thanks alot ford!!!!!
 

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...o/IMAG0550.jpg

Here ya go!!! Another story of a snapped plug on a 5.4. I'm not and engineer but you can just look at the wall thickness on these plugs and tell there was gonna be an issue! Garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Got the lilse tool coming tomorrow to extract the 2 dead soldiers in the head.

Unfortunately this is all to common for the FORD mod motors.

looks like to me a bad quality plug or it was over tightened should always use some lube on the new plugs---btw why is it fords fault did they fit the spark plugs
:beer:

Aussie, its a specific application for a spark plug that is used only in Ford Triton series engines, they are notorious for breaking plugs off in the head, its a pretty crappy design from the get go. I don't care for the motors at all(mine blew up at 105K). Ford may have not made hte spark plug, but they set the design and spec for it(pretty crappy)


On another Ford repair note(actually navistar) I'm replacing the high pressure oil lines on my van today(7.3 diesel), I got hte replacement lines from the ford dealer, they told me I needed to replace the fittings that screw into teh heads as well, any one done this? Any input?

KJ, funny thing you posted that up. I was getting two of my trucks inspected thursday at the garage at the end of my road and the guy there was having the same trouble with a Ford truck he was changing plugs in. He said it was a design flaw and he had broke off as many as five plugs on one motor. He and I agreed using Felpro copper anti-seize definately helps this kinda trouble.

I changed plugs on my buddys 5.4 and had the block at room temp,dis the penetrating oil overnight, and broke the plugs loose and did back and forth teqnique for removal and didn't have a problem on none of his plugs. I went to do my personal truck and I broke one. It broke below the threads so it completely out of your hands when it breaks on that lower bond on the plug. This is ideal situation I'm dealing with.worse case scenario is pulling the threads out with the plug. I'm lucky!!!!! I only had 2 break.

Aussie, as spare stated already it was not my error. It a terrible design flaw in these motors.

spare, tell ford to piss off... the fittings should be FINE

here is a kit to replace what actually wears

dieselorings.com is a great resource for anyone who owns one of these powerstrokes

EDIT:
FWIW tho I re-used my 300,000+ mi fittings without replacing anything on them and haven't had any issues for more than a year

all ready got them on, btw the fitting o-ring kit is $9, the whole fitting was $12. I went ahead and put the fittings on, figured I had them in hand, and it wasn't too hard

Well heck that's not as bad as I figured it'd be.

well i dont quite understand how a spark plug can break ----only alot of force can break it so if there tight why keep pushing till they break ---a bit of spray back and forth motion and some patence should get them out ---i see it as a spark plug and a aluminum head which is always a problem the only spark plugs i ever have problems with is from people cross threading them :oh:----why is this desighn different from other engines

if you look at that picture, you'll see that teh threads are at teh top of the plug, there's about a half inch missing off the bottom, the plug goes down thru the head in an area that traps debris, the area below the threads get gummed up with carbon, if they had threaded the plug all the way, and made it a little thicker around the porcelain, there would be no issue, but they cheapened out, making the plug thin and not threaded all the way down

heres a little more info about it
http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/120

http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_n...-calls-routine

They are 3 piece spark plugs soldere together. It's a piss poor design at best, and it is VERY common to break one or two doing them. FORD gets about $400 to fix each one, and it is such a common issue that the price is listed out front on the board with the price of a tune-up.

i have never come across them here may google it to see what you guys are talking about

just had a look never seen anything like them on aussie cars now i understand

Its issues like that, I just dont understand why people are still buying the ford/chrysler gm junk.

And I used to be so pro-american cars..............then I had to work on them for a living....pffffft

Your entitled to your opinion, but I wouldn't call them all junk. Yes FORD has the mod motor spark plug problems up till about mid year 04, but the imports have just as many or more problems. I cringe everytime somebody brings me an import to work on. Finding parts can be just as hard as doing the repairs. I'll stick with the AMERICAN "junk" myself, and let others deal with the imports.

most of that Chrysler junk, is imported junk! Fords better engines are made by Yamaha and i don't think there is a better engine on the market right now than GM's LS series

Yep, the GM LS engines are a TRUE MARVEL of engineering. How many V8's out there can be pushed up to over 700HP on stock bottem ends, and still live for over 100K miles. Or how many gas engines out there are well known for going in excess of 500,000 miles with only minimal work(water pumps, plugs, wires, and alternators). there are to many to count of these LS engines in fleet service running 300K miles with never a wrench put on the engine except maintence or a water pump. And they sill get as good or better milage than most of tehse fancy over head camshaft engines with less wear parts to replace.

