Harvey51 wrote:
I read that there were several problems with spark plugs and heads including one that extended to 2004 trucks but the latest word in this forum was that E series is not afflicted. That seems strange to me - why would ford make different engines for trucks and vans? Mine has 111 000 km right now. My trusty mechanic said no rush wait for the Ford suggested mileage to change them, which I think is 100 000 miles or 140 000 km. Lately we’ve only been doing 5 to 10 thousand km per summer so it could well be 4 or 5 years.
Of course I don’t know but it seems prudent for a 67 year old school teacher who changed his own sparkplugs for 45 years, most recently our good old 1992 GM van with 350 v8, to rely on a mechanic with the E350. For one thing, I have never seen a coil on a spark plug.
Edited: a computer glitch ate my post the first time....
There have been several updates and variants of the V10, including one significant one with the introduction of three valve heads. The three valve version is used in the F53 class A motorhome chassis and F series trucks (and one or two other places), but has never been available in the E series chassis or vans due to space constraints. I assume that means space in the doghouse/tunnel area for the engine; the three valve heads are physically larger.
The original (two-valve) heads did have rather marginal threading for the spark plugs, and have a bit of a propensity to eject them, particularly if the threads get stripped or cross-threaded due to improper plug installation. It's rather important to properly torque the plugs on these engines, more so than on most other engines. I think this was finally solved around 2005 or so.
Some of the early three-valve heads (I don't know offhand what years) had problematic two-piece plugs. That, too, has been corrected for quite some time.
On any E-series chassis, changing the plugs doesn't look to me to be the easiest job in the world given the limited access to the engine. Generally speaking, coil on plug systems are not really hard to work with, no more so than systems with plug wires; you just remove the COP unit rather than the plug wire to get to the plug. It's one or two little bolts or screws and an electrical connector and the COP pulls off.
