Ford 7.3L Godzilla cam issue; Tell me what you think

[OVERKILL]

You are not putting 40,000 hour's on a gasoline engine. Heavy equipment doesn't even get that.
Even if a unit was running for 20 hours a day 7 days a week, that's 7300 hours a year.
Divide 40,000 by 7300 and you get 5.47 years.
All of the police officers I'm friends with tell me the patrol cars get around 50,000 miles a year, so by your own numbers, that's 3 years and then it's getting replaced.
So, let's still assume the worse case and say 7300 engine hours a year, multiply that by 3, and we get...21,900 engine hours.
Which is not going to happen on a gasoline engine.
So, using your own logic, I know you're making stuff up.
But carry on, I'm having fun with this.
Oh, and just a FYI, the end of life for one of my units is the scrap yard, we don't sell them. We run them into the ground, sell for scrap value and they get turned into soup can's and police car parts.

A few good ones here:


Check the comments too. A few with 15,000 idle hours, one with 18,000.

I've personally seen a Town Car with 1.2 million km on it, original drivetrain, was an airport limo.

The 4.6L 2V was one hell of a long lasting engine.

 

[The motor guy]

The higher levels of ZDDP in the 15W40 would provide better protection than garden variety 5W30. Our issues with Ford are pretty legendary over the 25 years I’ve been there, box trucks with 3 blown E4ODs over 140K or so, 6.0 liter PSD E-350s needing the body removed to replace head gaskets, 3 VV turbo failures on one van… I don’t know how they’ve paid for it all!

Navistar did

 

[The motor guy]

I have one 6.2 that runs great when it starts, problem is getting it started, it floods all the time. No one can figure out why.
So far the 7.3 has been great, pulls great, MPG is right where it should be, only problems so far have been plugs and wires and this one cam.
The 6.8 V10 is a huge POS, I do not know about the new 6.8 yet.

You mean the one they've had for years? The 6.8 v10?

 

[J Dubbs]

A few good ones here:


Check the comments too. A few with 15,000 idle hours, one with 18,000.

I've personally seen a Town Car with 1.2 million km on it, original drivetrain, was an airport limo.

The 4.6L 2V was one hell of a long lasting engine.

Yes they were... the best V8 ever made imo. In the later years a great combo of power, sound, and reliability

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Yes they were... the best V8 ever made imo. In the later years a great combo of power, sound, and reliability

I think I read somewhere that one of the principal engineers/designer of the flathead v8 was pulled in as a consultant.

Admittedly Low power density that looked like two stodgy 2.3 Lima 4 bangers tied at the hip - bridged by a polymer intake.
he engine employed a Lots of advanced thinking that actually worked - like the assembling of individual sintered PM metal lobes onto a hollow shaft to make that SOHC cam. - Ken

 

[Spike555]

Uhhhhh ... Nope. Components fail for a variety of reasons.
In the situation you describe, the coolant does not lubricate the bearings in a water pump. The bearing is behind a seal that keeps the pressurized coolant contained in the coolant passages. The bearing for the pump shaft is on the "dry" side of the coolant seal. The bearing is also typically a "sealed" unit that has the lubricant internal to the bearing and it has two seals (one on each side of the bearing) to keep it's lubricant intact. Sometimes the bearing is "open" if it's in a bathed-oil environment. But my point is that the coolant changes have NOTHING TO DO WHATSOEVER with the life of the pump bearing. Coolant may affect the impeller life, but it does NOT affect the bearing life. Regardless of how the pump bearing gets its lube, it should NEVER be subjected to the coolant directly; that's not how they are designed.



Are you stating that Ford is denying coverage during warranty? 2k miles and 30k miles should be under warranty. I suspect they ARE doing something about it. They are replacing parts under warranty, are they not; is that not doing something about it? Further, they are probably investing the root causes for failures, but since you don't work at Ford in the engine engineering area, you're probably not aware of that. They are probably also working with vendors to determine effective resolutions. These things take time.

You seem upset that the cams aren't covered into perpetuity; what you seem to want is to have a limitless warranty - one that goes to infinity. No OEM is going to do that.

Water pump's have changed over the years with sealed bearings, I was not aware of that.

Yes Ford is covering the cams that are under warranty.
Again, I am not asking for unlimited warranty on the cam's, I realize you are having a hard time comprehending this.

 

[Spike555]

She's back and running like nothing even happened.
This is the last I'm saying about this one, looks like the cam on another is going south.

 

[JWC86]

You mean the one they've had for years? The 6.8 v10?

I would think he’s referring to Fords new 6.8 since he said “new”. It just came out a year or two ago? It’s based off the 7.3L in discussion.

 

[kschachn]

Uhhhhh ... Nope. Components fail for a variety of reasons.
In the situation you describe, the coolant does not lubricate the bearings in a water pump. The bearing is behind a seal that keeps the pressurized coolant contained in the coolant passages. The bearing for the pump shaft is on the "dry" side of the coolant seal. The bearing is also typically a "sealed" unit that has the lubricant internal to the bearing and it has two seals (one on each side of the bearing) to keep its lubricant intact. Sometimes the bearing is "open" if it's in a bathed-oil environment. But my point is that the coolant changes have NOTHING TO DO WHATSOEVER with the life of the pump bearing. Coolant may affect the impeller life, but it does NOT affect the bearing life. Regardless of how the pump bearing gets its lube, it should NEVER be subjected to the coolant directly; that's not how they are designed.

Good analysis.

 

[kschachn]

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