Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Spark Plug

Went to go to work this morining, started car up, and heard a loud POP. Found one of the rear plugs blown out of engine! Plug is damaged, so get another plug, and try to put in, will not thread! Is there a way to fix this, short of pulling the head? Thanks for the ideas.
1995 V6 140K+ miles

Sorry i don't have an answer for you. I just wanted to let you know your not alone. It happened to me after i creamed my new plug threads. I guess i didn't torque them tight enough and one from the rear bank poped out. It happened at around 100kmh as i downshifted into 4th while coming off the highway. All i heard was pop popopopopopop - metal on metal. Scared the crap out of me. i stopped and shut the car off. My buddy looked at the engine as i cranked it over again. He said the sparkplug was bouncing up and down inside the head. Thank goodness i had my old set of plugs and tools to fix this on the spot. The plug threads were screwed, and fortunately the head wasn't stripped. I wish you luck with finding an answer, and i hope it's not a major pita to fix.

you need to rethread the sparkplug hole

if you have the proper tools this shouldn't be to hard to do

can't think of the name off the top of my head

I agree with brapple. get a spark plug helicoil set from the parts house. When you go to tap the hole for the helicoil, smear some wheel bearing grease on it to hold the cuttings. If it doesn't work, you'll need a cylinder head. Ford says not to helicoil aluminum heads, but I've done it before on 4.6 and 5.4 without a problem. If this happened to my vehicle, I would most certainly try a helicoil first. Can't screw it up more than it already is!

Spark plug blowout seems to be a common occurance on the F150 engines, but this is the first I recall seeing here on a Contour....

Follow GregH's advice.

Steve