2005 3 Valve 6.8 Plug Change - Cracked Insualtors

[Hematite]

Originally Posted by Jim-Bev-2363

They should have had someone design a lifetime plug.

LOL, that's a good one, but true!

[JohnB]

Hi Folks,

Just a quick update. The Cal Van insulator extractor showed up on Tuesday and works well. As of last night the tides have turned. Score before, 7 plugs stuck in the head verses 10, is now 2 plugs stuck out of 10. I'm winning! Yeh.

The Cal Van insulator extractor works good and then you can use the Cal Van shell extractor. Both work well. I have 2 left with the glue curing, ran out of time last night. These 2 will be an “opportunity”. It is plug 9 and 10. The rigid fuel line to the fuel rail is right over plug 10. Room limited.

Will report back with pics of the process later.

Thanks

John

PS. Rick, yes for sure need and oil change…. And make sure no chips are in side after doing the shop vac little hose trick. Then turn over the engine with the plugs out to blow out all this carb cleaner shot down to clean out the insulators… They talk about hydro locking the engine, don’t know but I do not want to test the concept.

[Jim-Bev-2363]

Another giant step for mankind.

[JohnB]

Here is an update. I'll do this in pics to bring you up to speed.

The ceramic insulator puller kit. You bond the puller to the ceramic. This process worked 5 times perfect from the get go.


Clean the hole, make sure it is dry. Follow the directions and it works pretty good. Just I am needing to spray more cleaner down the cylinders which does not thrill me.


Special Loctite


Apply to hole, twice. spread it around good






Apply to puller, twice. spread it around good








Let is cure for 1 hour.


Install nut on puller and jack it out.




Now the ground shell. Start with this kit


Shell in bottom of plug hole


Plug ground shield to keep chips out of cylinder


Apply grease to tap, install guide and tap.


Tap hole


Install puller


Jack it out




Odd is the brown stuff is like dust. The injector cleaner must of converted the carbon to this brown dust. But then why was the shield stuck in there? It is also obvious no carb cleaner ever made it down here to dissolve this.



So that process worked well 5 times in a row. The last 2 I let cure over night. I ran out of time.

Well, the score has changed Ford 2, John zip.... I have the last 2 that will not bond to the ceramic. It failed twice on both tonight

OK the last 2 the tube of glue was a day old after being opened. Maybe some solvents evaporated. So I cleaned them up and opened a new tube. Redid everything, came back 1 hour later. Nope Still no bond.

So I cleaned it all up again, installed fresh new puller pins and opened the last new tube of glue in case the other new one was old... I will see on Friday night if they bonded. If not then I'm off to get the Napa tool which is the same as the Liesel.

I'm going to have to pour some Marvel Mystery oil in these cylinders before attempting to fire it up, that is for sure.

More as the saga continues.

[Jim-Bev-2363]

Could the locktite need a primer so it will stick better? At least your almost all the way home now.

[JohnB]

The locktite is not claimed to need a primer. The instructions state that the hole being clean and dry are keys to proper adhesion.

Thinking that maybe those 2 cylinders where on the compression stroke and maybe near TDC, I bumped the engine to move the pistons on the last set I glued before coming in last night. Thought was the compressed air you are blowing down in to dry out the hole may have not had any where to go and blew back. I will have to check the firing order on the V10 to see if cylinders 8 & 10 are close to each other.

Do not know what is so unique to these last 2. I did them the same way as the 1st 5, only twice (almost 3 times) and they just did not hold. I could tell very quickly as when the others came out, with a few turns of the jack nut they popped and the jack nut went loose. These, were sort of a low friction drag for over 3/4" or so until the pin let free of the ceramic. Hopefully tonight, the last 2 will come out. If not, onto Plan B.

[Jim-Bev-2363]

It sounds like you pushed fuel, compression stroke, from the cylinder thru the plug and put a film on the plug. "Next time" do one plug at the time, do not 'bump' the motor.

