While i am a true blue ford fan i know your pain. It started with a ticking noise on driver side of truck like a exhaust manifold leak, took it to mike Davidson ford on Atlantic blvd. They told me it was the #8 cylinder and it would be 800.00 to go futher to find the problem. I explained it was driverside not passangerside but they knew better than me ..ha...ha. I was leaving yulee back to jacksonville when the second plug from the front ejected on driverside. Called around prices ranged between 500.00 to 800.00 to fix. Called david &debbies repair in hollyford off main street, he told me bring it right over and he would look at it. I unhooked the coil and disconnected the fuel injector and put a boat drain plug in the plug hole to get there. Pulled up he did a helicoil with a stainless insert and fixed my broken coil pack in 30 min. flat. He only charged 150.00 to repair. Truck runs great with no tick, sounds like the day i bought it. If interested his # is 904-424-5623 or 904-254-4870. Ask for dave or debbie, and tell them the guy in the red2001 ford lightning sent you. It's worth the time and money i was very pleased with the workmanship.

 

Never have this problem fixed at the dealership above, -"david &debbies repair in hollyford off main street". If they don't know eough NOT to use a cheap heli-coil kit, then you don't want them working on your vehicle. A Heli-Coil is a Temporary CHEAP fix that in MOST cases does not last.

I suggest you go elsewhere until you locate a shop or dealership with experienced techs that use reliable products and techniques fixing this problem. The Time-Sert/Big Sert repair and procedure has been proven over and over again to, where Heli-Coil almost always fail.

 

Yea, the members of this site will stand behind what works here and lets others know what doesn't. The Heli-Coil doesn't work in the long run for Spark Plug thread repair. In fact, it may just be very short term.

 

While i know it's hard to believe that there is a quick fix, with the proper heli-coil with stainless inserts can be a good repair. Since repair i have traveled more than 1,000 miles pulled my 23ft center consol boat, a car trailer loaded.
It's alot better than letting so called experts work on something they can't even find on there high tech diagnostic machine they charge you 118.00 to hook up to.Since this time i have put threads about this on alot of sites and dave and debbies repair has fixed more of our communities 4.6, 5.4,and 6.2 mod motors from ford and all have said they were happy with repair.If you have someone who doesn't know how to use properly, or have a cheap heli-coil kit it could be a bad repair.I have since checked repair and is holding fine.I have always went to ford dealership for repairs and have never been this satisfied with any of there work.It's a money game to them.

 

heli-coil repair

 

is temporary.

 

I agree with you on Ford. There probably the worst,most expensive place to have that repair done.
But I also agree that the heli-coil is a temporary fix!
There are more reliable fixes out there. Such as the timesert!

Phil

 

Well, about a month ago my 2000 F-150 4.6L blew out the #3 plug. This was two days before I was going to take it in for trade on my new 2008 F-150 Lariat Screw. I guess I shouldn't have driven it to look at new trucks. She figured out what I was up and let me know she was not happy!

I bought colvinry's Timesert kit from this thread https://www.f150online.com/forums/pa...1-25-sale.html and finished the repair today. I fired her up a few hours ago and all is well again.

The Timesert kit is very well designed and comes with clear instructions. If you are wondering if you can do this, I'd say anyone that can take their time and follow the instructions should not have any problem.

There were few things that I did to make the repair a little easier: 1. My friend works at a shop where he was able to borrow a Snap-On borescope camera. I used it to make sure that both valves were closed and the piston was at BDC before I started any of the work.

2. I used lots of grease, and during the first two steps (cutting the counterbore and reaming the hole) I removed the tool often to clear the chips and refill the grooves with fresh grease.

3. I used a 3/8" air ratchet to turn the cutting tool for the reaming step. For all other steps I turned the cutting tools by hand so that I could feel what was happening. (One of my first jobs was working for a shop foreman who had been a machinist and he insisted that I always take my time and "feel" the threads and torque of nuts, bolts, and taps while working, not just crank down on it with on the largest wrench I could find. :-)

4. I used a funnel and a length of tubing to make shop-vac hose extension to vacuum the cylinder for chips when all the cutting was done. Even with the frequent grease changes, some chips still made it into the cylinder. My vacuum rig picked them up. (See pics below.) You can see the stuff that it picked up from the cylinder in the second pic. I thought I would have to tape the end of the shop-vac hose to the funnel, but the suction held it here just fine. The small clear hose was fastened to the funnel with Gorilla tape.

Thanks colvinry for the Timesert kit and for sharing his experience doing the repair. For a job I hoped I would never do, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I had to close the deal on my new truck without a trade-in, but I now have a private buyer lined up. If he doesn't want to buy the Timesert kit, I will post it in the for sale section and/or put it on eBay.

Thanks to everyone who has posted their experience with their blown out plug repair. I spent a long time searching and reading your posts before I started.

 

Nice..

 

Thanks jbrew! The thought of reaming and tapping an aluminum head with all those metal chips going *****-nilly into the cylinder makes me reallllly nervous but with frequent grease changes, a good inspection mirror, and the tiny vac hose, it turned out ok.

The Timesert Triton kit is excellent. Hard to go wrong if you follow the instructions and clean chips/change grease obsessively. :o

 

Well, I posted at the beginning of this thread when i had a plug blow out.

That was 8 years ago and 120K miles have been put on the time sert fix and it is still running well.
Time sert is the only way i would recommend fixing a blown plug.

 

I didn't go back and find where I posted my original blow out or even read any more of it besides the last page that came up. It was many years ago when I had my first. Since then I've had a lot of experience from many blowouts and re-blowouts (mostly 3rd one back passenger side). They only repairs I ever used until recently was the Heli-coil "save-a-thread" solid insert. They don't work forever. Every one of mine has come out, then you are left with a larger hole and a harder fix.

When the last one blew a week or two ago, and took the "save-a-thread" out, I found this kit. However, it didn't work since I had a bigger hole now. So now this kit rides around with me as an emergency roadside repair, instead of driving home with an open cylinder sounding like a helicopter.

I also broke down and bought the Big-sert kit. It fixed the larger hole, but I don't think the repair went exactly as planned. We'll see if it lasts. I'm going to fix up the head on my old motor that was replaced when it blew a plug and seized with the big-serts and keep it handy for a backup.

I'll tell you what though, this plug business is BS. I can't believe that I have had so many problems with this. I don't even flinch anymore when it happens. I just pull over, collect the broken parts, disconnect the injector and then hit the road again for the shop.

Oh yeah, I forgot I've also had the same hole that has blown out several plugs, blow apart a plug. The porcelain part blew right out of the metal.

Anyway guys, the heli-coil seems like it will work, but it will blow again. 1000 miles might not do it, but I'll tell you it's just a matter of time. I've even jb-welded one in that came out.

 

Had #4 sparkplug repaired with TIMESERT after blowout , replaced #4 COP, along with new plugs and plug boots on the remaining 7...now there's a ticking sound coming from deep inside the engine block.

Any ideas of what may be the source of the new ticking?

Note: drove about 8 miles after sparkplug blowout, thought it was a hole in the manifold...

 

Well, the ticking sound, which should sound almost idential to an exhaust leak, is a tell tale sign of an impending blowout. It's blow-by from the plug that's not seated properly. This same sound can come from a plug that has simply backed out also, creating a similar condition with the same sound.

How long have you been driving since the repair??

How long have you been driving since the plug change on the other cylinders?

Recommendation: Go check the torque on ALL the plugs to make sure they're seated and torqued/installed properly and that you don't have any backed loose.

Ticking could be numerous things, including an exhaust leak; but let's eliminate the plug potential first.

Oh yea...I will guarantee you if this ends up being a plug problem, it is NOT the TimeSert one (unless you don't have the plug in right

 

Galaxy -- thanks for the response,

The ticking sound is more of a CLICKING, deep in the block.

Clicking Sound was immediate after the TimeSert repair was complete (could have been there while driving w/ the blown spark plug, and blown plug was so loud I couldn't hear it)

All other plugs changed with when #4 was repaired w/ TimeSert -- by a local, well trusted professional garage -- varied w/ tool supplier, this shop uses TimeSert Triton repair kit.

Shop guaranteed me the TimeSert repaired #4 sparkplug will not blowout again.

Clicking is not another plug, and not exhaust...any other ideas?

Thanks for any respones -- may just drive it until it locks up and put in a Jasper...