Out of the ashes, a Phoenix is born (Boss 302 teardown and rebuild)

ford20

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I just want to say that this will probably be a slow teardown and build as I work on the weekends as well and have maybe an hour a day to devote to tearing this down, plus I have to wait to gather funds for the build since this happened at an inopportune time (not that there is ever a great time for your engine to decide to devour its self). This is my car Toothless, it is a 2012 Boss 302 Laguna Seca. People keep asking me why the hell would you call it Toothless, it sounds so stupid! Well, I am a dork and Toothless is the dragon from How to Train Your Dragon. He is a Nightfury which is the fastest most agile dragon there is which is somewhat like the Laguna Seca in the Mustang lineup. Plus they are both black and red and I have been told a couple of times that I look like a much bigger version of Hiccup.


Toothless-and-Hipcup-in-How-To-Train-Your-Dragon-2.jpg



Well, it seemed as if I had started to develop a tick with my engine. I parked it for a bit to try and figure out what was wrong with it and over the course of a couple of weeks I forgot about it. I couldn’t find the keys to my V6 and started the Boss up and I was quickly reminded of the loud noise emanating from my engine. Anyway, it sounded something like this in case anyone is interested in what prompted this whole process.


http://vid579.photobucket.com/albums/ss233/fordfan7689/20140914_143224_zpsbc3afb89.mp4


Well after that, I parked the car until that weekend and drained the oil. When I did I didn’t notice any metal flakes through the oil so I thought that I was in the clear there. Well, I was wrong. When I was draining the oil from the drain pan I noticed a couple of sparkles coming from the oil and that’s when I noticed everything.


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The next step was to take the engine out of the car. It was pretty straight forward, the only real hiccups that I ran into was that I rounded off one of the bolts from the exhaust manifold to the cat so I removed the clamp that connects the cat to the midpipe. The starter motor has a bolt on the very top of it that is a pain to get to from under the car or from the side of it, so what I did was put a couple of extensions together and attacked it from the front of the engine where the A/C condenser was. The biggest problem was actually getting the engine free from the transmission. When it came time to pull the engine it just wouldn’t budge, eventually after a lot of up and down with a jack and the engine hoist I got enough daylight to finally get the very tip of a screwdriver in between the bellhousing and the metal plate and use it somewhat as a wedge to finally break it free. I decided to remove the hood to make it a lot easier to actually pull the engine from the car.


I had the engine in this position for a while until I was finally able to get the away from the transmission.


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After about 2 hours of up and down and back and forth and getting the screwdrivers around the bellhousing out it came.


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The obligatory (not so) empty engine bay shot


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*********************************************************************************************************************************

  • 2013 GT500 Cooling Fan – Part# M-8C607-MSVT
  • Aeroforce Interceptor Single Gauge – Part# CN101
  • Aeroforce Black Bezel –Part# AF-BEZEL-BLACK
  • Aeroforce Black Boss 302 Gauge Face – Part# AF-LOGO-BOSS302
  • Aeroforce 5V regulator kit – Part# AF-SENS010
  • BMR K-Member - Part #KM018
  • BMR Tubular A-Arms – Part # AA021
  • BMR Radiator Support – Part # RS003
  • Kooks Long Tube Headers 1 7/8ths – Part# 11412400 Supersedes Part #60-41-188
  • McLeod RST Clutch with Lightweight Steel flywheel Package – JPC Racing Part # 1124
  • Moroso Race Oil Pan – Part # 20572
  • Oil Pan Gasket – Part# BR3Z-6710-A
  • Oil Pickup Tube – Part# BR3Z-6622-A
  • Oil Pump – Part# BR3Z-6600-A
  • Roush Vent Pod – Part# 404470
  • TSS Billet Oil Pump Gears – JPC Racing Part # 1760 (It may be the same as TSS’s but I couldn’t find a part number on their website)
 
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ford20

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Now that the engine was out of the car it was time to bolt it up to the stand. I removed the flywheel, clutch assembly, and pulse ring so that I can bolt it to the engine stand. Upon doing so, I noticed that it looks like I didn’t have the revised o-ring around the crankshaft position sensor like I was told since it appears I have the stock orange o-ring. At least this confirmed my suspicions about possibly having a bad crankshaft position sensor after I performed a quick test.


