Hi, my son's truck is a 2008 XLT with the infamous 5.4 3v. It has phaser rattle at startup but after.thst it is smooth and runs fine. Recently it ran very bad when my son was driving into school. 3 different cylinder misfire codes along with p0012 I believe. (Happened a couple weeks ago and I didn't save the codes) We towed it to a mechanic and he said he ran a oil pressure test and it tested at 22 psi so the motor is bad. He didn't do anything else and emailed me a quote for 12k. My son and I were disappointed since this is his first vehicle. We decided.to drive.it home because we weren't going to spend 12 on a truck we spent half that to buy. It ran good on the way home. I cleared the codes and nothing has come back. We drove it a couple of hundred miles and yesterday I changed the oil and took the filter apart. Ill post picks of the worst of it. My question is do you guys think its too much and the motor is toast? If not we want to do all new timing, phasers, guides and new oil pump.
Thanks in advance.

 

Hi. So that looks like aluminum flakes and its more than likely coming from the chain grinding on the timing cover. The chain tensioners are oil pressure operated so low oil pressure causes slack especially on start up. It'll sound kinda like a diesel until the pressure builds. ALWAYS use a motorcraft oil filter! There's a special ceramic seal inside that helps prevent dry start ups. Now if It was my truck I'd pull the spark plugs and check the cylinder compression before spending money. If compression is about the same on all cylinders you're ok. Minimum psi at 130. You can pull the oil fill neck off the bank 1 valve cover and stick a camera in there the kinda inspect the valve train. Also dropping the oil pan and looking at the cylinders isn't a bad idea. Make sure to turn the crank clockwise only! The engine isn't toast just because of low oil pressure. If the things mentioned are ok a timing job is all it needs. Make sure to upgrade to a high volume oil pump. I have a melling 340 hv pump and it works great. Make sure the roller followers are upgraded to the newer version. There's a smaller oil port and its on a different angle. Always use ford oem parts for everything. Chains, guides, tensioners, cam phasers and vct solenoid. I wouldn't except a low oil pressure requiring a brand new engine.