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V8 Cams Problem and Solution
CAM News (12-10-02) Atlanta Journal-Constitution makes note of SHO legal action Follow up article by Detroit Free Press on the class action suit Class Action suit filed against Ford Motor Company http://www.v8sho.com/SHO/CamFailureClassActionSuitFiled.htm CAM News (12-4-02) Do you think you are covered by Ford's ESP warranty or other extended warranty? S.H.O. Club and V8SHO.com have both heard from several SHO V8 owners that Ford dealers are charging them thousands of dollars over what their ESP warranty pays, plus the deductible, to fix their engines under warranty. The main problem seems to be the claim that the repair is more than the car is worth. My own personal ESP warranty DOES include the clause: "Repairs will be paid up to the then current N.A.D.A. wholesale value of the vehicle per repair visit." The N.A.D.A. book is usually the one dealers use to put a value on YOUR car when you trade in. It is usually the lowest published price around. It can be a lot lower than wholesale on the typical used car value books/sites like Edmunds and Kelly Blue Book. For older higher mileage SHO's this can be a real problem. Another problem is that dealers seem to be charging for many hours of labor for diagnosis and repair. Some of the bills we have heard about have well over $1000 to just diagnose a bad cam. We already know that many repair part prices for the SHO have skyrocketed in the recent past, adding to the repair bill.. Repair costs also multiply when mechanics continue to try to run the motor to "diagnose" the problem, even after being told what it is, and why they should not run the motor. This increases up-front costs, while increasing the amount of damage to the motor. What can you do? 1. If your car is running, don't wait for any action by Ford, even WITH an ESP warranty, you will be without your car for weeks, if not months, and very likely will wind up paying thousands of dollars above what ESP may pay, if they pay anything. (Some dealers/warranty companies go to extremes to blame a spun sprocket on the owner, see #2 below) S.H.O. Club recommends you get your cams repaired by either welding or pinning before a problem happens. Your costs beyond what ESP or other warranties pay, will be huge compared to getting the problem taken care of now. 2. Document ALL maintenance and repairs to your car. Write it down, save receipts and keep up with recommended schedules. Realize that ANY modification may be used by the dealer/ESP rep. to deny a claim. 3. If you think you have been victimized by a dealer, document everything and contact an attorney for your options. Remember many states have binding arbitration as a possiblity. Contact your local Better Business Bureau. 4. IF your cams fail, don't let the dealer or tow truck driver keep trying to start the vehicle! This just ads to the damage. 5. It should not cost $10,000 or more to replace a motor! Don't let dealers/shops pad bills with labor and parts prices that are ridiculous. Shop around, there is usually more than one Ford dealer in any given area, not all of them will try to put you in the poor house. V8 SHO owners have found that repair prices for the same failure have been all over the scale at different dealerships. Consider a used or rebuilt motor, V8SHO.com has prices from most of these dealers, check with them before making the decision. Here is a LINK to the page with a lot of links to help V8 owners including engine sales. 6. If you have had a failure, or have had your cams repaired to avoid a failure, or are just concerned enough to be part of the solution for all, then contact V8SHO.com with your failure information or repair info. As always, the choice is YOURS! S.H.O. Club does not warranty or guarantee any repair process or businesses. A proven repair may go bad, but our experience is that the shops with repair experience on the SHO V8 motor will provide a quality preventive fix at a fair price. Autoweek Magazine article on V8 Cam problem (Nov 27,2002) Detroit Free Press article on the V8 Cam Problem: (November 2002) http://www.auto.com/industry/taurus24_20021024.htm Sound file of what a failing V8 Cam will sound like: http://shoclub.com/V8chronicles/badcamsound.htm Places to get your V8 Cam welded: Denny's Service in Plymouth, Michigan (734) 453-8115 Al Fitz SHO Repairables.
FPS (Ford Performance Specialists of Georgia, Inc.) Protech Automotive Ray's Auto Repair & Performance Rickety Enterprises More new V8 Cam news (9-18-02): It was reported to V8SHO.com that a person of skill can pin V8 cams for a pretty low dollar amount ($200 reported, $100 for members of the US Military). NOTE there may be a waiting list for this low buck service, check it out at the link below. http://www.v8sho.com/SHO/QualityLessExpensiveCamPinning.htm USED OR REBUILT ENGINES AVAILABLE: Check out the news on engines available from American
Engines Installations: Or from Jasper Engines: http://v8sho.com/SHO/JasperUpdateOtherImportantStuff.htm Cam news (12-13-01): Good news. Ford seems to finally acknowledging that there is a problem. SHO Club members report that more dealers are working with owners to pay at least part of the repair bill. This makes it more important that you go to your local Ford dealer if you have or suspect a problem. Print out as much documentation as you can from the V8SHO.com site and check in with that site on a regular basis for even more information. Ask to talk to a zone rep if the service manager is of no help. Remember that if you have had a problem and it wasn't paid for or it was repaired at a non-Ford shop, call Ford's hotline (See below for the phone number) to keep this problem in front of the powers that be. ALL V8 owners that have HAD a problem, please do one other thing: Write to Jim O-Connor, the President of Ford Division about your experience. Be nice, detail your problem, costs and any solution, help or non-help from your dealer. Try to keep it short. Here is the address to write to: Jim O'Connor Again, be nice, document everything and ask for help from the top. Another Update and more possible solutions (10-24-01): Thanks to members Tim Wright and Paul Nimz for working on this possible solution. Loctite makes a product (#294) that is a wicking liquid that is designed to reinforce mechanical connections like those between the various parts of the V8 SHO cams and the cam shaft. We now know beyond any question that the V8 cams have a problem and that an alarmingly high percentage of cams are failing where the slave sprockets are on the cam shaft. They start to come loose, and in most cases create a clicking noise that is very easy to hear. Some cams will run for years like this, others have gone in days. A couple have gone without warning. As with most problems, it varies. The loctite solution is