Are these eBay parts legit?

ATPJOE

ATPJOE

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Planning on doing my secondary tensioners (preventative maint.), VCG's and new coils and plugs this weekend. CEL came on for a bad coil and rather than replacing a coil every time that happens I'm going to just take care of the problem,and also do those tensioners while I have it opened up. Do I need new chains since I haven't ran into that tensioner problem yet?

I'm looking at these parts from ebay and was wondering if they look like good deals or if they are crap parts and will bite me in the ass.

Tensioners

Coils

I have heard of that Chris's Foreign Car Parts but the coils look way too cheap? Planning on getting the Fel-Pro VCG's from ebay as well but I figure that is what it is. Thanks for any help guys, I look forward to have my LS not sound like a diesel!


P.S. My hydraulic fan nonsense is leaking from right below the reservoir. Is it on the way out? Time to invest in an e-fan?
 
The tensioners look ok but the coils....I'm not so sure. Good price but I'm not sure about the quality. I'd go with Visteon coils before I bought coils for less than $10 each. I believe this is one of those 'you get what you pay for items'. But hey...I've been wrong once before
 
And the hydraulic fan issue...I'd go electric before you sink a bunch of money into that over-engineered hydraulic hunk of junk
 
That's what I was thinking with the coils. Way too cheap, and they're from Hong Kong so the "Lifetime Warranty" would be a nightmare I bet. I will probably have to do this project in 2 stages for now due to tight finances. Stage 1: Tensioners/VCG's Stage 2: Coils/Plugs. It'd be nice to do it all at once though. I need to plan ahead for my trans as well, do the solenoid before I have issues pop up with that. Almost to 90k so the clock is ticking.
 
I wouldnt buy the coils if they were made in Hong Kong. I wonder where my Accel coils were made....
 
I'd avoid those coils and try these:

Visteon Coils - 60-1008

Many are running these now without any issues to date from what I've read. They state to be made in Hungary as opposed to China and are Visteon, a Ford supplier. Only issue is that I don't believe these are not equivalent to the updated COPS, but the older obsolete ones.

The tensioners look to be the same ones you're replacing, plastic. I would be replacing with the updated metal tensioners to avoid having to do it again sooner rather than later. (that's a tricky sentence).
 
I say do not buy these coils from this seller i bought a set, and seven of them were duds. Contacted seller couple of times then just gave up.
 
jmtiseo said:
I'd avoid those coils and try these:

Visteon Coils - 60-1008

Many are running these now without any issues to date from what I've read. They state to be made in Hungary as opposed to China and are Visteon, a Ford supplier. Only issue is that I don't believe these are not equivalent to the updated COPS, but the older obsolete ones.

The tensioners look to be the same ones you're replacing, plastic. I would be replacing with the updated metal tensioners to avoid having to do it again sooner rather than later. (that's a tricky sentence).
Click to expand...

Those tensioners are the all metal ones. They are the 4th generation, best version to date.

The visteon coils seem to be good by all the reviews here. I just put a set in G-RELLs LS this weekend and they seemed to be ok.
 
+1 on the Visteon coils.

I've had them for I think 10k miles and they are working just fine.
 
hite337 said:
Those tensioners are the all metal ones. They are the 4th generation, best version to date.
Click to expand...

That's what I get for flapping my gums without reading the eBay ad. I was under the impression that the "slides" would be metal too. :rolleyes:
 
jmtiseo said:
That's what I get for flapping my gums without reading the eBay ad. I was under the impression that the "slides" would be metal too. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing before I did my research on them and it makes sense because you wouldn't want a metal chain riding on a metal guide.
 
I have my car since 2008 and i have bought/changed ebay cheap coils twice, i wouldnt buy anything else now. I dont know about the performance, but they've worked pretty decent to me, so yeah ho ahead and buy them. i totally recommend ebay coils, i have bought from global automotive and from abcmart.
 
Without further investigation behind the company I would stick with OEM. I would not have piece of mind installing those on my car.

*Edit - or a reputable a/m supplier such as Moog.
 
Will tell you about the coils soon. I have them to install on a 02 ls v8
 
I installed the Mevotech knuckle and ball joint on both sides a few months ago. All seems well. Each side is now $75.79 on Rockauto.
 
