Funster_2011V6

Sigh. This was my situation 3 months ago. The date is irrelevant. MANY engines were built with the old parts after the date, no mater what ford says. If you want your car fixed here's what you do:

join the website "allfordmustangs". Post in the 3.7 tech area under the 3.7 engine noise thread and introduce yourself. Its stickied to the top of the page. Then PM the form forum rep "deysha". Do a search if you she doesnt respond to your post rightaway. She will escalate the situation with ford customer care and they will call you.

Insist with your rep that you want a visual inspection of the cam caps since your engine falls only 4days outside the cutoff. The rep should help you schedule that with your dealer. When they get authorisation from ford you wont have to pay for the inspection.

Once they discover the cam caps are indeed the old style, with only one slot instead of 3, Ford will then issue the tool to repair your engine.

print this picture to show the tech when he inspects your engine. Fords written discription is **** poor, and my tech said that without the pic he would have mistakenly reassembled the engine as ok when in fact it needed repaired:



Notice the little groves next to the holes in the bottom part? Thats what you dont have.

firewilbrnusboth

Funster, thanks for the info. It sounds like a massive pain in the a**, but if it gets the problem solved I will definitely contact deysha.

How long was your mustang out of commission while the engine was inspected and the subsequent repair?

Also, from your picture, I wanted to clarify.
The top cam cap is what I currently have or what is installed stock?
And the bottom cap with what looks like 2 holes machined into the central groove, and a bit of material removed around the bolt holes?

Funster_2011V6

Actually, the machined looking holes arent the mod, only a different type of cap. The small bit of material cut next to the bolt holes is the modification. But, yes, the top part is before and the bottom part, excluding what i just mentioned, is the after.

Taking off the valve cover and inpecting the caps took my tech 45 min or so, and the repair itself only took a couple hours.

Of course, arguing with ford and jumping through the approval process took the better part of 3months and no less than 4 trips to the dealer.

On this issue, at ford, the left hand LITERALY does not know the right hand EXISTS let alone what its doing....

firewilbrnusboth

So true, b/c according to the service manager at the dealership Ford has excellent materials tracking and it would be highly unlikely that any engines manufactured after that date contained the flawed design.

Thanks for all of the info I joined the other forum, posted to their cold start tick thread, and PMed fordcustsrvc. So, while im sure it won't be simple hopefully I get this looked at and corrected.

Do you/anyone know if this has actually damaged the engine? (I know Ford's stance is that it won't cause immediate damage)

FastTraveler

Yesterday 05/03/2011, My dealership, who did not give me one ounce of trouble, finally received the tool to fix the ticking lifter problem on my V6 2011. It took them about 3 -4 hours to do the work and the ticking sound is completely gone.
The cause is as I think previously reported, the lack of oil to the top of the lifter or the little bucket. I have the pictures of the actual work if anyone is interested. I must tell everyone with the problem of ticking sound it is not normal regardless of where or when it was manufactured. Wear will result to the lifter and sometime at a later date it will cause a greater problem. Don't let them tell you no, even though the dates are a little beyond the dates they set for the repair. Ford will fix the problem> the dealer just needs to be set streight.
I will post any pictures I have if anyone is interested.

Fast Traveler

Funster_2011V6

My engine is the same build date as yours. Ill postanother picture you can print, if you like, of the defective caps in my engine for your SM so he will hopefully stop drinking the ford koolaid. The date is in error, obviously.
Behold:


I saw no damage, pitting, or scarring when my engine was apart. But any metal on metal noise THAT loud in a valvetrain.......

firewilbrnusboth

thanks for the pic, that gives something to show the mechanics when they do a visual inspection.

firewilbrnusboth

Funster-

How did you get your rep to approve the visual inspection? I have spoken with my rep and they say they cannot authorize anything that the ford engineers do not suggest (same story from the techs at the dealership). Which for some F*@&ed up reason the engineers recommended doing 5 different checks that took several hours instead of saying pull off the freakin valve covers and look at the cam caps, which could have saved them all of the extra time, and answered the question 100%.

UGH ... right now I'm not to impressed with Ford, and am thinking about ditching the brand all together.

Funster_2011V6

Ill pm you something.

FastTraveler

I honestly do not understand what the problem is with the dealers. I simply went in with a copy of the Ford Customer writeup detaining the MFG dates on the engines with the problem. I gave them the date stamped on the engine block (tag) and told them to please order the tool and while I was standing there the service advisor called, placed the order, received the approximate date they would receive the tool and said they would call me when it came in, which was the 2nd week of May. They never removed anything, before the tool was ordered. When the tool came it they watched the video on the repair. I came in the very next day and it was fixed in about three Hours. They gave me photos of the work, as it was being done. Great job, no hasstle, with Ford or the Dealer. Fixed the problem of the ticking valve. Now I am going to order either the GT or Boss, probably GT and do my own upgrades to my satisfaction. Do like the Shelby; Dang it will screem!