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As a quick aside, I know that for the Boss 302 this should tell you if the CKP is bad or not. I’m not sure if it is the same for the GT’s but I would imagine that it would still hold true. I am 95% sure that this is the way you do this but I will look around a bit more and see if I can’t find the thread and update the post in case I am wrong. Drive the car for about 15 or 20 minutes in 4th gear with the RPM’s between 4,000-4,250 and the check engine should come on and flashing. If this happens, than everytime the solution has been to replace the CKP. This is normally a problem for the 2012’s as they revised and udated the wiring harness for the 2013’s. It seems that the wiring prongs act as tuning forks almost and vibrate themselves to death on a road course in a matter of 15 hours or so.
  • Pressure Plate/Clutch Assembly – 9 x 13mm
  • Flywheel – 8 x 19mm


Once I got everything removed I was able to bolt the engine onto the stand and remove the hoist from the garage. From there I pulled the motor mounts off followed by the valve covers to see if there was any carnage in the valvetrain. I couldn’t really find anything outside of some metal shavings on the shaft of the uhhhh camshaft as well as some odd wearing on two of the LH intake cam lobes. Outside of that everything else looks ok by my eyes (ie. No giant chunks of shit missing or gouged).
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From there I turned my focus onto the oil pan. I removed the oil pan and separated it from the windage tray (I just grabbed my plastic fastner removal tool and used that to separate the oil pan and windage tray this way I could remove the pan, then unbolt the pickup tube and take off the windage tray). Upon doing so it looked like someone poured silver metallic paint into the oil pan and mixed in a tiny bit of oil in there. After looking at it a bit further, the oil has a bit of a milk shake look to it but maybe I am wrong here so maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can say the oil looks a bit odd like a head gasket leak. So far it has only looked like this when I took off the oil pan so maybe that had something to do with it, but either way I think I can repaint my Vapor Silver V6 with what is in the bottom of the oil pan haha.


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  • Valve Covers - 14 each side (28 total) x 10mm
  • Oil Pan/Windage Tray –16 x 10mm & 3 x 13mm
  • Oil pickup tube bolts – 3 x 10mm
  • Oil Pickup tube spacer – 1 x 17mm


From there it was just a matter of taking everything apart to see if I can figure out where all of this metal was coming from. I started by removing as much as I could off of the block before opening up the front cover.
  • A/C compressor – 3 x 13mm
  • Alternator – 2 x 15mm & 1 nut x 13mm
  • Camshaft Position Sensors – 4 x 8mm black=intake; grey=exhaust
  • Cowl Ground Strap -1 x 10mm
  • Crankshaft Position Sensor – 1 x 8mm
  • Crankshaft Pulley Bolt – 1 x 17mm
  • Exhaust Manifold nuts – 16 x 15mm
  • Exhaust Studs – 16 x 6mm
  • Knock Sensors – 2 x 10mm (1 per sensor)
  • Idler Pulley – 1 x 13mm
  • Tensioner Pulley – 1 x 13mm
  • Thermostat Housing -2 x 8mm
  • Water Pump Bolts – 4 x 10mm
  • Water Pump Pulley Bolts – 4 x 10mm


Just a little note for the Newbies that haven’t done anything like this before (such as me), if you haven’t taken off a water pump before you can grab a hammer and lightly tap the snout to help loosen it up and you should be able to wrestle it out once you can get it to wiggle a little bit. I folded up a rag a couple of times as not to damage the water pump and gave it a little tappy tap tap like in Happy Gilmore.


I have to give a big thank you to Tad over at Freedom Racing! I went out and bought a 3 jaw puller to remove the crankshaft pulley. Well, I put it together and the bolts weren’t really long enough for the nuts to get a good grab on them so the second I put some pressure on it to remove the pulley, the ****ing thing exploded and I mean exploded. I think I still have an imprint mark on my forehead from one of the projectiles (nuts and bolts and stuff) hitting my head. I think a squirrel that was watching me work got knocked off the rafter of the garage, cursed at me for being cheap and scurried away. Anyway, I sent him a PM Sunday afternoon about getting me a new 3 jaw puller. I got a PM from him shortly after that saying that he would head down to the office and check for me how soon I could get one. Sunday night he PM’d me back and I ordered it and I had it on my doorstep Tuesday Morning. If you need any Ford Specific Tools I would HIGHLY recommend giving him a shout. This isn’t my first dealing with Tad and every time I have spoken with him or bought something from him you would get excellent service. Automotive Specialty Tools


Anyway, if you have never used a 3 jaw puller on a crankshaft pulley before it is pretty straight forward. There are 3 jaws that connect to either the 3 inside prongs of the pulley or along the outside of the pulley. I grabbed a 1” reducer and put it into the threaded insert for the crank pulley bolt and started cranking. Once it got to a certain point the crank pulley popped right off. It’s nice when you have the right tools to do the job for once haha. Anyway, it looked a little something like this.


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ford20

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At this point it was time to start breaking into the engine and seeing what is going on in there. So I started removing the front cover. I took the RTV off by hand and grabbed the front cover at the top and pulled it off. Off comes the front cover and I started working on removing the timing chains.