It will be interesting to see how the other kind of puller work though. Mechanical versus chemical.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Jim-Bev-2363

It sounds like you pushed fuel, compression stroke, from the cylinder thru the plug and put a film on the plug. "Next time" do one plug at the time, do not 'bump' the motor.

Originally Posted by Jim-Bev-2363

It will be interesting to see how the other kind of puller work though. Mechanical versus chemical.

Hi Jim, sorry I did not explain enough. The fuse on the fuel pump is pulled. All 10 injectors are unpluged. No new fuel is going in.

The 1st failure occurred with no turning of the motor. The last 5 ones that worked right had no turning of the motor. The motor turning was part of a “Why is this not working?”

The thought process was that cylinders 8 and 10 may be close to TDC (top dead center) on the compression stroke. This means there is less room in the top of the cylinder area and no valve open. You use compressed air to blow out the cleaner in the hole of the ceramic to dry it. The thought was, "after" all the spraying of cleaner and stroking the hole with the probe to clean it out, you cannot dry it as you are blowing down a hole that has no volume of space for the air to go. With the piston down or a valve open the air you are trying to blow in has a place to go to allowing compressed air to blow through the hole drying out the cleaner.

Think trying to blow into a closed Coke bottle. Not much air flows in the bottle, it only compresses as there is no way for the air to get out.

I have no idea if this is even the problem. The instructions dropped this hint of “The most common reasons for not having good adhesion is lack of cleaning or drying”. I was going after the drying part.



This is sort of the worse of 2 evils.

• The chemical bonding approach has the potential to not bond and have excess cleaner down in the cylinders.
• The mechanical approach must relie on pressing the insulator down against the ground anvil. If there are any chips of the ceramic break off they are in the cylinder and you have to deal with that. This method also only uses a very short depth of thread engagement and has been reported to strip out in some cases.

Neither is great…. I hope I do not have to make it to the mechanical method… It’s a sunny day in Central Ohio. One needs to have high hopes….

I'll get it. Right now it will be later rather then sooner.

[Jim-Bev-2363]

john, Whatever happened the result is the same. More work. Crossing fingers the last ones will go easier now. Many times just stepping back helps. I would call it a smoke break but we quit that.

Sitting back, eating a cherry Popsicle and helping you all I can.

[JohnB]

Well Jim, I have some bad news for you. You are going to have to find someone else to do the mechanical Lisle tool test. I have no more stuck plugs to test on.

The score is now Ford zip, John 10! Yeh.... I'm a happy camper now!

The last 2 insulators came right out like they where suppose to. After about 2 turns of the jack nut they popped loose and out they came.


The only thing different was I bumped the engine with thoughts of drying out the insulator hole better. The V10 firing order is 1-6-5-10-2-7-3-8-9. So cylinder 8 and 10 seem to be far apart. Unless 10 was up top on the exhaust stroke when 8 was on TDC for ignition. Have to think about that one. At this point this I'm past this....

Plug shell 10 was a bit of an issue to tap the shell. You have to press down hard to get the tap to start to thread. This was difficult that far in the back. Hanging in from the front of the truck, pushing down hard and turning all at once. It finally started and then we were on our way.


Here is plug shell 8


Plug shell 10


Again the brown soot is dust. it is not hard. Believe the injector cleaner did this change. The other thing is which may be the bigger issue, they are bone dry. All the broke plugs where bone dry. The carb cleaner on the initial soak like the TSB states never made it past the plug threads. If you turn the plug too far after it is just cracked loose, well you strip off the shield anyway if it is stuck. If you do not turn it enough then no carb cleaner wicks down the threads.

This much I know, they taped hard and never spun. They where for sure stuck in there. All the torque of tapping, you need to be cautious to not snap the tap. Taping 7 of these and none of them ever spun. They where all stuck. The stuck part must of been up real high on the insulator.

So now onto the next step. Vacuum out the cylinder. Note to self; 1/4" gas line does not fit down the plug hole. 1/4" vacuum line does. This will save you a undoing duct tape hassle.


While I did this I was for sure glad I did not have a lot of chips fall down. It was for sure hard to vacuum the cylinder. These ceramics shatter into a hundred pieces. Here is the progression in a vise to take the insulator off the tip.

