Oh now I find this thread, after spending $240.00 to pay a mechanic to do it for me lol to be honest it was the best money I ever spent. After four back surgeries trying to get up in there gets to feel as if someone is tearing a hole in my back but virtually everything else I do myself. Getting my seized caliper off to put new brakes on it was a pain but hey found the right way on here and this forum got bookmarked and joined, I had new ones here to go on anyways!

 

just starting the "plug change project" on dads '05 250 superduty, 5.4 3-valve. got all the coils out, broke loose all 8 plugs and have sprayed pb blaster into all the plug holes after blowing them out with compressed air. hope they come out tomorrow without breaking, have that "broken plug removal kit" just in case, (with hopes that it goes unused) truck has only 70K on it, but with all the horror stories about plug breakage, were hoping that chnging them before 100K will have a better success than waiting until the truck has a running issue. this thing is like working on a van-but without the removeable doghouse!, whats the best brand of plug to use?, i hope to never-ever have to go through this again, really makes one miss a inline and the lack of hoses and plastic parts in the way!

 

Just got a 02 lariat 5.4l auto Fx4 with 232,000 on it. Much thought went into buying so much mileage but the truck in and out is in very good condition with almost new 17" tires. The engine sounds great and truck drives great also. It is a bit aggressive on acceleration so I use a soft foot on the pedal.
Anyway , a large thanks for this post as I will be getting into checking the entire engine and hope to get a lot more miles out of it.

 

I have a 2002 Expedition. It has been misfiring slightly for months. My mechanic said a coil was weak but his diagnostics were not able to pinpoint the bad one. He said we could replace all coils or drive until it tripped a fail code on the computer. I drove it for over six months and it never failed. However, it started getting worse, so I spent my Independence Day weekend changing the coils myself, mainly because I've read that Ford mechanics will charge $800-1000 for this job. I bought a pack of 8 coils for $300.

I did not install new plugs because they were replaced by another shop about 18 months ago. But I did decide to inspect the plugs while I had the coils off. Good thing I did. The plugs were in good shape but the gap was set to .044. Everything I've read says it should be .054, the parts store confirmed this. I know the sticker on the radiator cover shows what the gap should be, but the body shop replaced this part a few years ago without the sticker.

I was able to re-gap all plugs except the back ones on each side. #4 was too tight and I could not extract the plug. I even tried WD40 soak for a while...no luck. I did replace the coil though. #8 was too hard to get to and the fuel injectors were in the way. Not knowing how deal with this, I stopped. If someone has any pointers on how to replace #8 without breaking something, I would certainly appreciate some details on how to do this.

 

WD 40 is not a good penetrator , or try a stronger one and see if that helps. PB is very good and there are some others than work well also.
there some good threads on replacing plugs.
Good luck.

 

Injectors can be rotated out of the way and unplugged .
Mode 6 may find the misfire , if not , a scan tool with a power balance test histograph will show the offending hole .

 

Epic bump here.


Just did them. I can dispel a myth or two. The injectors do not have to be removed to get coils out. I turned a couple to get the connector off but that was it.


I used very little never seize on threads. Got new coils on Amazon real cheap and used motorcraft platinum plugs.


I didn't remove the wheels to lower the truck. I think that is a waste of time. Step ladder works wonders.


I am a pro wrench turner whole job took me 5 hours but I took many breaks checking other things out (just bought truck). Time actually working with plugs. Probably 90 mins. I used a swivel 5/8 spark plug socket. Had to use a pliers to get boots off plugs but mostly standard stuff.


To get coil bolt off both rear plugs use 3" 1/4 extension and standard socket.


Any questions feel free to PM me.

Purring like a kitten.

 

I had the plugs, boots, and springs changed 40,000 miles ago. It's time to torque them again

 

Well decided to change out my plugs because of misfire, plugs 2 and 7 were missing its lower shell and electrode. completely gone. Why I don't know. But the 2008 F250 was experiencing trouble on inclines down to about 40 mph. So with that, what information can you provide?

