It Finally Happened
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From: Transfer
It Finally Happened
Ok, this weekend while driving home from wal-mart, my F.250 5.4 liter spits out its 3rd spark plug back on the passeneger side, me being the guy ready for everything pulls out my "traveling" ratchet set, pull the coil and on the end of the boot was the spark plug, since the threads did not look terribly mangled i went to my local autozone got 1 spark plug and tried to put it in with no avail, well long story short my $35,000 pride and Joy had to be towed home by a chevy roll back which it barely fit on and i kid you not when they tilted the bed up pulled the pos's front wheels off the ground with my 8000 lbs of pure truck well anyway, i have researched on this site and found those sleeves that you can put into the existing hole to fix this, ok were do i buy them and which ones are the best, and has anyone done this themselves, i am very mechanical so if you have done this and are willing to explain this to me id greatly appreciate it,thanks in advance
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From: Millersburg, OH
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Joined: Feb 2008
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From: Greensboro,North Carolina
Here's the kit I used: http://www.timesert.com/html/triton_repair.html
Sold it on eBay for $325 when I was done. I used an air ratchet to drive the tools. The quality of the kit was impressive. Took me an afternoon to complete the job but i also replaced all the spark plugs and boots.
Mine also ejected the #3 plug.
Good Luck.
Sold it on eBay for $325 when I was done. I used an air ratchet to drive the tools. The quality of the kit was impressive. Took me an afternoon to complete the job but i also replaced all the spark plugs and boots.
Mine also ejected the #3 plug.
Good Luck.
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spit plug
How timely that this post should appear now. I'm making an appointment next week with the service manager of my Ford dealer to discuss just this issue. What are the circumstances with your experience? How many miles, original plugs or not? Model year? Mine is a 2002 f250 5.4 with 60,000 kilometers (Canadian). Owners manual says go after the plugs at 100,000 km but I'm sure not going to wait that long. Any advise I can take with me to the meeting would be appreciated.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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From: Greensboro,North Carolina
I owned this truck for two weeks when it happened to me so I do not have any history on it.
I say the dealer is a crap shoot. They, theoretically, should be singularly qualified to service the truck but I do not trust them. Many bad experiences with "mechanics". You most likely will be fine but, as they say;" you pay your money and you take your chances.". For this reason I learned to work on them myself.
Good Luck,
2001 F250 Crew cab
127K miles
I say the dealer is a crap shoot. They, theoretically, should be singularly qualified to service the truck but I do not trust them. Many bad experiences with "mechanics". You most likely will be fine but, as they say;" you pay your money and you take your chances.". For this reason I learned to work on them myself.
Good Luck,
2001 F250 Crew cab
127K miles
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Thanks for the reply Neksiwel. I too do most of my own stuff on my '89 5.0 pony and my wifes '92 323 but with this truck, other than doing the oil changes, I step away. I think the "back yard mechanic" days are about finished. (Almost wish I had my old '78 f100 300 six back...now that you could work on!).
ps
I've got a good Ford dealer so I don't have any hesitiation about talking to them on this "problem".
ps
I've got a good Ford dealer so I don't have any hesitiation about talking to them on this "problem".
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From: Transfer
my truck has a tick under 140,000 iles on the clock, basically a back and forth to worker and every once in a while i tow a 15 foot 2 Horse trailer, i stopped at a stop sign, eased on the gas, didnt even turn 2500 rpm and u hear "compressed air" like sound with every stroke, so i knew exactly wat it was and to be honest with you, i know this sounds extreme, but i am now once its fixed am going to retorque the spark plugs after every oil change now cause it looks like mine just worked their way loosed and it only took out the last couple rows of the threads which to me tells me that it worked its way loose, now my dealership who is a well known good dealership known for their quality work wanted about 2,000 dollars to fix it if they could use a kitthey have cause i guess ford put out a kit to their dealers to fix this problem, if the head could not have been reapired, they would have to get tme a new head and the total would have been over 3000 cause labor is about 1500, well lets just say the dealers going to be a last resort
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The last 10k miles that I owned my 5.4 F150 (basically 99k to 109k) I blew two plugs out (one of them REALLY went bang) and had to get towed in for the second one. Less than 10 days after getting towed in for that my alternator went out and had to get towed yet again. Combine those three incidents with 3 blown coils during my ownership of the truck (two near the end, one at about 50k miles), and I decided it was time to be done with it. I wanted to keep until 150k miles at least, but I couldn't live with the lack of reliability that was becoming apparent. Hopefully things go better w/ my 250 powerstroke, and I get a longer, more reliable life from it.
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Originally Posted by Green Ford
What can be done in advance to help stop this. Or do I just wait and pray?
The fix they provide with the sleeve is supposed to be better than the original threading to secure the plugs, but my worries were about the ones that hadn't yet been repaired and at around $500 a crack things were approaching and reaching beyond new truck payment levels in a hurry; the reliability was my ultimate decision making factor though.
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speedwheeler
1980 - 1986 Bullnose F100, F150 & Larger F-Series Trucks
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Aug 18, 2007 03:45 PM