Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Zetec Maintenance Zetec Timing Chain Rattling

Mine just started making a noise, and then only when the engine is cold. Stopped driving it in December with 151,000 original owner miles. My 13 year old son wants it. Think I'll cancel the insurance for a couple of years.

I had the same thing and spent $120 to get a new cover, which supposedly was "improved". If I knew more, I would have not bothered to fix it.

well I just looked up the details and I would recommend having a shop do this. It appears that you have to remove the engine mounts and there are some special tools required. Can someone else chime in on this. I havent performed this but am contemplating it and judging by the details I found on the service cd it doesn't look good.

I don't know what special tool is needed, but for my motor mount it was a socket, 5/8 I believe. If you don't remove the mount, it may break the cover (on post-98 like mine did )

Changing the timing belt is not too hard. You just have to take your time and know what you're doing. And sometimes be inventive with ways to make things work without having proper tools.

Hey I had a sound comming from my timing belt. Pulled the cover and found that the belt was ridding on the edge, chewing it up. Ford found the tensionor pulley was comming apart. Good thing it was still under warranty at the time. But something to look into. At the tome it had about 33,000 miles on it. Here is a pic.

I have the same problem. I was told it was goimg to cost $600 to fix because they have to pull the engine. The only time my engine is comeing out is if a 3.0 goes in.

Woa wait a sec......When they did mine they had to change out the tesionor and the engine stayed id the car. They did it in a few hours.