6.4 camshaft removal with crank in block

[Brad Clayton]

I have always wondered about the rear crankshaft adapter on these engines. The fact that I have always been told to never remove it or certain death would result, only fueled my curiosity. However, I am pretty lazy, so I never looked too far for answers. I just did what I was told like a good little boy. So I was left to wonder if it was a run out issue that would cause the rear main seal to leak or was it a balance issue or what. 
 
Well, I stumbled across a video put up by Ron Huxell (he passed away recently) dealing with a wicked engine vibration. This ended up coming from the adapter that had been removed and then put back on incorrectly by another shop. This indexed the flywheel in the wrong position and threw the engine balance off due to the big ass weights that are welded to the ring gear assy. They got lucky because the base engine timing can really be affected if using the Ford line up tool on an adapter that is bolted up in the wrong position.
 
So I had a core laying around and decided to experiment......let's take a look.
 
Here we are with an enhanced short block trim.



I've got a Norco so it makes this job easy peasy.



Pop the rear cover off.



So this is the Ford tool and it is a must have if rolling the crank in and out of position and comes in handy for setting the crank in the block.



The length of the tool makes crank/cam alignment pretty straight forward.



If the bolt is installed to hold the tool to the cam then the crank can be tossed in by a blind man and be in time.



However, the tool can be rotated as far as you want as long as the crank pin is still in the tool and everything will be in time when rotated back to vertical.



Both marks will be at 12 O Clock when timed, but I would not want trust an eyeball method.



Different perspective.



Adapter removal.



She is on pretty tight, but a basic puller will pop it off.



A look underneath.



The problem with the adapter is it can be bolted back on in six separate positions, but only one is the correct position. The red arrow points at a nice little place for a pin to line up with, yet the crank gear does not have a pin. The cam and crank are easily aligned with no tools because the dots go together (yellow line). So once the cam is in, then the adapter can be put on and the existing pin will be at 12 O Clock. The Ford tool can be installed to verify this and the adapter can be bolted down. But to also note, the hole in the adapter (red arrow) goes 180 degrees across from the key (green arrow) on the crank gear. Easy right?



At this point I just pulled all the lifters to there max stroke with a magnet to clear the cam lobes.



Rather difficult for me to pull the cam and take a picture so I enlisted a helper.



I think back to all the cams I have replaced and wished I had tried this earlier.



Upon reassembly, this tool erases all doubt as to whether it's timed correctly or not.



So that's it. This truck had a ruint lifter which ate at the cam lobe. The customer opted for a short block, but I would have just put a cam and lifters in it personally. The engine was in good shape otherwise and had low miles.

[the_twig_187]

NICE!

[Matt Saunoras]

I have talked to a machinist friend of mine about this and he says just bolt the adapter back on and check the runout with a dial indicator.  The bolts are actually listed in the parts catalog as being the same as the harmonic balancer bolts.

[Keith Browning]

Now the big question, would you do this on an engine you plan to reinstall in a truck? I should think that if the adapter is timed correctly and the runout is good there should be no problems... but I don't want to be the guinea pig.

 

Nice write up and thoroughness in thinking this through.

[Matt Saunoras]

I would not have the guts to try this on a truck. One tech that worked here a few years ago said he did it on 6.0 e-series a few times.

[lmorris]

I've heard both horror and success stories with this. I'm with Matt though. The crucial thing is to check runout before and after the repair. I have been told by a Ford trainer that with the same runout and proper installation, it will be fine.

[Aaron]

I'd do it on my own truck in a heartbeat, but that being said if for whatever reason I'm taking the cam out, i'm likely going to have it on a stand so I might as well check the bearings while I'm at it.