I am going to go look at a 97 f150 thursday that has the 5.4 triton. It has 140k on it... What is the deal on these engines blowing out spark plugs? Is it very common? Is this something that should stop me from buying?
I am going to go look at a 97 f150 thursday that has the 5.4 triton. It has 140k on it... What is the deal on these engines blowing out spark plugs? Is it very common? Is this something that should stop me from buying?
I had a 97 E150 with the 5.4 I put almost 200k on it with no problems.
shouldn't be an issue. most of the plug blowouts are the PI versions found in later years.
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/index.php
Go here for good info on Ford trucks.
I don't have one myself for from what I read there are two common problems. The early heads didn't have that many threads cut in the head and the spark plugs would "blow out:" of the head stripping the threads when they let go. I'm not sure on what years production this covers. Ford fixed this at some point but I can't say when.
The other problem is the upper part of the spark plug breaking off when you attempt to remove it. Putting some kind of penetrating oil on the plug first and letting it sit of a day or two usually results in not having any issues. Trying to pull a plug on a warm/hot engine with no prepraration, bad things can happen.
The plug breakage was so common that there are a few companies making special tools to remove the broken plug. With the tool you can get the plug out without damaging the threads.
The easy fix is just don't leave the plugs in there for 100K+ miles.
Neither plug problem is really a problem now, since they are both so common, everybody has either the Timesert repair kit for the early ones, or the Lisle broken plug remover kit for the newer ones. Don't worry about it.
Proper torque on the early ones helps a lot...
Neighbor Matt had his Exploder blow one out and the E36 M3ty kit they gave him did nothing, it actually had pretty obvious gas paths and he eventually sold it out of disgust. I wasn't involved, other than the sob story and seeing the insert that he had tried.
tuna55 wrote: Neighbor Matt had his Exploder blow one out and the E36 M3ty kit they gave him did nothing, it actually had pretty obvious gas paths and he eventually sold it out of disgust. I wasn't involved, other than the sob story and seeing the insert that he had tried.
A good reason not to buy a E36 M3ty kit, I guess. Theres millions out there running just fine with a timesert repair.
alright cool, thanks for the tips guys. Another reason why I love this forum.
My 2c as a 4.6 owner:
It does happen, and it does happen to all 2v motors build BEFORE 2003. It happened to my 97 4.6 F150, which is only a 215hp motor. It's not that big of a deal to be honest. Expect a $400 repair at the dealer(where I had it done due to the circumstances). I'm going to be looking for a new 97-2003 f150 in the next year or two since I already have a nice cap for that generation, and know how to work on them. If I can(aka still have the current truck), I'll probably pull the heads and insert them as insurance since it is the tow vehicle and needs to be 100% reliable.
Also: the 3v heads get their spark plugs stuck due to the extended reach design. The threads are actually 2 inches or so back from the combustion chamber, which allows carbon to stick the plug to the head. I've heard that just hitting them with an impact actually works great to release them. If they do get stuck, the extended reach portion of the plug(2 piece) separates from the top. Again, it's a pain, but not the end of the world to deal with since there are SOO many 3v mod motors out there.
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