My car committed suicide (Plug ejected from head)

[Goldmember]

Thought it was an exhaust leak. Nope. The #4 plug ejected itself from the head on startup a little while ago.

Some of you have been following this on facebook.

It looks like the head was time-serted already but whoever did it, did not use the right parts. The plug looks like it was for a 4V or something and so does the thread insert, they were not 2V parts. So pretty much, nothing I could have done would have prevented this part failure.

Now for the $64000 question- can you re-timesert a head, or is it one and done? Thinking I am royally ****ed right about now. Can't get out of this thing either, owe too much on it, and $ is tight.

Thought this wasn't supposed to happen on an 04... ****ing goddamit sonofa***** piece of shit good for nothing Ford!!!!!!

 

[Venom351R]

That was the ticking noise issue you were talking about before in another thread?

 

[Musturd]

Spark plug was prolly loose till it blew out . It might thread back In unless you blew the threads out with it time for a time cert

 

[945.0]

i know youre pissed but dont blame ford. blame the jackoff who didnt know wtf he was doing to repair a spark plug hole in the first place. find that guy and kick him in the head. i will do some searching for you im bored and stuck at home all night

 

[MustangChris]

damn dude! damn!!!

 

[the5.ohh]

Unbelievable man that blows.. Seems like this forum's been getting hit hard lately with a lotta shitty things...

 

[945.0]

goldmember check this out. according to this using there tool you can redo it
http://www.denlorstools.com/autoblog/2008/12/ford-spark-plug-blow-outs-oversize-inserts-and-faqs/

 

[Goldmember]

That was the ticking noise issue you were talking about before in another thread?

Looks like it was.

Spark plug was prolly loose till it blew out . It might thread back In unless you blew the threads out with it time for a time cert

The plug was already time-serted, and with the wrong part. Looked like it was meant for a 4V as far as we could tell. Previous owner is responsible, now we know why he unloaded it.

i know youre pissed but dont blame ford. blame the jackoff who didnt know wtf he was doing to repair a spark plug hole in the first place. find that guy and kick him in the head. i will do some searching for you im bored and stuck at home all night

I shall punt him in the skull immediately. I laughed at how you worded it. Let me know what you find man... Had Ford engineered the heads better, we wouldn't have these problems that the aftermarket needed to fix.

goldmember check this out. according to this using there tool you can redo it
http://www.denlorstools.com/autoblog/2008/12/ford-spark-plug-blow-outs-oversize-inserts-and-faqs/

This has a lot of promise. Looks like it centers itself, too.

 

[945.0]

i get utterly pissed at shotty mechanics or repair work. i bought a 02 mountaineer in december and 2 months ago drove from wisconsin to west virginia. one cat fell apart and plugged the rear cat we limped it there. fixed it all for free. uncle owns exhaust shop. then on our way back to wi the trans line got sliced open from the balancer. the dipshit who touched it at one point zip tied the rubber line to close to the balancer and well we lost 12.5 quarts of trans fluid. which is the entire capacity. got some fluid in and limped home. all because of that idiot i now have a bad input shaft sensor. which when i went to replace it the head of it ripped clean off. so yes i get very pissed off at shotty work. cause it always leads to failure and other problems. but i hope you can get her fixed THE CORRECT WAY at little cost and can drive your car again. AND BTW POOCH PUNT HIM HARD

 

[Goldmember]

i get utterly pissed at shotty mechanics or repair work. i bought a 02 mountaineer in december and 2 months ago drove from wisconsin to west virginia. one cat fell apart and plugged the rear cat we limped it there. fixed it all for free. uncle owns exhaust shop. then on our way back to wi the trans line got sliced open from the balancer. the dipshit who touched it at one point zip tied the rubber line to close to the balancer and well we lost 12.5 quarts of trans fluid. which is the entire capacity. got some fluid in and limped home. all because of that idiot i now have a bad input shaft sensor. which when i went to replace it the head of it ripped clean off. so yes i get very pissed off at shotty work. cause it always leads to failure and other problems. but i hope you can get her fixed THE CORRECT WAY at little cost and can drive your car again. AND BTW POOCH PUNT HIM HARD

Shit, I thought I had it bad... Hack jobs are really like masturbation. You might feel good, but you've only ****ed yourself in the end. Like I said elsewhere in this thread, I honestly believe he hacked his way through the repair and then traded it in as quick as he could. I'm going to get it fixed, and then sell the car. No telling what else was hacked. Problem is, failures like we had with our rides aren't easily detectable, but we suffer because someone else skimped on details.