Its mostly chrysler that I really dont understand why people keep buying, I do think its the biggest junk on the road today.

I tend to stick with volvo and toyota/lexus anymore. Easy to work on, and parts are plenty and cheap.

Ford is not so bad, and neither is GM except the are goverment now. Dont tell me you hate obama, and then buy a new GM.

Chrysler though, is just junk. Period.

I just did some work on a TOYOTA, and it took me almost 3 weeks just to get the heater hoses for the dam thing so I could do the water pump, belts and hoses. EVERY single import I work on blows up in my face trying to find parts for it. Yes GM got a bailout, but in reality FORD got a BIGGER one(it just wasn't called a bailout). CHRYSLER has had some trouble and I haven't worked on that was newer than about an 07 so I don't have any recent experience with them. I just can't stand the mentality of epople who feel imports are so much better when in reality they are not. Go around to repair shops and ask what they dread seeing the most, I bet it's an import.

A good friend of mine is the service manager at a big Honda dealership, he laughs about the fact that people think Honda's are so much better than other cars, he explained it to me once. He told me Honda takes care of issues right now, and quietly, they don't wait for it to make head lines or become lawsuits, he told me there are all kinds of "quite' settlements that Honda has, but people don't hear about them. They are instructed to take care of the people who ask, but don't go around adverting it. If there is an issue, they fix it, and do it right.The second biggest thing about Honda's owners is most of them aren't car people, they look at their car as transportation, if the owners manual says it need this at this many miles, they do it, no questions. My friend has worked at several other car manufacture dealerships before working at a Honda one, he told me compared to the dealerships, you would be surprised how many people take their Honda to the dealer for an oil change, or a brake job. They let the dealership take car of it all, because they don't want problems. If the owners manual says you need to do this at this many miles, they take it to the dealer and have it done, if they find something else on the car that needs to be taken care of, they have it done without question. Don't take me wrong, Honda dose make a nice car(they make a horrible outboard though), but give a lot of credit to the fact that most modern vehicles, if maintained properly, will give you miles of service

Ooooooo, the ls series engines. They are top of the mark. Have one in the Tahoe and a few in my f bodies.

i find this all hard to beleive so if a dealer breaks a spark plug on your car and its still under waranty do you have to pay extra ----have they changed the desighn--i would of thought ford would of done some testing on these plugs before they used them on there engines----has anyone made a spark plug to fix the issue---sounds crazy from a place like USA you would think it would of been in the courts and fixxed fast

if it's under warranty it's free.... it's AFTER the warranty that we have to pay

I was told they make a one piece plug now...... I will call bull$hit on that one. The motorcraft ones I bought a week ago are 3 piece plugs. They'd get carboned and bound up in the base, or they pull the threads out. Hey Aussie Look up 3valve ford,or 5.4 plug removle on YouTube.

I have a 2008 F250 with about 57k miles. It has a 60k mile warranty.

The truck is running great.

Would it behoove me to take it to the dealer to change the plugs while still under warranty? I am guess I would need to pay for a "tune-up", but if they need to repair any broken plugs, it would be on them?

It doesn't sound like trying to change them myself is something I want to attempt.

rkc

I have the 5.4 in my FX4 expedition. I had the 100k service done and was dreading the plugs popping. My local guy, not a ford dealer, got them all out in one piece. His guidance is that every 40k they should be replaced as cheap insurance. She's got 120k on the clock right now, still running great.

Every car company has had their issues. I have a GMC Acadia as my daily driver, that's been in the shop more times than I can count and I only have 27k on it. The most recent was it wouldn't start due to carbon build up in the throttle body. Luckily GMC has a TSB out for it, known issue that ISN'T covered under warranty. Granted it was only 200 bucks but still, the thing is only 2 years old.

Plugs are NOT covered under warranty. They are considered a normal wear and tear item, but, if they break the plug while removing it, they need to make it good, on their dime.


:sly:

If you do replace your plugs in the 3 valve motors then put the nickel anti sieze on the thread and lower piece below the thread. That's what I was told to do.