue on the passenger side. It should be confirmed before replacing the engine, though. And any shop did any work, it would have had to have been on the passenger side to attempt to correct the issue. If they only replaced the tensioner w/o checking for proper timing, you could have jumped the chain and are now running way off-time. But again, that could be confirmed before yanking the engine.