Holy Mary Mother of God-what a freakin' nightmare-you wouldn't think a four cylinder engine would be that BAD to do, but damn are my hands sore and scratched up!!! The two rearward driver's side plugs are unreal!!! Took about a 1/2hr on just each one!!! This engine has "two plugs" per cylinder and is also a non-A/C truck. I could hardly imagine how worse it would have been if my Ranger had A/C!!!

 

Paul,
Tell me about it! I changed the passenger side plugs and plugwires 2 days ago. I haven't mustered up the courage to tackle the other side yet.

Tim

 

Tim, the two front driver's side ones aren't bad, but then again my truck does not have A/C. Those two driver's side rearward ones under the intake plenum are a B_tch!!! Have fun, I know I did.

 

My truck does have a/c. Took a while and a few choice words but I finally got them changed, the sad thing is the time is coming up to change them again because it's been about 60k miles since they were last changed.

 

I would suggest just removing the upper half of the intake manifold the next time you do it. There are two vaccum connections to disconnect and a couple of wiring plugs. Unbolt the EGR tube and leave everything else in place. It makes the job vastly easier!

 

From what I've seen in that intake area, with the proper swivel and whatnot, this doesn't look too terrible of a job. Maybe my fingers are long or whatever, but I reached in at the plugs just fine. I know that doesn't make for the whole story, but I'm hopeful in 11.000ish miles....

Since my mechanic friend changed the plugs before I got the Ranger, I will take his word (and his tools) for it.

 

I was going to try this my self then thought better of it and took it to shop I trust.
I watched him change them and no way was I going to get them out with the few tools I have. He used four different wire pullers and the set up of swivels for that drivers rear plug was something.

I hope not to have to do it again any time soon as I put in Autolite double platinum plugs, but if I have to do it my self the top half of the intake will come off.

 

I took the top half of the intake off. It took 10 mins for the first 6 plugs and 30 mins for the 2 rear, driver side plugs. Not that bad. I'll definitely do it myself instead of paying someone else to do it.

 

...when you take that "top half" of the intake plenum off, isn't there a gasket there that has to or needs to be replaced???

 

yes there is

 

I just did my plugs last night, although I have the 2.3L version-89 Ranger it was still a pain in the backside, I found that the the plugs were OE along with the wires, the wires still have 1989 on them, th eplugs were really wore out, but none the less a big pain in the backside to do

 

I am NOT looking forward to doing the plugs and wires on my 1999 2.5L Ranger w/AC. I couldn't imagine any plugs being harder than my 1995 Probe GT was, but the ranger ones look like a REAL pain!!

 

I just changed mine (96 2.3L, 120k) for the first time. I did the front 3 passenger with no problem using a 6" extension. Fourth was a tight fit against the wall with that extension, but it worked. Front driver's side came out easy, using needle-nose to pull on the the plastic extension. Second driver's side was the only one that required a wobble extension to get the centimeter or so clearance from other parts in line with the angle of the plug.

I did the last two in about 10 minutes using a long pair of needle-nose pliers to pull the boot off using the plastic extension attached to it, pulling it right out through the gaps in the upper intake - the angles on the plugs were designed to make getting to the plugs easy using a couple of extensions (I used 10"+6"). Didn't have to try to squeeze any fingers in there. This is not as bad as it looks!

 

:O the gasket has to be replaced when you take the top half off? Crap... It's been 6 months and I haven't had any problems whatsoever out of it. Add that to my list of things to do.

 

When i changed plugs on my brother's 1995 Mazda B2300 I had to remove the belt and undo the 4 bolts that hold the A/C compressor on, and move the compressor aside to get the front driver's side plug. The truck had dealer installed A/C though.