Lincoln LS headache

DeutschCreme

DeutschCreme

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I honestly don't even know where to begin. Three years ago, my mother, in her infinite wisdom, bought an 01 LS from a shady Hispanic gent with 150ish thousand on the odometer. 3.9 liter, as you can expect. Problems came to bare it's teeth immediately. O2 sensors went bad, replaced them, car overheated and spat out antifreeze. Fixed that, (and I should add, and you all are gonna cringe, she ran 87 octane every single time. Not once 91 or up.) and kept on driving. Next the car overheated two more times, managing to somehow keep the block from cracking. Then the all too infamous timing chain tensioners failing. Now, instead of being smart, she kept driving it. I'm talking, "Hey, let's get on the highway and floor it," driving. She parked it nine months ago, and said it's mine if I piece it together. I tore the front of the engine apart, replaced both tensioners on both sides, as well as replacing all four timing chains. I know I'm running the risk of a trashed engine, but hey. I have access to the cams right now, I'll update with pictures later to help you get a better grasp of my situation.

I'm getting conflicting answers on where the cam timing marks need to be, and whether they have to match on the left and right side. I've educated myself well on the car, and this is where I'm stumped.

The closest I've come to for answers is the 4.0 Jag V8, and I am NOT trusting that as a source. I'd be insane to. Any help would be appreciated, and I'll work along as best as I can.

Oh, and side note. I have no idea yet if anything is hurt yet other than the engine, it's still got a bit under a half tank of unleaded in it. If I can time it right and fire it, I'll burn that crap out and promptly fill 93 in her.

Needless to say, this poor LS has been abused.
 
Congrats on becoming an LS owner!

People who know a lot more than I do will surely follow, however it might not be as insane as you think getting answers from the Jag world.
 
Many thanks on the welcome! I love the car, they get a bad rap, but I could care less!
Possibly, but I've got my fingers crossed right now that the valves or piston aren't trashed, I'd be floored if something as miniscule as following a Jaguar diagram would trash the engine. I still need to grab a couple pics, I'll get to that when I get free time. All I can say is this is a major case of the cringes!
 
There is a tool to hold the flats of the cams in the correct position, and another tool to hold the crank in the correct position. The flats on both sides (all four cams) have to be correct, as well as the crank, all at the same time.

This thread may help: Timing Chain Teardown Time

You could also try searching this site...
 
If you get to the point where you find the engine is thrashed, if the rest of the car is nice you can get a put a May 2001 or 2002 built used engine that has the updated chains and oil pump and swap that in and your car will run for a long time.

For others that are browsing, this is probably the go to answer for gen 1 cars now instead of dealing with timing chains. I learned this the hard/expensive way.

P.S

While you have it apart, like joe says, refresh all cooling parts, and you can look at the gen 1 guides here to see we can get some aluminum jag parts.
 
I've been digging, I have an O'Reilly's that has the tools to lock the cams and crank, so that's a start. I'm almost tempted to rip the cams out and just see if my efforts are worth it or not

20180705_155601.jpg
 
I'm confident on lining the timing up, this is my first rodeo with the 3.9, so this engine is really the experiment as I am guessing it's probably logically out of reach of practical repair. We'll see.
 
embe said:
lol, could definitely use some lubrication
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think that just seeing how dry all that is would be enough for me to give up on that engine. It had a very rough life, maybe it's time to let it Rest In Peace.
 
She's been through this much, if the cams prove to be bad, I've got access to another four. The cams condition don't scare me, what scares me is if I have to dig down past the cams.
 
DeutschCreme said:
And yeah, she's rough. I'm going to heavily live them to give em a fighting chance.
Click to expand...

I just finished rebuilding the 3.9L in a 2001 Lincoln LS that I bought from an outfit in Anaheim, CA, that collects vehicles donated to charities and wholesales them on eBay. I bought the car for a princely $283 with 88K on the odometer because a) the interior was in wonderful condition and b) ditto for the black paint. I have several other cars, have my own shop and did the rebuild over the better part of a year. If you don't have access to a shop and don't like the idea of doing this much work, you may want to take a pass. The car has a very poor re-sale value, and the parts - especially if you need pistons, rings, connecting rod and crankshaft bearings, etc., will be a challenge to find. You can get most of this stuff from an outfit like Terry's Jaguar since the Lincoln LS 3.9 is virtually identical to the engine Jaguar used in the S-Type when owned by Ford.

Taking out the camshafts and removing the heads will tell you more about the condition of your engine this is true - but if you have bottom-end problems as I did (two "spun" crankshaft bearings that scored and destroyed the original crankshaft) you really won't see that until you take the engine out completely. There is nothing worse than fixing the top end of an engine later to find out (after it's all back together again) that your BIG problem was the crankshaft or a connecting rod.

If you have plenty of time and like a challenge, I would say go for it! My 2001 LS is back together again and running like a champ. It's really a very nice car once running the way Ford/Jaguar intended.

Phil in San Diego
 
So, I can tell by that big nob paperweight on the front of you cams that you have a pre may 2001 engine. Getting back to my 2 cents, you are definitely in the boat of it is less work to pull and put in a 2002 engine than to do the chains right on that engine. You see, the issue is the oil pump at the bottom wasn't designed to really lube the chain system. They ended up putting 2 nozzles on the pump to squirt oil directly on the chains.

That's why the issues and the extensive change. Assuming loving care and tenderness, the chains would make it some time and not break. Mine had a minor rattle but my mechanic didn't like how worn the sprocket teeth were with only 100k miles so we redid the whole thing. I got the car second hand from an 80+ old couple WITH all routine receipts for maintenance - so it had optimal love.

As you have said, no love for this one so it might be wise to go the pull and replace route. BTW those to big nobbers go away in the later versions. Just gone in the 2002, and some different mechanism with the VVT in gen 2.
 
Gearheadloco said:
I just finished rebuilding the 3.9L in a 2001 Lincoln LS that I bought from an outfit in Anaheim, CA, that collects vehicles donated to charities and wholesales them on eBay. I bought the car for a princely $283 with 88K on the odometer because a) the interior was in wonderful condition and b) ditto for the black paint. I have several other cars, have my own shop and did the rebuild over the better part of a year. If you don't have access to a shop and don't like the idea of doing this much work, you may want to take a pass. The car has a very poor re-sale value, and the parts - especially if you need pistons, rings, connecting rod and crankshaft bearings, etc., will be a challenge to find. You can get most of this stuff from an outfit like Terry's Jaguar since the Lincoln LS 3.9 is virtually identical to the engine Jaguar used in the S-Type when owned by Ford.

Taking out the camshafts and removing the heads will tell you more about the condition of your engine this is true - but if you have bottom-end problems as I did (two "spun" crankshaft bearings that scored and destroyed the original crankshaft) you really won't see that until you take the engine out completely. There is nothing worse than fixing the top end of an engine later to find out (after it's all back together again) that your BIG problem was the crankshaft or a connecting rod.

If you have plenty of time and like a challenge, I would say go for it! My 2001 LS is back together again and running like a champ. It's really a very nice car once running the way Ford/Jaguar intended.

Phil in San Diego
Click to expand...
Hey so I agree they are hard to find. I also heard about that website. I called them and they did not say those bearings would work for the LS. They did pull a description for the LS bearing and I was told they they have a “big end, green bearing yellow bearing” etc very confusing. So I would like to know the part numbers for the bearings u say you used off of the jaguar 4.0
 
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