My recent purchase has been well maintained and had regular oil changes.
It starts and runs fine except for a stumbling issue I mentioned in another thread.
There are no strange noises on startup or while running.

There is so much talk about Cam Chain Tensioners that make me concerned.
It has relatively low mileage, but it is still twenty years old.
With all the invoices I got from the previous owner, there is no mention about the Tensioners.
Am I playing with fire in not changing the Tensioners?

 

If you have a 4.0, inspect & see.

 

+1 on removing one of the cam covers and inspecting the secondary tensioners. If the tensioners are the plastic-bodied type, the best thing to do is to replace the primary and secondary timing chains, guides and tensioners. Quite often the primary tensioners crack and bits fall into the sump.

 

Astro bill… kudos to you good for you for taking the hands on approach of just taking off valve cover to see for yourself. If you got that far, I feel like you have it in you to repair everything yourself. Although a daunting task do not get overwhelmed, as parts are readily available and there is massive amounts of info out there to help you. I did this myself last year. Primary and secondary tensioners and guides, chains, and a WHOLE Lot more since I was going in. Point is I took my time to research, planned carefully, ordered everything I “thought” I needed in advance to avoid delays, and in the end I couldn’t be happier. I upgraded water pump, therm, housing, temp sensor, vvt system, timing chains, guides, coolant, plugs, gaskets, fixed a faulty cooling fan motor, belt, tensioner, idler, fixed a bad windshield wiper hose, dropped oil pan, cleaned sanded and repainted, cleaned oil pump pickup screen, oil pressure sensor etc… hell I even took advantage of all the open space at the time and changed my front sway bar bushings which took all of ten minutes due to everything being out of the way. Obviously you don’t need to do all that if you don’t want to, I did for my own reasons. But all said and done any shop or dealer in my area would’ve quoted me probably 10-15k for all that, and I did it all for maybe 1500 bucks and a lot of my time. And now I know I can fire it up whenever I want and just drive, not worrying if my timing chain will break and explode my block and go through my hood at any moment. Peace of mind is priceless

 

Hi
The 4.2's dont have timing chain or tensioner issues, only the 4.0 v8s do, they were revamped on the 4.2 and dont give any problems
if you getting a rattle on start up and its a later car, its usually the variable timing pulleys, they can get blocked to lack of oil changes
Ive known people cure it with using a engine oil flush a few times to get them to clear, new pulleys are really expensive
cheers
Joe

 

Unfortunately, I have seen secondary chain tensioners fail on the AJ33/AJ34 as late as MY2007. It's always best to check their condition by removing the cam covers.

 

Agreed. 4.2L are much better but FORGET that they don't have any tensioner issues. They do just much less frequently.
I also think it's better to get a 2003 and up model as those came with improved parts plus the much better 6 speed ZF compared to the earlier Ford 5 speed AT.

Yes if you have the 4.0L and it has not been updated your on borrowed time. Now you might have gotten lucky and they were changed but you just don't have the paperwork.
But follow JagV8's advice and take a look. It's too important to ignore!
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it took me 7 years to get to start and drive with that type of peace of mind. You are right. That feeling is priceless