I am a member of the lost plug group. #2 went out on me a couple weeks ago. I put a helicoil type insert in and went on with life. Last week it started to miss terribly. I pull the #2 coil and plug and it was not a pretty sight. The coil pack's boot had melted and the spring in the coil pack melted itself into the top of the sparkplug. I took out the plug ( a +4) and the ceramic under the prongs was all cracked. The prongs looked fine, no damage from contact or anything. When I took out the plug the top thread and a half of the insert also came out. I put a new plug and coil pack on last week. I don't have a real "confident" feeling about the insert because it was half missing. The plug will hand tighten, then when I go to snug it up, it gets loose. But it's still in the threads. You can't remove the plug with out taking it completely loose. So I hand tightened it and just a smidge more. I drove about 200 miles since then and last night I started to get that same missing. It went away after I went up the hill and it drove ok the rest of the way. full throttle, idle, and in between. There's no notable miss in the exhaust sound. I had an ODB-2 scanner on it and nothing. So I think I am going to have to pull the head.

I have a couple of questions though....

1) Do I have to take the timing chain off like Chilton's says? If so how do I not mess things up when they tell you to rotate the crank to move the keyway to the 12 o'clock position?

2) Do I need to replace the intake manifold gasket? Exhaust manifold gasket?

3) What brand of cylinder head gasket should I get?

4) Where can I get new head bolts? I haven't found any specifically for the 5.4.

5) Should I replace the other side while I'm at it?

6) Should I put inserts in the rest of the cylinders on the passenger side since I will have it out?

I am looking for any help I can get. And of course this is my daily driver and I need it before Christmas....

By the way the truck has almost 100k on it.

 

Neal, Do you have any help? I think you are someone who probably has done this or at least seen the heads torn off more than I know.

bb