In case any of you are in doubt here is the pictures of the plug and the tool I made to remove it. Also you need to get the engine up to operating temperature. The attached broken plug is the result of not heading that warning in the TSB. When the engine was hot enough all of the rest of the plugs came out with out any problems,however I did use the penetrating oil on all of them.

[IMG]local://upfiles/89247/03194D3F854F42249250C6041FBF85CD.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/89247/FB4EBC1CCEF14CF39462F5A4DFB93BEA.jpg[/IMG]

 

I pulled my plugs at 10k miles. Engine was cold, no penetrating oil, no problems. I used my torque wrench to remove them and set it on 25 ft lbs. I removed them again at 12,000 miles when I added the whipple and HTO's. I had very little carbon build up after 10k miles.

 

Here's a video tutorial. Click on #26:
http://www.flatratetech.com/index.php?categoryid=4

 

wow I never encountered this problem but I always pulled the plugs when the car was warm. I had not even heard of this problem. I have changed my plugs 3 times. The first time I replaced the stocks @ 60,000 miles and put in HT1's and after 5,000 miles the car would stutter @ 5500 RPM's and above in 3rd and 4th gear no matter what I did. I then replaced the plugs with stocks and the car ran perfect and felt like it picked up 20HP. I will never use the HT1's again.

 

Well, I'm screwed. Absolutely went by the letter of the TSB, did everything just as directed and the second plug broke off-in the worst way, the porcelain stayed in the lower part of the plug. I just threw in the towel, called AAA and had the POS trucked to the dealership where I bought it.

I am so depressed right now I could just croak. This car only has 38K miles (of course, 2 K past warranty) on the clock and God knows how much it will cost to fix it, and if it will ever be the same. This is the first car I ever ordered from the factory and was my retirement gift to myself. At this point, I doubt I'll ever buy another Ford product. I wish to heaven I had taken it in to the dealer before the warranty expired-but I didn't. If you have a Ford vehicle with the 3V heads, I would trade it before you need new plugs. Good luck to you, brothers.

 

sorry to hear it pony....i hope the dealership
does a decent job for a decent price.

some day this will just be a bad memory and
you'll once again be enjoying the stang...

hang in there

 

Hang in there Goldenpony. I bet the dealer gets the plug out .

I am wonderingif the factory put nickel anti seize on or was this a after thought? I actually changed mine and did not being ignorant of the TSB. I am considering changing them again before they get loaded up. Only been 2k miles .

 

Thanks guys. I don't think the factory put anything on the plugs at assembly, didn't appear to be anything on the one plug I got out.I think the nickel anti-sieze is a response to this problem. Funny thing was, there wasn't even much carbon on the one plug I successfully got out.

I was chatting with the service advisor at the dealer. He expects, sometime down the road, a class action law suit over this. I hope the engineer that designed this head is now working at Subway.

 

How much does the dealer charge to change out plugs? Cause i'd rather pay a few extra bucks for them to do it then to risk breaking one off.

 

The dealer quoted me $250 - $300, I assume that included the plugs which run about $100 a set.