The vise loaded


Some pressure. The tip fly's off.


Next the entire body shatters.


What is left


Then to jack out the pin to get the tool back.


Just twist and it comes out


I also chased all 10 holes with a broken plug thread shell.




This was to insure no glue or anything else ended up on the plug threads. All 10 screwed right to the bottom by hand. So this came out good.

Then it was time to turn the engine over to make sure anything loose or overfilled with liquid flew out. Using so much cleaner, I filled up a pump oil can with Marvel Mystery oil and shot a good 2 pumps in each cylinder before cranking. This eased my mind of scoring with so much cleaner in the cylinder. Most cleaner must of evaporated off as none came flying out when I cranked it over. I then wiped any oil film out of the plug holes (almost none surprisingly) and moved onto installing the plugs.

The nickel anti seize.


First plug down in cylinder 1


After torquing all 10 it was time to move onto the new COPs. Need to put dielectric grease on the boots. I did 4 areas. The top by the coil, the tip on the plug, the rib that centers the COP in the plug hole and the seal that seals off the plug hole. There is an orientation on these. The molded in key that hangs out goes to the bolt hole.




Then install. Here is cylinder 1


And all of them in. The left bank. They look like little soldiers all lined up.


Well that is it for tonight. Have to put the rest back together on Saturday and change the oil.

More tomorrow.

John

[Jim-Bev-2363]

Knock'em out John!!!

There is no need to check the 'other' tool since what you have used worked so well. The right tool for the right job, but in the hands of the right mechanic.


Edited to add:

A joke:

Jim and John went coon hunting along with John's best coon dog. They sat for hours waiting and listening for the signal from the coon dog that something had been chased up a tree. Soon, there was some howling so Jim and John jumped for their guns to find all the action. They found that dog having a fit and barking up a tree. John grabs his dog and Jim starts to shoot into the tree top, but nothing comes falling down. John ties the dog of to another tree and they both shoot into the tree but nothing falls. John decides to climb the tree and knock the coon out of the tree. Jim hears a God'aw'ful racket from the tree tops and yells "knock'em out John". John yells back that the coon is a bobtailed wildcat and that Jim should shoot up in the tree. Jim claims that if he shoots with John up the tree he might hit him. John shouts back "Just shoot, one of us has to get some relief".

Glad you "knocked'em out John"

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Jim-Bev-2363

John shouts back "Just shoot, one of us has to get some relief".

Glad you "knocked'em out John"

LOL ......

[JohnB]

Well today was a good day. Finished up putting all the wires back on and everything else laying apart.....

Turned the key, and she fired right off.

Then is started to surge 1,200 rpm down to 750, back up to 1,000 rpm, back down to 750 and back up. It was doing this sort of non stop trying to idle.

Then the wrench light shows up on the dash followed by check engine. It stalls out. OK what is up here? Think John, think. What did you fiddle with that could cause this? Well... we had a lot apart... My son has my scanner so I can't read the OBD2 codes. Think the old way.... before OBD2.

Well the truck did this before when I first bought is. It was used and about 32K miles on it. A lease trade in. Guy had it on a horse farm. I was vacuuming straw out for 3 weeks.... Had the same issue back then, the truck would surge and worse, stall. Took it into the Ford dealer, they reflashed the computer, but could not reproduce the problem and it would not send a code so they did not know what else to try. Said try it.

A day later it still stalled. So I started into it. There are 2 things this sort of points to. The throttle position sensor or the mass air flow sensor. Both can affect idle speed among other things. Long story short it was the mass air flow sensor. Had straw dust in the air tube.

H'mm, so today I thought for a moment and well, I had the air tube off and the air filter was out almost a week during the plug saga. I wonder if it sucked in some dirt on the mass air flow sensor? So I pulled the sensor, used the same can of Mass Air flow cleaner I had from before. Here are some pics from back when





Sprayed it up, dried it out in the sun and put it in. Jack pot! It purrs like a kitten now. Now the codes... Well I have this new Scan Gage II that is suppose to read and reset codes. Read the book and found the 2 codes that it sent. P0113, Air intake temp and P2198 an O2 sensor. Reset both.

