I recently bought my first truck (2000 f150 4.6) thinking that all it had was a small exaust leak in the manifold. I have posted a thread discussing that i had come to the conclusion that it was the egr tube and nipple that needed attention and so i connected the two and that silenced the problem. I had lent a family member the use of my truck to drive stuff up to another family member and with 50 km left in the 400km drive he heard a loud ticking noise. The garage looked at it and found that there was a broken spark plug in one of the holes, but what the previous owner did was stuff a second shorter spark plug down in the hole to get rid of the loud noise, and it worked...temporarily, until i got it and drove a distance. Im guessing that there is some damage done because if it was like that before i got it and ive driven approx 700km since ive gotten it. My question is, is replacing the cylinder head going to be the best option due to the likelihood of the damage? or is there other damage that may have occured? To make matters worse its 4 hours away and moving for a new job in a week which is 8 hours from where the truck is.
Im assuming that helicoils are out of my options due to other damage than just thread damage. Any comments?

 

Time Sert / Big sert kit.

 

right on, ill ask about them before helicoils. If there was damage to the hole (ovalization)the big serts would be large enough to probably not have to worry about that?

 

The Time sert is a much stroger, more permanent repair. There is a member her that rents the kits, Galaxy. Do an advanced search of "timesert" or "blown plug". Should get some material to read.

 

Don't ever use Helicoils in these engines, they don't work for long. Time sert is the way to go. It will depend upon how bad the plug chamber is screwed up. Like how did it get ovaled? The Big Sert is most likley your last hope, other than that you'll need a head.

 

I havent even seen the problem with my own eyes, its been all on the phone, so i really have little idea how bad the situation is, however i had a guy look at it today, tried to get the plug out with no luck, but he was using the 2004 and up extractor tool, and he said there is another tool for the ones that are older than 2004, but again, no one in the town has one, he called, i called... I called a contact in that area and he says he knows a guy that can get it out no problem, almost guarantees it. hopefully tomorrow he will get at it, ill keep everyone posted.
Thanks for the advice so far everyone!

 

Called the shop today, and he told me he does time serts, just waiting on to see if the other guy can get the plug out and see the damage. The guy at the shop also said he was prettysure to use the big sert the head needs to come off, is this true?

 

Got a kit from NAPA, and got it installed, all good to go

 

nice, good to hear