Ford Spark Plug Problems?
Just picked up a 2003 Four Winds on Ford E450 chassis with V10, 32K miles. Been seeing a lot of forums on spark plug blow out or breaking inside of the cylinder. Looks like mostly E350/F350 and ligh...
Forum Discussion
In case someone is interested - - I have a 2001 E450, and elected to install the Timesert steel spark plug thread inserts. It took me a couple of days, with the help of one of my sons. There is a considerable difference between the different thread kits available for this job - - so do your research carefully.
The van chassis is a sort of booger for this operation. You do about half the cylinders from the front, and about half from the doghouse side.
Absolutely critical is having both intake and exhaust valves CLOSED when you do the insert placement in one of the cylinders. If you hit a valve with the tooling, you get to remove THAT cylinder head to make repairs. I bought a little optical/TV type viewer snake to make sure I could see the valves.
I rigged up a small piece of plastic tubing to clean up any shavings or junk from the cylinder after doing the insert.
Threads were almost non-existent in the head - - don't know how they could have built it like that. Not surprised they would blow out or easily strip.
Paid around four hundred bucks for the Timesert installation kit (well designed and built) and sold it after the job for three hundred.
It helps to have some machine tool type of experience before trying this kind of job. Not everyone will find it a breeze.
oldusedbear
The van chassis is a sort of booger for this operation. You do about half the cylinders from the front, and about half from the doghouse side.
Absolutely critical is having both intake and exhaust valves CLOSED when you do the insert placement in one of the cylinders. If you hit a valve with the tooling, you get to remove THAT cylinder head to make repairs. I bought a little optical/TV type viewer snake to make sure I could see the valves.
I rigged up a small piece of plastic tubing to clean up any shavings or junk from the cylinder after doing the insert.
Threads were almost non-existent in the head - - don't know how they could have built it like that. Not surprised they would blow out or easily strip.
Paid around four hundred bucks for the Timesert installation kit (well designed and built) and sold it after the job for three hundred.
It helps to have some machine tool type of experience before trying this kind of job. Not everyone will find it a breeze.
oldusedbear
