First I want to thank everyone on the board that has shared their experiences with this. I believe it made the job go much easier then it could have been. My truck has 65,000 miles and I wanted to get this done now thinking it would be easier then when it has 100,000. We were pretty successful at it. We only had one break.

I picked up every thing I would need ahead of time. I ordered the Lisle tool, the nickel anti seize and the new motorcraft spark plugs online. Ever thing else I picked up at the local autozone. We used gumout carb cleaner and some permatex penetrating oil.

My son and I started the job on Friday night. The engine was still a little warm when we started. We disconnected the negative terminal from the battery and removed the factory intake and the pcm from the passenger side firewall to give us more room to work. We pulled all the coils and marked them so they would go back on the same cylinder they came off of.

We then proceeded to break the plugs loose the 1/4 turn needed to soak them with the carb cleaner. This was the part that made me really nervous. I figured if we were going to break a plug this is when it would happen. We then sprayed all the plugs with the carb cleaner. We decided to let them soak overnight to give the carb cleaner a longer time to soften up the carbon on the plugs.

The next morning waiting for my son to show up I went out and gave each plug a shot of the permatex. I then left them sit for about ten minutes. I started in the front and worked my way back. I worked the plugs back and forth a little bit at a time as I worked them out. They did make some noise as they came out. I got the front six plugs out and none of them broke. I then let the back two for my son. He’s a lot smaller then I am and it’s easier for him to reach the back plugs. He can climb right up in the engine bay.

When my son showed up he started with # 7. This is the plug that broke. We pulled out the Lisle tool and went to work. It took us a little bit to figure out how to use the tool but once we figured it out it went pretty smooth. The only mistake we made was not getting enough of the porcelain out before starting with the tool. We ended pushing the porcelain right through the strap and a small piece of the strap broke off and fell down into the cylinder. We used my shopvac on the cylinder and were lucky that it pulled the piece out. He then went to #8 and that plug came out ok, just made a little noise like the others did. Looking at the plugs and how hard the carbon still was on the plug that broke. I don’t think we turned it far enough to let the carb cleaner get down in the plug hole to soften up the carbon.

We reconnected the battery and then turned the engine over a few times to blow out any excess carb cleaner before we started putting in the new plugs. Then we disconnected the battery again. We coated all the plug shanks with the nickel anti seize and put in all the new plugs. We then replaced all the coils. Placed the pcm back on the firewall and put the stock intake back on. Reconnected the battery and then we started the truck and it started up and ran fine. We then took it for a test drive. It seems to run a little smother with the new plugs. I will keep track of my fuel mileage over the next several weeks and see if the plug change makes a difference.

Sorry for such a long post but wanted to share my experience with others. We made a few mistakes but we learned for the next time we need to do this. I think I’ll do this again in another 65,000 mile. Now that the plugs have the anti seize coating hopefully we won’t have any break the next time

 

Did you use dielectric grease inside the coil boots?

 

Yes we did. I forgot to mention that part in my original post.