I work with a guy who has a Ferd Expedition...he came in late and said he blew a spak plug out of the head..WHAT??? He took it to his ford dealer, they siad that there are only 3 threads in the head to hold the plug in..Ferd supposably fixed the problem on later vehicles with 8 threads now...worst news it will cost him $2,300 just to put a helicoil in the head...$3,500 for a corrected head...THAT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!Glad I own a CUMMINS.

 

Apparently this has been an issue for many years, with Ford claiming it's a spark plug issue which lets them off the hook for warranty work. Found an article stating that if they had to recall the vehicles, it would be the single, most expensive recall in automobile history. Basically, it would most likely put 'em out of business. Article here.

 

I've seen it happen to a truck at work. The truck had a 5.4 and it blew out a plug. It sounds pretty funny when they run with a plug missing. The one we had to replace was at the back of the engine on the pass side so the only thing you can do is take half the truck apart and take the head off to fix it since there isn't any room in a Superduty engine bay. I think the truck was a 1999 and it had 80,000 on it when the plug let loose.
matt

 

My Continental with the infamous V-6 took out two engines within the first 85,000 miles and had the third one gone when I ended the bleeding by getting rid of it. Horrible engine. Each time it had hydralocked, once from a cracked block, once from a blown headgasket - - who knows on the third one - - they towed it out of the yard with a frozen engine. That car also cost me about $4200 for air suspension problems. I would come out and the thing was sitting on the ground. Horrible car. And they wonder why people buy a rice burner. DUHHHHH Hate it - - try to buy American and find out the new Mustang has more foreign parts in it than a Toyota. Likewise GM cars that are assembled in Mexico. Likewise our wonderful Dodge trucks assembled in Mexico. Disgusting.

Oh boy, got me going again.

CoolingDownBob

 

I think the motors that are blowing spark plugs are just jealous and are trying to become diesels. I drove my Land Cruiser minus a plug for a while because #1 cylinder lost compression (rings) and wouldn't fire right. I had nothing else to drive so I took the plug out to relieve the pressure. It actually ran pretty good on 5 cylinders-noisy, but good.

 

Funny, no mention of the 6.0h no in that article....

 

i'd be buying myself a keensert kit or helicoil kit and doing it myself for way less than that..

 

The V10s are really bad for spitting spark plugs.

 

This isn't a new problem for ford. I had a '74 3/4 ton w/ a 390 that spit the plugs out if you didn't retighten em every 3 or 4 weeks. Uncle had a '76 w/ 360 that was worse. He'd tighten the plugs, drive 150 - 200 miles and have to stop and put em BACK IN.