Ford guys: Had the dreaded spark plug blowout

[TFOGGER]

Funny thing about the 5.4 I had. It never blew the plugs out.
It ate them.
I would get a cylinder misfire code, pull the plug and the electrode and half of the ceramic of the nose was just gone.
5 plugs in the span of a year, 3 of them on the same cylinder.

Bad injector. That cylinder was running lean and detonating.

[enthusiast]

Had the same thing happen on my 2002 Expedition 5.4 and contemplated ordering the kit. I called around and American 4x4 have done this several times. They did it and torqued the the rest of the plugs to the "correct" torque never had a problem since. My Expo has 154K on it and still running strong.

[jmg8550]

Don't the new spark plugs have a few more threads so they won't blow out? Also, shouldn't you have replaced the spark plugs at 100k? I've only seen one vehicle blow out plugs, and it was on a supercharged F150 Lightning.

Helicoil aren't junk, when used in the correct applications. Spark plugs would not be a correct application.

[GilpinGuy]

It's not the plugs that are the problem. The heads only had 4 threads for the plugs to go to. Newer heads have been improved and have more threads. Plus, from what I've read, Ford initially recommended that the plugs be torqued way too low. The plugs would eventually vibrate loose and blow out, stripping what little thread was left in the head.

My rig is new to me. I bought it in August from a forum member actually. He had no idea this would happen of course so no hard feelings there at all. Plus it has 260K miles in it. I'm sure more repairs are in store for me in the future, but no payment and cheap insurance. I will certainly be checking the torque on the other plugs when I dive into this project .

[GilpinGuy]

I did this repair with the Time Serts a few days ago. Really easy fix after you get all the crap out of the way so tools will fit.

The Time Sert tools are genius and really high quality. Awesome step by step instructions that were laminated as well. It would be kinda hard to screw it up, really.

[fportmen45]

I did this repair with the Time Serts a few days ago. Really easy fix after you get all the crap out of the way so tools will fit.

The Time Sert tools are genius and really high quality. Awesome step by step instructions that were laminated as well. It would be kinda hard to screw it up, really.

Awesome!

[zteknik]

Glad you got it fixed. Sucks having to do heads when only threads are screwed up.