i got 7 out of the 8 out just fine but on the passenger side very last plug something happened.

the ceramic near where the coil plugs in broke. now its somewhere either in where the boot goes or in the cylinder

i cant see anything i cant even reach it. what do it do! i was soooo close!

i really dont wana pull the head

 

First thing relax and take a deep breath. How much of the plug is still inside the cylinder? Do you have a shop vac? Rig up a small suction tube and sweep the inside of the cylinder. You can also try a probe with a bunch of grease on it.

 

its about a half inch long i would guess its just a chunk of the porcelain from the top of the plug.

good idea about the grease! im going to go try that right now but i dont have a shop vac. i might have to go get one.

 

pictures

 

did you use a normal socket?

or

the spark plug sockets with the rubber boot inside them?


if the rubber boot kind, check inside it for that missing piece. otherwise, I'm with the grease idea.


also, you can grab a $1 mirror from the store that is about 2" square in the crafts section. use that to get a look inside the hole and cylinder

 

normal socket

i keep trying with the grease but im only getting little stuff not the big one thats missing ...

yea i was thinking about getting a mirror and looking but theres almost no room in this thing. for 300$ i can get one of them camera on a sick with a light on the end and just return it....

 

did you also check the ground under the truck and ontop the frame rail?

I cannot tell you how many times I thought I had lost something only to find it sitting on the crossmember or the ground...eventually

 

no but i saw it come out of the head without it...

 

I'm crossin my fingers for ya. I swear,,these spark plug threads make me just want to run my truck until 100K miles and then plan for the worst.

 

Honestly knowing what I do now I'd wait till it started acting up and then pay ford to pull the heads so i know they did it right. Worth it to me getting so close to being done and then dropping a piece of something in the head.

 

Is that cylinder at TDC? If not you might try something a little risky that I did when I dropped a t-tap down one of my cylinders. It's risky but it helped. Disable the fuel pump (inertial switch or any of the other ways), crank the engine QUICKLY...don't let it turn over! After a couple of tries the cylinder I was working on was at TDC and I used suction to remove the t-tap. Good luck!

 

Yeah, I had been thinking about being a good son and volunteering to prophylactically change out the plugs on my parent's Expy the next time we go visit them. The more I read these threads, the more I agree with Luvmy150.

 

Ok....even if a plug or two breaks.....the tools that are available now are much easier than waiting and breaking ALL of them....

And letting ford pull the heads.....a little patience isn't worth 2000 to me.....

Get a shop vac and tubing and get that down into the cylinder...use very small tubing so you know when it gets that piece sucked up ....clean out the cylinder and reassemble...

 

That would be a good idea to get that camera and look down in the cylinder. At least you will know.

It sounds like to me the socket must have been on an angle and broke the ceramic. Were you using a couple of extensions and a flex coupler on that one?

Take your time and think this one out.

 

I for the record find people who buy things with the sole intention of using them and returning them quite dishonest.....don't make someone else (business owner, shareholder, other consumers) take a financial loss because your not willing to.....


Either buy the camera and take a look, get someone who owns one to take a look for you, or pony up and buy the camera.......but don't cheat someone else...