 

[945.0]

yep i went to trade it in 2 weeks ago and the dealer wants about 4 grand down. only because i have negative equity. so i have been driving it with a bad sensor until i get a full weekend to try and drill/tap and extract the old sensor. that way if i cant get it out i can drop the trans to have more hand clearance.

 

[KillNThrill24]

I won't like to you man... I post up in EVERY single thread I see if someone has a 4.6 and they have what they thought was an exhaust leak to check their plugs. I guess I just must have missed yours. Why? Because of this. I had the EXACT same thing happen to me last year and mine was down 6 months before I could afford to do anything about it. If money is tight but you really need it NAPA sells a kit that comes with an extended spark plug and a form of threaded coil that screws into the stripped out head. I chose not to go that route because I had planned on boosting during winter. Didn't happen, but I just didn't trust it personally with that kind of power. But it may be a quick fix for you until you can afford to replace the head on it (which is what I personally recommend...) It's about $80 or so which isn't cheap but if it can get you back on the road I'd give it a shot

 

[Goldmember]

I won't like to you man... I post up in EVERY single thread I see if someone has a 4.6 and they have what they thought was an exhaust leak to check their plugs. I guess I just must have missed yours. Why? Because of this. I had the EXACT same thing happen to me last year and mine was down 6 months before I could afford to do anything about it. If money is tight but you really need it NAPA sells a kit that comes with an extended spark plug and a form of threaded coil that screws into the stripped out head. I chose not to go that route because I had planned on boosting during winter. Didn't happen, but I just didn't trust it personally with that kind of power. But it may be a quick fix for you until you can afford to replace the head on it (which is what I personally recommend...) It's about $80 or so which isn't cheap but if it can get you back on the road I'd give it a shot

After a little more research it looks like the previous owner used one of those Napa (Dorman) quick-fix kits before. This is probably a good thing because I should be able to get a big-sert to work. Going to the bank tomorrow, hopefully I can get a loan for the tool and the labor, definitely don't have that $ laying around in the breeze.

The repair was shoddy from what we could see. Honestly, it doesn't look like this could have been avoided. A lot of things are making sense now- the tick, and I always thought a) it ran a hair rough and b) thought it was a little down on power. Let's see what this pig does when it goes back together. The next owner will surely enjoy it.

 

[Goldmember]

What the previous owner used

http://www.amazon.com/Dorman-42025-...&qid=1369653704&sr=8-6&keywords=timesert+5553

 

[DeepList]

The next owner will surely enjoy it.

So that's it? You're getting rid of it?

 

[RichV]

What's a new head run? For the 6.8L it wasn't bad, I wanna say $500ish for a complete PI head.

 

[Goldmember]

So that's it? You're getting rid of it?

Yup. I've been thinking about selling it, anyway. This just made my mind up for me. Unlike the last owner, I'll fix it the best way possible short of replacing the head.

What's a new head run? For the 6.8L it wasn't bad, I wanna say $500ish for a complete PI head.

I don't want to know. R/R a head is not a job I have the skill to do. I know what's involved and it's a nightmare. That and I don't have that kind of money laying around. Newlywed and barely keeping my head above water. When I was younger, the correct answer to this problem would have been 5.4 swap, not anymore.

 

[chris91]

I still know where a set of Patriot Stage 2 heads are for $750! Thatd fix your problem right up and make it run SO much better. I know you said money is tight but if youre going to take a loan out for those parts then just go get ya some heads!

 

[Goldmember]

I still know where a set of Patriot Stage 2 heads are for $750! Thatd fix your problem right up and make it run SO much better. I know you said money is tight but if youre going to take a loan out for those parts then just go get ya some heads!

Wouldn't make sense though... hi-performance heads + stock intake + stock cams and exhaust- it would be wasted on my car. The premise of the repair is to do it correctly, but only to repair the bad threads. I'm not dumping any more money into this shitbucket other than to fix it and to get rid of the car.

 

[chris91]

The PI intake manifold is good for NA applications. Im running one on mine....