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I started with the LH side. First you rotate the crank until the keyway is at the 12 o’clock position and all 4 data matrix’s on the cams are facing up. From there you can remove the tensioner. Remember that the tensioner is still under pressure so unless you are holding it up or propping it up somehow it will probably fly off somewhere. When I removed the tensioner I found little bits of metal on the plunger (I guess that is what you would call it) as well as the timing chain guides.


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Keyway at the 12 O’clock position
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Data Matrix on the top of the camshafts. All 4 have to be facing up. If they all aren’t facing up turn the crankshaft until the keyway is at the 12 o’clock position and all 4 are facing up.
From there you can remove the tensioner arms. You might have to rotate the crankshaft to release a little bit more tension in the chain so you can remove the timing chain guides. After that remove the 6 screws holding the phasers on and you can slide the phasers forward 2 inches. Make sure you depress the secondary tensioner and rotate it 90 degrees this way you can remove the phasers.


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After that you can remove the secondary chain. That being said, I completely forgot to look for the timing mark on the LH side so I have no idea where it was which is bugging me. Anyway, when I looked at the timing chain on the RH side I noticed that it looks like the marks don’t line up. From best I can tell the dark link is supposed to be lined up with the indentation on the phaser. Can someone confirm if this is true or not?


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The procedure is basically the same for removing the RH timing chains except this time you turn the keyway to the 9 o’clock position. After the primary and secondary timing chains are removed, I slid off the crank sprocket followed by the oil pump. Then I went back up top and started removing the cams. The workshop manual is very clear about this since they say it a couple of times and have it written in bold. You have to remove the front camshaft bearing mega cap first or else you could damage the engine. Considering how good I am at damaging the engine just by starting and driving it I figured if I didn’t do this first I would end up cracking it in half somehow so what the hell. After that I slowly started loosening the bolts for the rest of the cam caps following the torqueing sequence this way I could remove whatever spring pressure was on the cams evenly. After removing the front mega cap I found some pretty bad scoring on the cam journals and once again I found some pretty big metal flakes on the camshafts. After removing all the cam caps I was able to pull the cams out and found scoring on almost all 32 journals. They are deep enough where you can feel them through the glove and your fingernail catches on them. I’m not certain how bad that is but that will be addressed later after talking to some people about the build plans. Anyway, onto more pictures.


Some pictures of the metal pieces on the cams:


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That being said when I cleaned off the cams and I saw this on all 4 cams. I am assuming that these marks are normal since they all have it but I just want to make sure that is the case. I also left the filters for the cams in there.


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After that I removed the crankshaft position sensor and the cylinder head temperature sensor. I cleaned up the heads a little bit and took the picture-o-shinyness


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Well you are all caught up at this point. This weekend I would like to finally remove the oil cooler and open up the oil pump and see if anything is cracked in there or not. I just have to find a 13-16mm Allen Key so I can try and take off the oil cooler and I will be in business again and hopefully tear the engine down a lot more.


  • Cam Cap Bolts – 20 each side (40 total) x 10mm
  • Cylinder Head Temperature Sensor – 1 x ¾”
  • Front Cover – 8 x 10mm / 7 x 13mm
  • Oil Pump – 2 x 8mm / 1 x 9mm / 1 x 13mm
  • Phasers – 3 per phaser (12 total) x 10mm
  • Timing chain Guides – 1 each side (2 total) x 10mm
  • Timing Chain Tensioners – 2 each side(4 total) x 10mm
 

ford20

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Interesting read! Just curious. What oil had you been using?

My first oil change I stuck with the Motorcraft 5W-50 but I switched it over to Quaker State Full Synthetic 5W-50 that still kept the Ford approval specifications.
 

awestmo

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Kudos for the detailed write-up. But, I gotta ask...Are you out of warranty, or did you just feel like tearing into your long block?
 

ford20

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Kudos for the detailed write-up. But, I gotta ask...Are you out of warranty, or did you just feel like tearing into your long block?

A little bit of both. When I bought the car the dealer said that there was no warranty left on the car plus it had a tune on it. So instead of going through the hassle of trying to get it warrantied I figured that since I was going to dig into the motor eventually now oul be an oppertune time to do so while learning about the motor and the car.
 

gimmie11s

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so we still don't know where the damage is?

suspense is absolutely killing me!
 

Dizzyscure1

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darreng505

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It's a beauty car. I admire the effort to dig into it. I wish I was that mechanically capable. Keep the journal going! Pics!
 

ford20

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Today was a productive day all things considering. First I started off with removing the heads. It was a fairly simple process, nothing really all that major to report there. Upon first inspection I didn’t see any signs of a head gasket leak, nor did I see anything that would indicate detonation. Just a whole lot of carbon buildup for 18,000 miles, well at least in my opinion.

Here is the LH side Heads along with a close up of the piston heads.

