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Just blew out a plug

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wvkevin

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Apr 5, 2006
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Just blew out a spark plug and my mechanic is going to put in a helicoil tommorrow. Anyone have experience with this problem? My car is a 98 svt.
 
I just went through it around Christmas time and it has worked great. My car is also a 98.5 and had 168,000 miles on it. I though it was done, but the coil kit saved it. Which plug? Mine was radiator side middle plug..
 
mine is the radiator side closest to the passenger side. i think this is number 1? I was not even winding the car and it just turned 90000 miles. Dont get me wrong, we do see the red line with frequency.
 
It may be that the plug was over torqued or missalligned when installed, but that was approximately 7000 miles ago and that seems like a ling time. I just have no idea of the cause.
 
Been there, done that. Had it in quite some time b4 it went. I must have changed plugs on the engine while it was warm. Aluminum heads are soft I found out the hard way. Helicoil did the trick.
 
I had the same thing happen driving back from MN in early Jan. of 2006. I hadn't done any work on the car for over two years and it had about 7k-10k miles on it before it popped. I remember being in a bit of a rush and I think I had missed one thread and stripped it. It scared the **** out of me when it popped because I was still about 70 miles outside of Chicago. I drove... well babied it back home and took it to Ford. They refused to cover it (Warrenty, it's my mom's car and she cancelled the warrenty after it). They said because it had FORD 9mm wires on it that it had been modified and they would no longer cover the engine. I called bs and my mom told them to fix it, then to f*!k themselves, and we have never gone back to them.
 
It seems the problem has been fixed. The part he used was unlike any helicoil i have ever seen. After it is put in place, it is tapped with a special tool that spreads out barbs on the top to help hold it in place. So far i am very happy and have my fingers crossed. He told me there were cheaper fixes, but he did not trust them.


Thanks for the info
 
These are the original spark plugs that blew out of the threads? I remember the 5.4L and 4.6L would blow out spark plugs.
 
They were not original plugs but they were changed appx 7000 miles ago. I dont think it was hot when i changed them, but i will remember next time.
.
Right on my terminology not a helicoil, but thats what i thought was going in before the actual fix. I feel better about the part he put in then i did a helicoil. I have since quit looking for a head.
 
wvkevin said:
It seems the problem has been fixed. The part he used was unlike any helicoil i have ever seen. After it is put in place, it is tapped with a special tool that spreads out barbs on the top to help hold it in place. So far i am very happy and have my fingers crossed. He told me there were cheaper fixes, but he did not trust them.


Thanks for the info
Click to expand...


sounds like a Time Sert kit. that's what im using on my truck right now. it recently blew a plug. (has Lightning heads and s/c). the Time Sert kit is THE sh*t when it comes to this repair. 1000x better than helicoil. im doing all 8 plugs just to be safe. its a PITA on these trucks. the ones in the back are a b*tch to reach. we had to remove a bunch of stuff, including the fuel rail. after researching online i found there is a class action lawsuit for the 5.4 motors. f150s, expos, navis everything. some real horror stories out there. dealer quotes of $5k to fix it! :nonono:
 
Rich2279 said:
These are the original spark plugs that blew out of the threads? I remember the 5.4L and 4.6L would blow out spark plugs.
Click to expand...
The problem with the 5.4L truck motors was that there were only about 3 threads in the heads to hold the plugs. That was fixed with the 3 valve engine supposedly so we'll see. Some outfit makes a retrofit kit to add more threads into the heads but I don't know how well that works. Lots of info on this on some of the F150 forums and maybe flatratetech.com as well.
Karl
 
this just happened to me on Wednesday night on the way home... had to baby it about 11 miles home where I found the plug still inside the Ford Racing wire when I pulled it out...

Cylinder 1 :(

any tricks on how to get the helicoil tool back in that area or do you think because of which cylinder it is that we will need to pull the head?

scariest goddamn noise though... sounds sorta like a lawnmower and its just popping like all hell under your seat

read the codes when I got home and it listed cylinder 1 misfire and cylinder 2 misfire.. does that mean that cylinder 2 might suffer the same fate shortly?
 
Mine was in #3 Suprisingly when you pull the upper intake there is just barely enough room to get in there. Technically it is not wise to do any drilling on the heads on the car but I had compressed air and a strong vacuum & It all worked out fine for me. Just do it w/ the piston @ the top of the stroke so that everything doesn't have far to go.
I suggest changing your wires to b/c it ruined the #3 ford racing wire on my car b/c I drove it about a mile home as you said you did.

I don't know if your #2 is going out or not but that could have been b/c the #1 wire was bouncing up & down, maybe tugging on the #2???
I'd check to see if that plug is torqued correctly while I was in there.
 
what exactly is the torque spec?

I looked in a haynes manual and there were several listings depending on what year... I have a 98 CSVT built in 97 so I'm assuming I should follow the advice for a 97 V6? I think it said 70 something or 80 something foot pounds

I threw away the Ford Racing wires as I think they truely initiated the problem - I stole the set off of the Cougar before I sold it and that car would misfire at load (going up a hill) always thought it was the car and not the wires - now I know it was the wires because as soon as the SVT hit 3500 rpms it would misfire just like the Coug did. I ordered a new set from BAT and was attmpting to drive like that until they came in but it just got worse and I eventually blew the plug. :(

right now I just thew the stockies back on and may stay with them once we fix the car... I hope its as simple as a helicoil...
 
I too have "been there, done that". Mine was either plug no. 5 or 6. I do know that Ford has had problems with the Mod motors on the passenger side/RH cylinder heads. I did all the plug changes in my car and I never overtorqued the plugs as I used a TQ wrench and always kept the TQ on the lower end of the range. IIRC the Ford TQ is 12-18 ft/lb. It's a good idea to remove the plugs when the heads are warm, but not hot. When reinstaling always start them by hand to be certain that they're not cross threaded. My father has been working on aluminum cylinder heads for over 40 yrs. and I follow his procedures strictly. That includes NO antiseize although you can talk to 10 different people and get 10 different replies on that subject...

Installing a helicoil without removing the heads is very iffy. It can be done but you can be pretty well certain that the plug electrode is not in the proper position depth-wise, in the combustion chamber. When I blew mine out I went to 3 different dealers for quotes and got 3 different stories. 1 refused to do the job w/out removing the motor so the cylinder head could come off. The others refused to even consider quoting w/out having the car in their shop. 1 said they might be able to do it w/out removing the head.

When the motor died later (from a blown head gasket) I pulled it apart to see how good of a job I did. The plug came out with the helicoil left behind (so far, so good) but the helicoil insert has a fraction too deep. Now the plug wasn't touching the piston crown, but it was about 1/32" further down than the non helicoiled plugs. I was very carefull installing it with a spare cylinder head on the bench to reference how deep to go. I also made 2 special tools to swage the insert and measure the depth. Now I recently bought another Tour and when I went to change the plugs, lo and behold, 1 of them came out WITH a helicoil. Can you say scrap cylinder head?

Gimme' the good old days with cast iron heads, RWD and lots of room in the engine bay...
 
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