From everything I have been able to determine, the problem, while real, is far from common or certain. There is almost no information available on how the under 100 examples of the failure had been treated and driven prior to the failure. And Ford appears to now be aware of a potential problem but has as yet not seen enough on the failures to issue a TSB on it. However, if you have a good dealership, it seems they can fairly easily convince Ford to pay for part of a very major repair after things have broken. The trick at the moment is to get them to pay for a much smaller repair before anything breaks. People are still working on that (including me).
From what I have managed to find out, mig or tig welds for each sprocket will not cause any balance problems for the cam, just as the shims do not. However, my favorite engine guy says he would rather put on 3 spots on each sproket, rather than just one, and space them at 120 degrees. This is only a touch more difficult, requiring hand cranking the motor position instead of using only the location that happens to be up when you get everything exposed.
So, I think we should all keep up with events and those of us trying to get something going with Ford keep at it, but otherwise tone down the worry level a bit. Worth looking into. Worth fixing. But not worth selling the car about.
pax, smn
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'98, Black
Mod.Porter intake, K&N panel, SARC cutout switch, 4 gauge instrumentation cluster, 23mm rear swaybar, 225x55x16 Bridgestone Blizzaks (its winter now
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