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
Just replaced the plugs on my '06 @ 46,000 miles...just because I was doing spring maintenance and wanted them replaced. Glad I did, the gaps on the "100,000" plugs was already at .070 up from the factory .054...as you know can cause coil pack and boot issues with the increased gap. The job took me about an hour and a half. The biggest thing about working on anything on these is to not be afraid to move stuff out of the way, a few minutes here saves a ton during the job. For instance, for plugs I removed the airbox assembly, the passenger side lower dash trim, and the two plastic wire supports that encapsulate the coil pack and injector wiring. With the wire supports in place it's very difficult to get a straight shot at the plugs...with them removed it's pretty easy.
WARNING-----Seriously Boring Somewhat Irrelevant Info Follows:
A side not about plug problems, if anyone seen my previous post, I stated that I worked for a large Ford dealer for almost 20 years. One thing we saw in the early modular engines (pre-2002) was spark plug blow-out, mainly due to not enough threads in the heads. Actually, IMO this wasn't even a wide-spread issue, but you know how the internet goes so now all Ford engines have this problem, lol. This (again IMO) caused additional problem from backyard mechanics tightening the snot out of replacement plugs because they "heard" about all these "problems" and the next guy couldn't get those ones out without screwing things up.
Next came the 3 valve engines that had two problems...mostly in F-series trucks. First problem was that the 3-valve spark plug has a long extended tip that originally was two piece...this probably looked great on paper to help plug cooling and packaging, but nobody seemed to realize what carbon build-up would do to the surrounding orifice of the plug in the cylinder head. Yup, you guessed it, carbon buildup would seize the lower extension of the plug and it would break off when removing. This became exasperated when the plug change intervals was upped to 100,000 miles and became the debacle we see all over the internet today. The second issue was on the F-series the engines sit way back under the cowl causing rain water to drip down onto the last cylinders, that would eventually leak past the coil seal and fill the plug hole in the head with water.....rusts the plug...eventually has a misfire due to moisture in coil/boot. Then the plug is corroded and not easy to remove. The advice around the shop was never go more than around 30K miles on plugs if you want to get them out. Ironically, other shops would say never touch a 3-valve plug unless you have to, lol. We had some success in getting the factory plugs out by running seafoam through the engine first to help clean the carbon out. Oh, and always replace with one-piece plugs!
So, anyway after that long winded post this is useless info to Class C guys as the E-series doesn't have that engine, but maybe a Class A 3-valve guy might stumble in some time. Cheers
WARNING-----Seriously Boring Somewhat Irrelevant Info Follows:
A side not about plug problems, if anyone seen my previous post, I stated that I worked for a large Ford dealer for almost 20 years. One thing we saw in the early modular engines (pre-2002) was spark plug blow-out, mainly due to not enough threads in the heads. Actually, IMO this wasn't even a wide-spread issue, but you know how the internet goes so now all Ford engines have this problem, lol. This (again IMO) caused additional problem from backyard mechanics tightening the snot out of replacement plugs because they "heard" about all these "problems" and the next guy couldn't get those ones out without screwing things up.
Next came the 3 valve engines that had two problems...mostly in F-series trucks. First problem was that the 3-valve spark plug has a long extended tip that originally was two piece...this probably looked great on paper to help plug cooling and packaging, but nobody seemed to realize what carbon build-up would do to the surrounding orifice of the plug in the cylinder head. Yup, you guessed it, carbon buildup would seize the lower extension of the plug and it would break off when removing. This became exasperated when the plug change intervals was upped to 100,000 miles and became the debacle we see all over the internet today. The second issue was on the F-series the engines sit way back under the cowl causing rain water to drip down onto the last cylinders, that would eventually leak past the coil seal and fill the plug hole in the head with water.....rusts the plug...eventually has a misfire due to moisture in coil/boot. Then the plug is corroded and not easy to remove. The advice around the shop was never go more than around 30K miles on plugs if you want to get them out. Ironically, other shops would say never touch a 3-valve plug unless you have to, lol. We had some success in getting the factory plugs out by running seafoam through the engine first to help clean the carbon out. Oh, and always replace with one-piece plugs!
So, anyway after that long winded post this is useless info to Class C guys as the E-series doesn't have that engine, but maybe a Class A 3-valve guy might stumble in some time. Cheers