Hernandez said:
I have my car since 2008 and i have bought/changed ebay cheap coils twice, i wouldnt buy anything else now. I dont know about the performance, but they've worked pretty decent to me, so yeah ho ahead and buy them. i totally recommend ebay coils, i have bought from global automotive and from abcmart.
Click to expand...
I have an 02 that I'm only doing my second set of coils on in 10 year. Visteon is #1 in my book. Two times in 4 years shows that what you are buying is junk. These cars are finicky enough as is. Throwing on a cheap set of coils is only going to pi.ss it off!!! I swear these cars have feelings, and if you hurt them, they will hurt your wallet.
 
+1 on Chris's Foreign Parts.

On the hydraulic leak, pinpoint where it's coming from. If it's really at the reservoir, then it's either a leaking hose or a cracked reservoir. Both very cheap and easy fixes.
 
oddball said:
+1 on Chris's Foreign Parts.

On the hydraulic leak, pinpoint where it's coming from. If it's really at the reservoir, then it's either a leaking hose or a cracked reservoir. Both very cheap and easy fixes.
Click to expand...

I crawled under the car to investigate that leak. It appears the pump is leaking Mercon v and perhaps antifreeze? Is there antifreeze going into there?

I am hoping to find out if I can pull an electric fan from something at a yard that would fit with minor modification. I cannot afford to do the e fan conversion for 300+ right now..

Also my coils ended up being fine, the CEL was for an upstream O2 sensor on the side i had a bad coil on a long time ago. That's on it's way in the mail. I'm worried my cat on that side may be bad, but it can't be fully plugged because it doesn't show any performance flaws.

As usually with this car, fix one thing, and another issue sprouts up lol.
 
ATPJOE said:
I am hoping to find out if I can pull an electric fan from something at a yard that would fit with minor modification. I cannot afford to do the e fan conversion for 300+ right now..
Click to expand...

Over in the V8 S10 world (one of my other interests) they use Dodge Intrepid fans or Ford Taurus fans on the S10s, and they do a good job cooling upwards to 500HP, 400cid engines in Florida and in the Southwest. The engine bays on S10s with a V8 are as tight as the LS bay too. These fans are 25-50 bucks at the salvage yards. You want the 3.8L Taurus, preferably the SHO. Not sure on the Intrepid fans.

If you use the Ford fan, they are wired in a way that can burn the fan if wired wrong. They are two speed fans, but can't have power applied to both poles at the same time. This thread from the S10 board shows how to make a controller for this fan with a few relays.

Incidentally, Rock Auto wants 255 for a new Dorman fan and 330 for a new Motorcraft fan, for the 2nd gen LS.
 
^^ Thanks a bunch for that tip. I'll look into it. I'd like to wire it so it's running all the time and not on a temp controller or whatever. Now I get to look forward to ridding of the fan pump and figuring out how to mount the E-fan -____- . Any input on the antifreeze leaking from the pump, or real close to it? Just want to know if that's another problem altogether.

I'll be doing my sway bushings when I rip all this junk out since I'll have more room and have the cooling system drained.


Edit: Does it matter what year Taurus? Local Pick N Pull has 93-03 doesn't specify engines though.
 
You can get GenII electric fans from the yard for ~$50-$100. They pop up on ebay from time to time. There are several threads about doing electric fan conversions. If you go with the Gen2, I strongly recommend taking a deep read of my writeup. That is a complicated method.
Just pick your approach and go with it. Practically any fan will "work", for a given value of "work".
 
Oh, and the hydraulic fan uses Mercon III or Mercon V (depending on whether or not someone followed all the service updates)

Not sure about antifreeze around there. Could be the outlet/thermo housing, the crossover pipe, the water pump, the upper rad hose.... There's lots of coolant parts just above and forward of the hydraulic pump. Clean it all up then start investigating.
 
EDIT: Ripped the fan reservoir out, the fluid inside was a combination of my the Mercon V I've been feeding it lately, and a tint of green so I'm assuming coolant... I would imagine coolant should deff not be in that system being hydraulic and all..... maybe the last owner was clueless and put coolant in there? Sweet. Also the reservoir appears to have been coated with a black textured paint or sealer or something....so I'm assuming it's cracked and someone tried to seal it or cover it up.


I want to convert to the Taurus E-fan, but am not in any sort of mood to rip out the old pump right now. Is there a way I can leave it in there temporarily without problems? This is all off-topic so perhaps PM me dudes who have been helping with this issue.

Thanks.
 
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