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Here is the RH side heads along with a close up of each pistons.

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After I pulled the heads off it was time to go ahead and take out the pistons. I turned the engine upside down and started getting to work on the pistons. Upon removing the 1st piston the bearings sort of stayed on the crankshaft. By the end of it 5 out of 8 pistons had the bearings stay on the crankshaft while the others came out with the pistons caps. Now, I am not 100% certain if that is indicative of spun bearing but I figured I would at least mention it in case that would be a sign of a spun bearing. All of the piston caps had some scoring marks on them with what looks like a hot spot while some of the piston bearings had some marks on them. Anyway, onto the pictures. There are a lot of them so my apologies in advanced.

#1
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#2

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#3

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#4

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The bearings on number 4 looked like it had the little tabs worn down a little bit and the stamped part numbers on the bearings seemed to be a little bit worn down.

#5

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#6

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You can sort of see it in the picture but it looks like some of the metal found in the engine came from #6 due to the fresh scoring on the lower part of it

#7

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The bearings on #7 were completely destroyed! It was out of round, the edges were ground down to an point basically. The little tabs were worn down to almost nothing and the stamped markings on the back were completely worn away. It is sort of hard to see in the last picture but you can almost see where those tabs are on the bearing and they are almost completely gone.

#8

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Outside of that I looked at the cylinder bores and they looked like they were in fairly good condition. Just some light marks on 2 of the bores along with one bore that had vertical marks along with some sort of cross hashing marks.

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After that I went to go and take out the Main caps out and the first one came out super easy. The 2nd and 3rd ones I pulled out with my hands. If someone has an easier way of taking them out please let me know. It takes only 3 minutes to pull them out but still there has to be some better way. In my infinite wisdom I bolted up the block to the engine stand without removing the rear main seal and crankshaft rear seal plate thingie. I believe I have to remove the rear main seal in order to take that off but if someone knows otherwise I am all ears. I couldn’t finish taking off the last main cap because the 2 15mm bolts in the center are being impeded by the plate so I put the other 4 back on so that I didn’t lose anything.

  • Boss 302 Head Bolts – 10 (20 each side) x 15mm
  • Boss 302 Oil Cooler – 3 x 10mm / 1 fitting 14mm or 9/16
  • Piston Rod Bolts – 16 x 12mm
  • Main Caps – 20 x 13mm / 10 x 15mm
 

ZWilson07

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Dang. You sure as shit wasn't lying about carbon build up!

Not quite sure what would be causing that already if the car wasn't tuned but looking forward to the build. Thanks for taking the time to include so many pictures and detailed info so we can follow along.
 

ford20

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Dang. You sure as shit wasn't lying about carbon build up!

Not quite sure what would be causing that already if the car wasn't tuned but looking forward to the build. Thanks for taking the time to include so many pictures and detailed info so we can follow along.

My car had a Hypermotive tune on it so maybe that is why. But also, I had very short trips with the car like maybe 3 minutes to work and 3 minutes back so maybe I wasn't able to burn off all of the carbon deposits?

Well Toothless wasn't stock, Who did the motor? How many miles since the build?

Ford did haha. It was completely stock save for a tune, LCA's , Kooks side pipes & an able back. It was approaching 18 or 19k miles when it decided to chew it's self up.
 

ZWilson07

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My car had a Hypermotive tune on it so maybe that is why. But also, I had very short trips with the car like maybe 3 minutes to work and 3 minutes back so maybe I wasn't able to burn off all of the carbon deposits?



Ford did haha. It was completely stock save for a tune, LCA's , Kooks side pipes & an able back. It was approaching 18 or 19k miles when it decided to chew it's self up.


Well I wouldn't say that short of a trip is necessarily the best thing for vehicles but it shouldn't have caused that kind of deposit buildup so quickly. Seems tune related especially being on all the cylinders but who knows.
 

Dizzyscure1

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Dang so this cars seen a lot of track use huh? Only guess is oil starvation while running on a track :??: Ohhh and when you get Toothless buttoned back up maybe try another tuner atleast that's what i would do.
 

Tyler72

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Ohhh and when you get Toothless buttoned back up maybe try another tuner atleast that's what i would do.

Are you freaking serious? This is the number one problem with car forums. You have a brake light go out and first thing people do is blame it on the tune. I'm telling you right now, tune didn't cause that. It spun a bearing, it didn't bend a rod or bust a piston. That is oil starvation or a defective part. Could have been a bad bearing with a weak or under formed lock tab, or a rod that was machined wrong, or a crank that was machined wrong, etc. Lots of things can cause it, but that is not tune related.

And no, I didn't tune it, I Dont know who tuned it, and I Dont even care who tuned it. But I've built way too many engines and have seen way too much broken stuff to even let a tune issue cross my mind.
 

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