RJCOPE3

i HAVE A 01 MUSTANG GT AND IT BLEW THE SPARKPLUG AND THREADS OUT OF THE HEAD ON THE PASSENGER SIDE CLOSE TO THE FIREWALL. I TALKED TO FORD AND THEY SAID THEY CAN PUT AN INSERT IN IT FOR $900 OR REPLACE THE HEAD FOR $3,000. I WAS WONDERING IF ANY BODY KNOWS OF A PLACE THAT WILL DO IT CHEAPER IN MARYLAND PREFABLE IN THE NORTH EAST REGION. WOULD IT BE OK TO DRIVE TO GET IT REPAIRED IF I DISCONNECTED THE INJECTOR AND REMOVE THE COIL PACK FOR THAT CYLINDER. I KNOW IT WILL NOT RUN SMOOTH AND BE LOUD AS HELL BUT I DONT SEE ANTHING THAT COULD GET DAMAGED IN THE PROCESS. ALSO I HEARD THAT IT IS A COMMON THING ON THE 4.6s AND 5.4s. IF IT THAT COMMON WOULDNT FORD DO A RECALL ON SOMETHING LIKE THAT. ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.

mustangcat

Look in your phone book and get estimates...You'll find someone cheaper.
If you don't find anything, DONT GO TO THE DEALERSHIP, they'll steal your money. You can find a 99-04 GT Head in a scrapyard or mod catelog for cheaper than that. Hell you can get a set of patriot ported heads for $1200.

BruceH

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BruceH

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Jfsram

The cost of the thread repair kit has little to do with this problem.

The biggest decision you have to make is how high of a quality job do you want do.

Someone may claim to do it for a few hundred. Be careless about cutting the threads and leave you with metal shavings in your cylinder. Best job would be to pull the head and repair the thread on the bench. It's alot of work for a minor job but in the end it's up to you.

Anyways, I doubt the engine blew it out. Most likely the threads were damaged from being seized, overtorquing or lack of antiseize on the threads.

When I bought my 5L one of the first things I did was change out all the filters, fluids and a complete ignition tune up. The spark plugs were all seized in the heads. I took a break from it. Went in a ate supper. Told the wife. If any of those plugs break or strip the threads out. The heads are coming off and the stock cast iron junk is not going back on. To end this storey. I got them out

forcefeed

you don't know what you are talking about!! the kit is made by a company called timesert and they run about 500.00 for the install kit alone, the inserts themselves are about 25.00


take it to someone who is familiar with installing these, most likely a dealership, no doubt it may cost a little more but they will more than likely be around if the repair fails and if something goes wrong you have a better chance of them standing behind there work............at least the good dealerships do!!

GypsyR

More than likely you can shop around for a better price. Yes this is a common failing on these engines but for some reason tends to happen more on trucks. Any shop that regularly does work on Ford trucks and engines should have already dealt with this at least a few times. There are now a few different kits out there now to repair such problems, a couple of which claim they can be used without pulling the head with no danger of dropped metal shavings.
And NO! Traditional type (cheap) spark plug thread repair inserts will NOT work. You have to use ones specifically for the modular Ford engines. If a shop quotes you a really cheap price, make SURE they know this too.

TOOT

This happened to me around Thanksgiving, so after doing some internet research and asking a lot of ?'s I called a local Ford dealership and they refereed me to a shop that does all their blown spark plug head repair work.
He didn't recommend a helicoil cause over time the heating and cooling of the engine will shorten the life of the coil, he used a product similar to the time-sert total bill $315.

BruceH

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