My old man has an 03 F150 with a 5.4 triton, had a crate motor dropped in 4 years ago due to a quick lube joint and an unattentive sibling driving it. Basicly it developed a misfire and scanner said check #3 cylinder, new coil pack and spark plug later, and its running, but the plug we pulled was covered in oil around the base of the plug. Trying to figure out how that could happen. Doesn't look like a bad valve cover Gasket could do that, so what?!?!?!?! How?!?! Kinda scratching my head on this one.
Broken ring = oil blow-by = wet plug.
Less than 15k on the motor
Before you get to worried about things check and clean the PCV system etc
A simple compression test will tell you if you have any issues with rings.
What did the electrode look like? Crudded up, or the usual grey? That'll tell you if the oil is coming from inside the motor, or from an external source? Also what makes you think that it's NOT the valve cover?
Base of the plug, like around the hex? If so, that is either a porous head casting, or the small amount of cooling oil in the dead coil ran out and landed around the plug.
yeah, base of the plug around the hex. I'll pull a compression check on it this weekend. The design of the head leads me to believe it's not very likely to be a valve cover gasket. besides there being no evidence of a leak anywhere else. I'll shoot a picture of the plug later and post it tomorrow from work. The insulator was cracked, and the gap was something like .015 too large.
b13990
New Reader
4/23/13 1:15 p.m.
In reply to Spinout007:
I've been told that Ford has had a tough time keeping oil out of the cylinder on those OHC V8s. When they switched to a 5W20 oil recommendation circa 2001, "improved volatility" was one of the claimed benefits. That is, they switched to an oil that burns better... which says something.
You may have an issue, sure; but if you've been blindly dumping in SAE30, that by itself may be the problem.
EDIT: Googled it, and the consensus seems to be that "modular " motors inhale copious oil through the PCV valve.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. Drive it for a few thousand, pull the coil and look again.
b13990 wrote:
the problem.
EDIT: Googled it, and the consensus seems to be that "modular " motors inhale copious oil through the PCV valve.
This was what I was getting at.