only good on cams sprockets that have not had any problems, and are not loose. Paul and Tim did a "fix" on Pauls car and it went like this: Remove intake and valve covers. While using the hex nut and a 1 1/4" open end wrench on the cam, turn the motor over while cleaning the sprocket area with a cleaner. Once clean, apply the #294 to the area. For detailed instructions, click HERE. NOTE: at this time there is NO WAY to tell if this is going to work. The only way to really know is to take a representative sample of cams, do the procedure to half and then do destructive testing to all of the cams till the sprockets fail. Obviously Paul and Tim can't do this. So should you do this to your V8 SHO Cams? I personally still think the only real way to KNOW your cams are fixed is do the welding like that done by Doug Lewis of FPS. The Loctite solution has the advantage of being fairly cheap and as they say about chicken soup...."It can't hurt!" Info (Updated 9-24-01): First: Call this number to report your problem: 1-800-392-3673. This is a Ford Customer Resource Center. Have the information about your car such as VIN, Miles at failure, what was done etc. Give as much detail to the people there as they will take. If you have called this number before, then call again, and keep calling! Make this call no matter when you had the problem or who fixed it. Remember these people are just passing along information, getting mad at them won't do any good, treat them nice and they may do a better job for you and all of us. Second: If you have a failure and you are under Ford original or ESP Warranty, then by all means, get your SHO fixed at the Ford dealer of your choice. While there, ask to speak to the Ford Zone Rep and report that this is a recurring problem and you want them to do something about it, since if you get one cam replaced, you still have three others that could go bad. Third: IF you have had a problem and gotten it fixed at a Ford Dealer, go back and ask to speak to the Zone Rep and report the problem as above. Fourth: If you have had a problem and it was NOT fixed by a Ford dealer, then do your fellow SHO owners a favor and go to the Ford dealer you are most familiar with and get along with and do your best to report the failure to the zone rep and anyone that will listen. IT is important that you be vocal about this! SHO Club is doing what it can, but the people that have the actual failures are the ones that can have the most impact here. NOTE: Being vocal does not mean being abusive. People quit listening when voices get raised and threats are issued. Be assertive, but not abusive. Try to keep the dealer and Zone Rep on your side, remember there isn't a lot they can do without help from above, and we mean Ford Corporate, not any deity. If you have had a failure, please contact Tim Wright (SHO Club V8 Chronicles and V8SHO.com) and give him the following information: Year of your SHO Updated
info: For some time now, SHO Club and the major SHO repair shops have suspected that there may be a common problem with the V8 SHO cams. Here is a brief description of the cam system on the V8 SHO: There are four cams, two per cylinder head. The exhaust cam on the left (or front) head and the intake cam on the right (or back) head are driven directly from a chain that is on the passenger side (accessory belt side) of the motor and routed through a sprocket on the end of the crankshaft. There is a hydraulic (oil fed) cam chain tensioner on the front of the motor to keep chain tension consistent. The intake cam on the front head and exhaust cam on the back head are driven by smaller chains and slave sprockets, again near the passenger end of the cams just inside the valve covers. There are smaller hydraulic tensioners on each head to keep these smaller chains properly tensioned and quiet. The left (front) intake cam also has a pulley on its back end (the driver's side) that turns a belt that runs the water pump. This puts extra tension on this cam. These cams are made up in many pieces with lobes, and gears and other parts slid onto a hollow tube and then a part forced through the middle to force the various parts together. This is a known and fairly common way to make up a complicated cam. This basic design in itself does not appear to be the problem. In the case of the V8 SHO, SHO Club has been collecting evidence that the cams may have a specific problem. The problem is that the cam slave sprockets can come loose and eventually cause the cam to not rotate with the sprocket. When that happens, the valves left open can hit the pistons and extreme motor damage is the result. So far the only early indicator of this problem developing appears to be a clicking or ticking sound at the cam chain end of the motor (passenger side) that gets louder. This is the cam chain sprocket starting to loosen up and move around. Eventually it will hog out it's support structure and rotate on the cam, which then leaves some valves open when pistons come up for the compression or exhaust/intake strokes. Is there a way to prevent this? We only know of one way at the moment. Ford Performance Specialists solve the problem this way: They carefully spot weld the sprockets to the cam shaft in 3 or four places. Since the shaft is hollow, it takes an experienced welder to do this without causing damage to the assembly. I believe other SHO repair shops would also be able to perform this service, but be sure to check with them before making an appointment. CAUTION! If you have a factory or ESP/Extended warranty, you may not want to have the welding done. Double check your warranty that it covers cam failure of this type and the associated damage. Modifications to the internals of your motor COULD void your warranty. Will this happen to all SHO V8's? Probably not. Is it something you should be concerned about? Yes. Keep a close ear on your motor and if you hear more noise starting to come from the cam chain area, you should consult an expert right away. If you get any upper motor work done (check valve clearances etc) then you should consider getting this repair done at the same time. Do you need to panic or sell your SHO? NO, I would not recommend that. This problem may be limited to a short production run, but it is too early to tell. UPDATE: it now appears that this could be a problem across all years of V8 SHO engines. We have had reported problems in all years of the V8 SHO, but again, not on all cars, just a small percentage. What can you do in the meantime? I don't think there is any "preventative" maintenance you can do, other than to maybe not over-rev your motor constantly. This is good advice anyway. Drive your SHO with gusto, but just don't abuse it, again good advice for any vehicle. More on this issue as we have the information. SHO Club
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