I have a '97 E-350 Club Wagon, with the Triton 5.4L. It has 190K on the original engine. I replaced the spark plugs about 25K miles ago - platinum plugs with anti-sieze compound - and was very careful due to the known plug problem.

Last night a plug blew. Shoud I heli-coil, time-sert (or big-sert), or put in a reman engine? A new head with this many miles on the engine seems out of the question.

 

Did you use a torque wrench ???? VERY IMPORTANT !!! These aluminum heads SUCK !!!!! In the old days you could just "feel" your way through with a plug change with IRON heads !! If the head can be fixed with a helicoil thats cool, if NOT ??? get ready to BREAK THE WALLET OPEN !!! It is a COSTLY repair!!!!

 

i blew plug #7 about a month ago and wasn't convenced a heli would hold so i got the time sert kit and in my opinion that is the only way to go. it took me about half a day which i took my time and was very careful as i hadn't ever done one before.

I did it with the head on and it was not any problem. I could do any plug other than #4 with out removing the head i don't think there is enough room to do #4 with the head on.

if you go with the timesert kit MAKE sure you get the valves on the cylendar your working on closed if not some of the tools can miss up a valve and shavings can get in to them as well.

 

I just had the number 3 blow on my 5.4 and hand a Full Torque insert put in.
They make a kit just for this engine. www.fulltorque.com

 

I did it with a $35 repair kit from NAPA. I removed the air filter housing, the fuel rail on the one side, and tapped it out. After tapping, I vacuumed out the cyliner with a shop-vac, with a big straw attached to the end of the hose with tape.

Went real slow - it was the first time I tapped out anything, and I checked the injectors and replaced the gaskets - and it took about 8 hours.

 

i also used a cheaper auto zone tapping dye which seemed much simpler than the full torque. The only thing i noticed on the fulltorque page was that it is made out of the proper material and that the heat transfer throughout would be just like the origonal. I dont know how important this is...

 

Here is an update, almost a year after a good repair.

The last fix I posted in '05 was with the cheapo kit. It lasted about 18k miles then blew out again. I pulled the other "fixed" plug (with same cheapo kit) and it was BARELY held in. The engine hadn't been running real well for some time.

I was looking at a 3,500 mile raod trip and bit the bullet, bought a Time-sert kit, and fixed all 8 cylinders the right way. The engine runs great, now with 238k miles on it. I have the kit for sale under classifieds, posted 2 days ago.

 

Slspokane, were you able to remove the old, cheapo insert to do the new one? I would be afraid of one fix getting in the way of the other.

I remember an old blazer that had the original plug in it and I broke one. Had to do the vacuum cleaner-hose-tube deal too.