First off, I hate Ford. This vehicle has been nothing but problems and has been in the shop multiple times, sometimes as much as 4 times in a year, mostly for fuel pump issues, 02 sensors going out left and right, constant service engine soon lights, stalling out, oh yeah, and that little recall ford had for the gear shift/column accessories that in some cases caused the entire vehicle to go in flames, which ours just happened to only catch the column on fire, luckly the pos wasn't parked in the garage and went out before the interior caught on fire.

Now that I am finished ranting here is whats going on. 02' Ford Expedition 5.4L 2WD Eddie Baugher (I guess you could say polished turds). My Mom told me it started running rough and acted like it was about to die, so she ran in the store with it running, came out a minute or two later, got back in, made a U-turn and the thing made a bad vibration, died out, didn't re start, towed home. Transmission goes into gears with the key on, fuel pump is working, it will crank and crank, no audible noise anomalies, it was dark outside but I smelled un burned fuel out the exhaust and saw some plumes of black-ish smoke when attempting to start (just cranking)
In the valley underneath the intake there is a puddle of grease and what appears to be fresh oil, we recently changed it. My guess is timing belt.... i know this isn't a heck of alot to go off of, but do you guys have anything in mind? any other things wrong with these vehicles? Do they have timing belts, or chains, and it's not an OHC is it?

a 5.4 is a sohc engine- i don't know if they went to the 3 valve setup by then.

when it cranks over, does it sound like the cylinders have compression, or does it just kind of spin without any real resistance?
those have a chain to run each cam- i've never actually worked on one, but i'd think that there is an inspection cover somewhere that you can take off to see if the cams are turning when you are cranking it over.

sounds like maybe the fuel pressure regulator went bad in it?

how many miles are on it?

...240,000miles (theres your problem, I know)
If it ends up being the timing gears, which apparently it uses even though I was sure the fords used chains (the stangs did) were gonna do cash for klunkers on it.
Funny story though, Mom took the BMW to work called around 5pm guess what? Won't start, battery is dead. Jump in the Camaro after I pick her up in my truck. guess what? NO START. Wasn't getting spark, which is surprising since I had an intermittent no spark at startup with the pertronix distributor back in '06 and it seemed to just cure its self, until now. I can't make this up, 3 cars down in 2 days.

I hate ford too... but they pay my bills.
Those 5.4s used chains and most of those engines with that many miles start having problems with the hydraulic timing chain tensioners. If it is the timing chain then it may affect only one side since they are seperate chains unless when the one flew off it took the other out. That should be a 2 valve 5.4.

Did you notice it clanking like it was trying to pump up the tensioners when it was first started every morning?

If you decide to go into it you will have to take the front cover off by removing the front oil pan bolts and the front bolts out of the valve covers along with the bolts for the timing cover.

The good news is once you get all that off its not to hard to replace the timing chains, its just time consuming. I think a reman on those is around 3k

Hope this helped some, and let me know if you need anything. TJ

I hate ford too... but they pay my bills.
Those 5.4s used chains and most of those engines with that many miles start having problems with the hydraulic timing chain tensioners. If it is the timing chain then it may affect only one side since they are seperate chains unless when the one flew off it took the other out. That should be a 2 valve 5.4.

Did you notice it clanking like it was trying to pump up the tensioners when it was first started every morning?

If you decide to go into it you will have to take the front cover off by removing the front oil pan bolts and the front bolts out of the valve covers along with the bolts for the timing cover.

The good news is once you get all that off its not to hard to replace the timing chains, its just time consuming. I think a reman on those is around 3k

Hope this helped some, and let me know if you need anything. TJ
Actually yes, I did for sure. it sounded exactly like my camaro when the lash needs to be adjusted (tinny pushrod noise) But I just kinda shrugged it off as crank windage or maybe cold piston slap.
I think we're just gonna trash the car, my parents bought another F**D today, I don't like the fact that it's a 4cyl. focus front wheel drive, but it's a nice one, for a ford. Truth be told I'd rather them buy that car than have a V6 camaro which they contemplated, don't know why anyone would buy one of those.