I'll be doing some longer camping trips towing a 30' trailer this coming year. Would it be a good idea to insert all the cylinders now or wait and bet I dont have one let go on the road away from home? 2001 with 85,000 miles, I replaced the original plugs about 15,000 miles ago and I've checked torque a couple of times since, all were tight and looked fine. I thought I'd buy the timesert kit, replace all of them and sell the kit to someone else to cut the cost down. The kit and all would be a lot cheaper than getting a repair done on the road. Am I worrying about something that probably wont happen? Any thoughts?

 

I personally would wait till it spits one out. Our 2001 V10 blew a plug at 39000 miles pulling our fifth wheel back in 2005. It was able to keep going in 100+ degree weather another 200 miles threw Arizona and eventually to L.A. where it was finally fixed. From that point on we bought all the tools necessary to fix a blown spark plug and kept them behind the back seat in case we ever needed to fix it on the road (witch we never had to). Especially if you are regularly checking the torques like you said you are I think you would have to be pretty unlucky for one to randomly blow but that is just my .02 cents I am sure others will chime in as well.

 

Timesert repair on the road will require some tools ; like air-gun , compressor , shop-vac ,etc. Also compressor needs a generator to run .

blownoutsparkplug.com sells an expanding rubber plug (they call it emergency plug kit ) to install into the blown spark plug's hole to reduce that terrible noise . This may be really useful ,since we can drive on 9 cylinder (after unplugging the injector ) .

An RV'er (a motorhome owner ) did all 10 inserts some years ago and had a write up on the subject in this forum .

After reading the entire repair procedure , one step became very critical , that is closing the valves of the repair cylinder . There is a pretty good chance that some debris getting stuck on to the valve and destroying the entire engine . We heard this here in this forum too .

There is also a Dorman kit for emergency road repair . It just screws on the existing partially damaged threads . It uses a special long spark plug that is included in the kit . May be it is not a permanent long term solution , but it can be a life saver on the road .

No simple answers.

Have a safe travel,

 

Maybe I just worry too much. I'll just check the torques and hope for the best, but if I ever blow one I'll insert them all.

 

If you need a timesert kit...I have one that I used to put inserts in my 2000 v-10. you would need to purchace the inserts from timesert. best of luck

 

Not to hijack this thread but I'm going to be doing the inserts. Could I borrow or rent your kit? Thanks Anthony

 

Cardinal, that's exactly what I did, one spark plug blew and I inserted all 10. I wouldn't have inserted any if the first one hadn't blown. But once I was broke down fixing one I went ahead and did all 10.

Wolfboro is pretty much right, an air ratchet, compressor, shop vac, etc are required to do a reasonable job.

I posted a write up and some videos on using the Timesert kit to put insert in all 10 cylinders of my '01 F250.

TechSpin F250

Wolfboro is also right about absolutely needing to get the valves closed before running any tools down the spark plug wells. The valves are interference with the path of the spark plug well and anything going down the well with an open valve runs the risk of chipping or breaking a valve. That turns a relatively simple over the fender insert job into a remove the head and replace the valve job.



Here is a bit of a write up and some videos specifically on how I checked that the valves were closed before starting any cutting work on the wells.

TechSpin - Getting the valves closed

 

If possible it would greatly add to this forums Tech Folder's database of knowledge and how to if your excellent write ups were formatted appropriately. FWIW this process would be just as useful in the V8 forums too.

IMHO if you're willing to do the work of installing Time Serts in advance of any one blowing out you're simply erring on the side of caution. Heck once you get into the practice of it all and are on a roll should go quickly huh?