Spark plug shot out of head, need advice.
 

I posted this over in the Excursion section, but I thought I'd also post it here to see if you guys can offer any advice.

I was wondering if anyone in the Excursion family has had this happen to them. A friend of mine had one of the plugs shoot out of the head while taking her daughter to school. She parked it immediately and called her husband, who called me to come and take a look at it. It broke the coil pack and we found the plug laying on the ground. It didn't appear to have any of the threads from the head on it so I thought it might be an easy fix. Got a new plug and coil pack, but the plug feels like it is cross threading into the head, like some of the last few threads were stripped out on ejection. My question is do they make a tool to tap the threaded spark plug hole, and if so, where can I find one. I don't want to force anything in and make it a bigger job. Luckily the live about 1/4 mile from the school, so I disconnected the injector and he was able to limp it home. It is a 2000 Excursion with the 6.8 Litre.

I'm usually on the 87-96 thread because that's what I drive, but I thought I'd ask you guys to see if you could help. Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Yes, they make a tool to rethread the hole whithout removing the head. It isn't too expensive but it isn't really cheap either. You can get it at a Carquest but they will likely have to order it. I don;t know about other parts stores. This is a common problem with the Triton engines although it is usually the 5.4 that I hear about the most. It is the one single thing that will keep me from ever buying a 97 and newer Ford truck.

Chris

I'm curious about this topic, but I only have one thing to add, which is a question. Why doesn't the daughter just walk to school if she's only 1/4 mile away?

Ooooooh, you don't know the princess!

Thanks Chris, I'll look into it. I didn't know if they made one or not. I'm hoping it may be something I can rent since I don't think I'll ever need it again!

Good question buckhammer!

Anyway kaduh, the tool is available at Oreilly's, Carquest. Haven't used it, but know a guy that the Ford dealership had to re-thread 2 spark plug holes when they stripped his heads while changing plugs on his '05.

And they still charged him for the damage they caused...CRAZY!!!

Thank you guys for your input. I found a kit made by Time-sert online and the Fastenall dealer here in town is the distributor. It costs $125, so it looks like I may be getting a new tool! I watched a couple of videos on it and it seems pretty straight forward to fix. I know this isn't really relevant in this forum, but I thought it may help someone else by posting what I found out.

Thanks again and have a great day.

Is that the kit that takes the longer sparkplug? Works well, just you gotta be careful removing the plugs later as I found out lol plug is a different size than the others.

As for 97+ 5.4L:

People have issues when the plugs are changed and not properly done. You must be extra careful putting the plugs in when your done and dont torque them and use motorcraft or similar plugs.Also when pulling your old ones you must let the engine idle for about 20 mins to heat it up and then let cool for 5 and THEN remove the plugs-the AL head expanded and will let the plugs out easy.

I think Ford now has a sticker on each valve cover about this problem. You know the kind of sticker... a pictogram of what not to do, like the warning stickers on lawn mowers etc.

This one shows a picture of a plug shooting out of the engine head, into a person head with a big red circle and slash across the picture.

This is a common problem with the newer trucks. I even think the repair kits include the sticker. ;^)


Jim Henderson

I thought the procedure was to do it on a cold engine, As in not have been run in at least 12 hours

It's the kit that reams the plug hole to fit a new sleeve into it. It comes with a new seat reamer for the washer on the spark plug. I watched a video on youtube for it and it looks like the way to go. I saw the quick fix one with the longer spark plug, which I'm sure would work, but I told my friend that for the extra fifty bucks, he will have the extra sleeves in case another one decides to launch itself.

I had a plug blow out on my 5.4L and used the Timesert kit to fix it. I was very pleased with the quality of the kit and the quality of the repair it did. I seem to remember paying more like $300 for the kit (from Fastenal) with 5 inserts so if you found it for $125 your doing well.

Plan on buying an air ratchet if you don't have one already because I don't think you could do the repair without one. Good luck.

Steve