Alright, got another question...

Was on highway and my 01 4.6 Expedition stared misfiing and really running like crap yesterday..Had no choice but to keep driving for like 400 miles, it was late night (problem kinda went off and on..).
Anyways, got the code pulled at autozone, say it was cylinder #8 misfire.. So my first plan of attack is going to be to change out the plugs. I have heard they are a pain in the a$$ to get out, so I will take it to my mechanic. Pehaps he can test out the coils as well, especially over #8 where the misfire happened.
However, today the truck is running fine. So my question is this:
Should I even bother if everything seems to be ok? It was raining pretty bad on the highway when this happened, so could it have been just some water up in the engine compartment causing the trouble??
If it were a COP problem over the cylinder in question (#8), would it stay messed up until it was replaced, or could it go "back to normal" as it has? Could a messed up spark plug do the same? Go on and off like that?

Any light shed on this problem would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks

 

the first thing I'd do is.. How many miles do you have in your truck? If its more than 100K I would change the spark plugs, That may be the problem, another thing is, I would change the coil of the cilinder #8 to.. lets say #1 and if after that you get a code cilinder#1 misfire then the coil is messed up.. this is what i would do...
btw, I changed the plugs in my 2001 5.4 Ford f-150 and it took me 8 hours.

PD. for now, if is not misfiring anymore, just forget it for now, thats what I;d do.


Gerardo.

 

I changed my plugs in my 5.4 and it took about 3 hours. You will need a magnetic pickup tool, 6 inch and 4 inch and 2 inch extension, a good flex head ratchet, two universal joints, and 2 spark plug sockets - One with rubber inside for gripping the spark plug for removal, and the other for tightening the plugs once they are hand tightened. I don't remove the Fuel rail when I do mine, and haven't had a problem with it. The #4 is the absolute worst!

You must either use Double Platinum Autolite plugs (not just platinum, but DOUBLE PLATINUM), or original Ford Plugs. I used Autolite simply because they worked for a friend of mine and I now have 65,000 miles on the Autolite plugs. I can take them back to Advance Auto because they have a lifetime warranty, so I won't be out the money for plugs again! The original Ford plugs are supposed to last 100,000 miles, but I chagned them out at 60,000. If you use the Ford plugs, you must make sure that they are put into the correct cylinder, or you'll be sorry. One is platinum on the electrode, and the other is platinum on the tip of the plug. The double platinum Autolites have platinum on both the electrode and tip, so you don't have to worry about that.

Don't try to cheat, and put regular plugs, or those bogus splitfire, or regular platinum into your Engine, because if you do, I promise you'll be beating yourself up when you have to do it again in a month or less.

Put the #8 COP on the #1 cylinder because #1 is easy to get to if it causes problems again. If you then throw a #1 misfire code, you can be pretty certain that it is the COP, if not, you'll be changing the