I have a 2002 F350, 7.3L with 175,000 miles. I replaced the glow plugs a few years back (before finding this site) with Autolites. Now that winter has hit here in Utah, I'm having problems starting the truck after it sits for the day at work.

Checked resistance on the GP's on the passenger side (easier to get to) and they are all reading between 20 to 60 ohms. Figure its time to change them out and after looking at other posts find chances are high that some of the tips have or could break off.

Seems the real solution if this is the case is to remove the heads and get the pieces out of the cylinder. Does anyone know if there is a write up on removing cylinder heads? I tried searching with no sucess.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

I think i would pull the glow plugs first and see if they come out before worrying on the head removal. If they do break off, If i remember correctly, a few have just turned the truck over and blew them out the tail pipe, but I can't find the thread on that at the moment.

 

Thanks Tom. Just trying to plan ahead for the worst case. I have seen some opinions from blowing them out the exhaust, pulling the injector and trying to suck/blow them out with a shop vac and compressed air to cranking the engine over and blowing them out the GP hole with engine compression.

I agree at this point, I'll tear into it and hoope for the best.

Thanks,

 

Good luck with it, took me about 4 hours and a six pack to get through mine last year, not a bad job, just take your time. Might want to do the 50 cent mod while you are there, or put in the ford retaining clips on the main Undervalve cover harness as well, I did this when I did my glow plugs, good insurance.