Still in one piece but definitely not looking good for 25,776 K







#3 & #4 all wide open once the PCM is pulled back out of the way





If I would have know about this BIG problem in advance I don’t think I would have gotten this truck with this engine

 

It's not a problem if you left them alone.

It's only a problem when you start fixing things that aren't broke.

 

I'm not an ostrich

 

Roger that, JP! And thanks.

Here's a quote for those other folks:

"There are times when one fails to see why God thought it necessary to devise the ostrich." - John Wyndam

Cheers
Grog

 

One can only imagine the reaction of the used car dealer tech that is told to do a tune up on an 04+ f-150 in preperation for resale. For sale used f-150, All the power options. Leather seats, the works. Single owner. Battery included. Some assembly required...

JMC

 

I can see the signs now. For Sale 04-05 F 150 only 99,999 miles

 

99.999999999999999% of all 5.4 3V owners will not be changing their plugs before 100K.

Why?

Because they don't visit this site, and they have no clue there might be a problem.

Life will go on, as it did before a few people here had a problem with their plugs.

The sky is not falling.

 

1st off, I don't have an 04/05 f150.
But I have to chime in here.
Has anyone else pulled a plug off that has that carbon build-up?
I think that tshaid may have had other issues which caused the severe carbon build-up. Bad gas, or something else. That carbon build-up made the tip of the plug jam on the way out, and the continued removal just pulled the end off.
This may be a tempest in a teapot if the carbon buildup is a rare occurance caused by other factors.
It is the carbon, not the rust staining that causes the problem. There will only be an issue if the build-up of rust or carbon becomes larger than the spark plug hole.
Personnaly, if I owned an 04/05 I would do regular check ups on my plugs, because I keep vehicles well past the 100K mark.
Time will tell.

 

I just discovered another disturbing fact about the plugs I recently removed. I was wiping the rust off them when a few of the plugs began to spin within the thread. The top of the plug and the insert actually turn freely inside of the thread body. I don’t know if they were like that before I took them out but there are some serious issues with this plug design. Anyone else tried to clean up the old plugs and have this happen?

 

This gets better and better.

After reading your comment about the insert tips spinning freely I took a look at the 8 I removed and I got to say at 22.5K miles I have considerably less rust on the inserts than any of the pictures we have seen. I gave them a quick wipe off and also held the tip tight and could not get any one of them to turn.

So, is this a result of a lot more rust on the tip causing them to be very snug upon removal and as you have said before that they made a lot of screeching noise and were tight when you removed them. That might have caused force on the tips loosening them up. Now this beggs a question as to why you have a lot more rust on the plugs than I do. Is it the gas we use? Our local climate? How our engines are tuned? Is your head different than mine?

I've been running a performance 91 tune and a 91 tow tune for the past 15K miles. Never went back to 87.

Good questions, no answers.

 

Not trying to **** you off, but why were you cleaning up old plugs? Were you planning on putting them back in? If so, then the following applies. Why take the chance with plugs that have been weakened by removal and reinstallation? It seems like an unecessary risk to me. At $70 every two years (assuming you got the plugs for $8.50 each) I would think that the worst part about this whole situation is the trouble of changing them...not the cost. Why cut corners with your $40,000 truck? Buy new plugs next time. Throw those old rusty plugs away...and stop cleaning them!

 

Your right about throwing the old ones away. Now that jpdadeo has found his are not in good condition its just SOP to put new ones in. At first we thought pulling them and cleaning them then putting them back in might be a good maintenance procedure but now it isn't!

 

I got a 3sec windows media video (35.3KB) of one of the plugs spinning but no way to host it. If someone will host it, I’ll send it to you


freekyFX4 I wasn’t going to reuse them I was just curious about how bad the rust is. The rust seems to be superficial, most of it wipes off with a rag

 

Here it is "spinning plug" ~ #1 _ #3 _ #7 spin


new footage of the "spinner / shaker" plug

Pic of the #1 plug showing a brown stain on the porcelain where I think it was leaking compression. All three of the “spinners” have a stain like this and none of the other plugs “non-spinners” has the stain

 

jpdadeo That is scarry!

I thought it was just the tip insert that was turning on you. Not the complete inside from tip to end. So, what does that do to compression? Any leaking maybe.

Now take that one to your dealer and see how he wiggles out of it.