Took it into town to filled it up with gas, stopped and got diesel fuel for the tractor and LP gas for the camper. (all gased up...)

This truck runs smoother then I ever remember. It even idled now at 650 rpm rock solid. It use to idle at 750rpm that I can remember. So I'm a happy camper. We will tow with it next weekend to camp.

Then went out to mow the field with the tractor. After a 1/2 hour mowing I smell anti-freeze. What??? Yup, the radiator spring a leak... That ended the mowing... So I have a new project on Sunday...

The truck right now is running great!!!

Thanks for following along

John

PS, I changed the oil too. Did not want to take any chances

[Jim-Bev-2363]

Be sure to check the towing MPG with the new plugs and cleaned sensors.

Is the leak where you can get to it without removing it? I know, that is a stoopid thought. Seems you'll not get out of practice with your handtools but I'd go camping first. The grass can wait a week.

[JohnB]

Hi Jim,

I "hope" towing MPG improves... I have however "heard" that a plug change does not affect the mpg. I hope they are wrong... I need all teh help I can get in this department. Will for check it and report back

The mower... I have a John Deere 455 mower for lawn mowing as well as the tractor with a 6 foot finishing mower. I was out doing the field wit the brush hog and I have another 5 acre lot I need to mow. I was out like this,


I may be able to solder it. Don't know yet, depends where it is. It is not that bad to remove the radiator. There is way too much sheet metal in the way to even see the leak. In less then and hour I will be at the radiator. However, 1 frozen bolt and that can be an hour job...

About the only way to escape these kinds of things is move into a condo... and that will not happen for a long time... (I hope)

John

[Jim-Bev-2363]

My thought on the MPG was because you said the RPM at idle was less. Less at idle and less at highway speed. Probably not enuff to measure.

Crossing fingers for a leaky hose.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Jim-Bev-2363

Crossing fingers for a leaky hose.

Well, no it is not that easy... The entire bottom of the radiator is leaking. I'm not going to even try and fix it, it looks too far gone. I'm using full HP running that mower and the radiator needs to be up to the task. The tractor is 30 years old and serves me well. It only had 300 hours on when I bought it, like new almost. The only thing I ever changed on it so far is front tires and routine maintenance fluids & filters. It does not get the work out it use to, now more for lawn and field mowing. I'll never wear it out.

I just put a little over $500 worth of parts on order. New radiator, new fan belt, new hoses, new front axle bushing and some spare oil filters while I had the order in. Hope the parts show up later this week.

Oh and a rebuilt diesel fuel pump a long time ago. I almost forgot that one.

These older ag tractors where built to last and be totally rebuilt to give a complete second life. Well taken care of they do and can last a life time.

[Sunline Fan]

Glad to hear the plug situation is resolved!

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Sunline Fan

Glad to hear the plug situation is resolved!

Me too

[Jim-Bev-2363]

Just back from the Ford Dealership here. My 08 Expedition was leaking a florescent yellow liquid onto the floor of the carport so I went to have it checked. Turns out A/C steel line going to the rear unit has a hole worn in one of the four lines, $1,000.00 to fix.

While at the shop I talked with the manager about changing plugs. His cost is $300 plus $25 for any broken plugs. He claims to not have many break but #8 is usually the one to break if one does. They follow the Ford directions and use the Ford tool. Some of the guys use the aftermarket tool and they like it better than the Ford tool. Anyway, just wanted to pass along the new plug costs in this area. Maybe the costs will lower as time goes by.

I also asked about the Eco-Boost engines. He says there are some reports of water getting in the turbo and motor passes a vapor. Not sure about how that effects the motor. There is also a truck used in the orange grove, loose sandy ground, that has a overheating issue but only that one truck and they are not sure why it happens, yet. He doesn't know how people are doing that got the Eco-Boost to tow heavy trailer but I'll keep checking on that. He says give them 7 months to start finding bugs.