Shermanator31660
Petty Officer 3rd Class
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 88
I've read a ton, make that 2 tons, of threads on the a/m subject, to the point of where not only I but other F150 owners acquired OCD over the blowing up of engines and whine of bad balance assembly's! I made the decision to just replace mine, swearing on a stack of bibles to my wife that it was necessary, even though my VIN number came back negative as having any sort of problems. My motor is in fact one of the first of the F150's that was manufactured, being built in early 2003. Its preformed flawlessly throughout its 520 hours of operation in fresh and salt water, from -15 to +100 temps and everything in-between, but the balance assembly fiasco finally got to me.
Living in Canada means we take it up the wazzzooo every time we want to buy something so, I did a online search for the balance assembly in the States. Different prices all over the US but still nearly $300 cheaper than in Canada, and I finally found it for $300 US in Florida which included shipping all the way to Washington State! Also found on line was a very easy instruction method, not like when they used to take the timing gear off and everything else associated with it. Shop's wanted anywhere from 2 to 4 hours of labor to do the job, I did it myself in 1.5 hours, not including beer breaks of course! In all honesty, I was hoping that when I pulled the assembly off the motor that it would have been hooped (Canadian slang for $^%ck*& up!!) but, it wasn't! Damned if the entire assembly didn't look like it just came off the factory floor, no teeth missing on the gears, no evidence of fiber from the gears anywhere! Did I waste my money????
Nope, putting the assembly on the bench I compared it to the new improved one, pretty much similar other than the new one does not have the huge balance weights the old one did and the new one has a improved oil tower for lubing the gears. What I did find was that the starboard side gear assembly was stuck, or sticking. If you rotated the new assembly the danged thing would just keep spinning around. Mine, would stop, and if you turned it very slowly it was actually an effort to get it to spin.
I disassembled the assembly (does that sound right??) and checked out the bearing races, they all appeared to be in great shape, albeit the top two races showed signs of wear at the very top and on the edge. As well, when I put just the starboard gear back into the assembly, it was still sticking for some reason, like it was not straight. When I put the port side gear back in it made it even tougher to spin the entire assembly, which would make me believe that the teeth were also not then running true for alignment. Long story short, IMHO, the cost and effort into upgrading to a better part was the best thing I could do for this motor, because there was no doubt that something was going to happen. It wasn't a matter of "if", but a matter of "when". I've attached a few pics of the assembly, for what its worth, in the event others may wish to do the same upgrade to their motors. I will also have an article on this subject on my website at www.reelfishingadventures.net Sherm
Living in Canada means we take it up the wazzzooo every time we want to buy something so, I did a online search for the balance assembly in the States. Different prices all over the US but still nearly $300 cheaper than in Canada, and I finally found it for $300 US in Florida which included shipping all the way to Washington State! Also found on line was a very easy instruction method, not like when they used to take the timing gear off and everything else associated with it. Shop's wanted anywhere from 2 to 4 hours of labor to do the job, I did it myself in 1.5 hours, not including beer breaks of course! In all honesty, I was hoping that when I pulled the assembly off the motor that it would have been hooped (Canadian slang for $^%ck*& up!!) but, it wasn't! Damned if the entire assembly didn't look like it just came off the factory floor, no teeth missing on the gears, no evidence of fiber from the gears anywhere! Did I waste my money????
Nope, putting the assembly on the bench I compared it to the new improved one, pretty much similar other than the new one does not have the huge balance weights the old one did and the new one has a improved oil tower for lubing the gears. What I did find was that the starboard side gear assembly was stuck, or sticking. If you rotated the new assembly the danged thing would just keep spinning around. Mine, would stop, and if you turned it very slowly it was actually an effort to get it to spin.
I disassembled the assembly (does that sound right??) and checked out the bearing races, they all appeared to be in great shape, albeit the top two races showed signs of wear at the very top and on the edge. As well, when I put just the starboard gear back into the assembly, it was still sticking for some reason, like it was not straight. When I put the port side gear back in it made it even tougher to spin the entire assembly, which would make me believe that the teeth were also not then running true for alignment. Long story short, IMHO, the cost and effort into upgrading to a better part was the best thing I could do for this motor, because there was no doubt that something was going to happen. It wasn't a matter of "if", but a matter of "when". I've attached a few pics of the assembly, for what its worth, in the event others may wish to do the same upgrade to their motors. I will also have an article on this subject on my website at www.reelfishingadventures.net Sherm
Attachments
Last edited:
