I really think your buddy that said he could do it in the first post probably can.
Don't sound like a bad plan to me.

He also said he had a scope so just look after you get it installed and then if you can't get something out you see in there then spend the 16 hours taking the head off.

I am betting you can pull it off just like you originally thought or with most of the ideas ya got here that was for leaving the head on.

tom

 

Check the threads agian, there is another company making an insert for this problem. The kit is engine specific and looked to be a bit easier than the Heli-coil kit. the thread even had a link to the site for the manu. and you could order it online.

 

I use to build quite a few small block Chevy motors,and a friend came to me with a stripped plug on the head.I retapped it,used the ole shop vac,and installed the plug.The motor had like 40k miles on it at the time and ran until like 175k miles.Do it with the head on!

 

This should help:

http://www.timesert.com/bigsert-repair.html

http://www.timesert.com/sprksert.html

Used this on my F150 5.4L Triton two months ago, works great.
Worth every penny. You could check around and see if a mechanic would do it for you who is familiar with the kit, but I chose to go through the trouble myself. I did not remove the head from the motor.

 

Trucks back on the road. That was not fun. You guys who say you have this kit, did you have to take a grinder the the threader? I had to grind this thing down two sizes to fit it into the hole with a socket on it. Was gonna have my buddy weld an 3/8" socket extension to the top of it, but he was not available. Anyway, finally got it to fit. rethreaded it with wheel bearing grease in the flutes. I only did a few turns at a time before removing it and cleaning them. Couldn't see a damn thing the whole time. I got pretty messy and I'm pretty sure I didn't get everything cleaned out. It took a lot of metal outa there. After cutting the hole, i made a vacuum extension and tried to vacuum stuff out. I don't think it worked well at all. Grease is sticky stuff. So I started it hoping to blow anything out that might have fallen. No problems so I finished up. THe insert was a pain in the a too. Supposed to use you fingers, but if your not an alien you can't get you fingers into the hole. SO I used the tap since it has threads the same size. Insert would not stay in. I eventually stuck it in lightly in a vise and bent the top out a bit. I also ran the tap in and out just a bit no make it smoother. It finally stayed in after about 5 tries. each try was messy working with the sealant, and leftbehind grease. I tried to clean the hole, but you just cant see what you doing with any tools. Anyways, it finally stayed in and i left it overnight and finished up this evening. Everthing is fine so far. I'm sure i got some stuff in the cylinders. Must be a pretty tough motor. I will not be doing this to all cylinders. I will check the plugs now and then when i have a few minutes.

Thanks for the advise everyone!!

valk1500, thats the kit I had wanted, but there number was always busy. The kind of busy that says the line is disconnected.

 

If it isn't banging already you did not get enough stuff there to break a piston. You are out of the woods I believe.

Do get one of the Snapon long spark plug sockets. With that and one time of torqueing the plugs correctly should give you plenty of miles of driving without worry of blowing another.

Just cleaning debris out of one of those spark plug holes can be a nightmare before you even loosen a plug. I can imagine the fit one would have working down that long hole. Sounds like you made it though so congrats.

tom

 

Here is the link for distributors:

http://www.timesert.com/dist.html

I got my kit from: Thread Kits Co. Torrance CA (310) 891-1995

I used grease, but befor installing the insert with the locktite I used brake parts cleaner to rinse all grease into the cylinder then took a clear type vacume line and duct taped it to the shop vac and vacumed all the liquid out, about 1 cup came out with no filings to be found. The reason no filings got down into the cylinder was I kept taking the reamer out many times and cleaned and regreased the flutes on the reamer to make sure none would go inside the cylinder and it worked. The filings just would keep building up in the grease in the flutes of the reamer, it was a time consumer, but I was very happy with the outcome.

Then I took a hair drier to be **** and blew hot air into the hole to dry it out as good as possible befor installing the insert with the locktite.

I think the Big-Sert Kit and 1 insert was $130.00, but I beleive this kit was well worth the price, very well designed and I'm so happy to have my truck back up and running great.

I originally bought the kit you had but returned it. I saw how the tap head was so big that I could'nt get a socket on the end of it. I knew there had to be a better kit, and I found it only after searching this site.

This site saved my life on this problem.

 

Time-sert has a very nice repair for this.
here is a link to the tooling and what is all involved.
http://www.timesert.com/FORD%20TRITO...G%20REPAIR.htm

Cheers

 

HI!... Well I will find out if it works for me in about 30 minutes. Last night my front passenger's side plug took the head threads with it when I removed it. Not ready for the new built engine so got to fix it. Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!

 

Yikes, that blows. Will you remove the head from the engine for the repair??

 

HI!.. Well it's fixed. Not to hard actually, just time consuming. A GREAT thanks go out to JMC for actually doing most of it. My nerves were rattled from work today so with my bad temper, I was advised to stay away. lol! We used the TIME SERT set-up and did it on the truck. No head removal. We experimented on a old bare casting head of JMC's before we did it on my truck. Worked out great. We used bearing grease on the taps flutes and removed it and cleaned it often. About every two full turns. We then vacuumed the plug port out with a turkey baster tapped to the vacuum hose. I then got the grease out of the plug port by using a large pipe cleaner and a twisted up shop rag. Cam out crystal clean. I bet we removed 95% of the aluminum shavings. Fired right up with NO ill affects.