 

About ten years ago this thread was stickied and it probably should be now. I had never done the plugs on a 4.6 when I first read racerguys first post in about 2005 and have done quite few sets of Ford plugs since then.

What concerned me when reading this last page of the thread is that it seems that people are interchanging information for one piece plugs as found in many 4.6 & 5.4's with the two piece plugs found in the three valve engines which are quite a different animal.

In my experience, about the only thing in common is that they should only be changed in an engine that is DEAD COLD.

The key to changing one piece plugs is removing them dead cold and torquing them back in place. I have been wrenching since the fifties when growing up in my Dads auto repair business and never need a torque wrench for too many things and never torqued a spark plug in my life before the 4.6, but I use a torque wrench on these. I use a VERY thin coat of copper based anti seize on the one piece and torque them to 15 foot pounds. I think the book says 12 to 17. They always come out the next time without incident if this procedure is followed.

THREE VALVE PLUGS: the key with these is breaking the carbon. In the beginning Ford recommended using penetrating oil, but later changed the factory recommendation to a decarbonizing fluid. I use Seafoam and it works great. With the engine dead cold, spray a little Seafoam in the spark plug well after removing the coils. Break them loose about 1/16th of a turn, no more than 1/8th turn to open the tapered seal and then again spray a good bit of Seafoam in the well and let it soak a bare minimum of an hour, but preferably overnight. The two piece plug will then come out. Penetrating oil is not needed. Breaking the carbon bond is what is needed and penetrating oil doesn't do a very good job of that. THEN when putting the new two piece plug back in place use NICKEL antisieze on the threads, torque them to 15 foot pounds and they will be no problem the next time.

This is what has worked very well for me. I hope it helps.

One other thing. Be careful when blowing out the plug wells making sure that you don't allow any debris in an adjacent hole. A few times I have had a piece of debris wedge between the plug and the well making it difficult to get a plug wrench in place and have the worry of it falling in the cylinder. If you pulll all the coils out before blowing out a well, you run the risk of blowing trash out of one well and having it settle in another. Cover the other holes while you are blowing one out. It sounds time consuming, but a few times I have lost a BUNCH of time trying to get something out of a plug well.

 

Sounds like a three valve. If it is and the bottom piece of the plug stayed in the hole, you will have to get the Lisle tool, follow the instructions and fish it out. You might want to read my post above before doing the rest of them.

Good luck.

 

A while back I had a problem on my 97 f-150 4.6 4x4, 216k miles, with the #3 boot coming off, not long after I changed the plugs and wires. Kept putting out back on, finally found that the plug was loose and figured the pressure must have been building up behind the boot seals.

Fixed that problem, boot now stays on but still misfires. Pulled plug, it looks good and spark is good. I didn't notice (or think to look for) a carbon line.

I'm now wondering if that's what's continuing to cause the misfire and backfiring?

I just bought a new set of Champion plugs (.054 gap) but haven't put them in yet.

Does anyone have any input as to how Champions compare/relate to Mopar plugs?

Thanks guys

 

Ok, manual says 14lbs and i'm reading people going up to 28(!)lbs.
What's the deal here? I am about to do this in 12 hours. So far i've seen a general consensus on NOT using anti seize, i can understand that. I've read that there are as little as 3 threads in the head for the plug. 28lbs going on 3 threads of soft aluminum scares me.
I think i might set it at about 17 or 18, my hands will tell me when. But the angles are so fn crazy in there that getting an accurate torque on some plugs will be extraordinarily difficult i assume.

What's the deal with the torque values, that's my question. Any ford TSB about this?

2004 EB expedition (5.4 2 valve)

 

i've never heard of anyone torquing spark plug's, i'd just snug them down as much as possible, an just i lil more ! ?

 

I went 50 years without torquing spark plugs, but you had better torque these!!! Cinching them down is begging for trouble. Torque them as close to the middle of the specification range. That means to shoot for about 14 ft/lbs.

The main thing is to make sure you remove these plugs when they are dead cold. I have had very good luck using a very light coat of copper based anti seize ON THE THREADS ONLY.