Well, I am in the process of changing the spark plugs in my 2005 with the 5.4 with 117,000 miles. Long story short, all 8 plugs broke off. Not a problem. Went to the local auto parts store and rented the Lisle spark plug extraction tooling. Used the pusher and pushed the porcelain until the pusher screw bottomed out on the tool housing. This was stated in the instructions as the design of the tooling. So I tried to apply the pulling tool. It is acting like the porcelain has not been moved far enough for the pulling tool to thread into the outer plug shell. The porcelain was broken off at the crimped area. Has anybody had any issues such as this? Is there any possibility that the shell was pushed with the porcelain further into the head?

Ed

 

That is strange for sure. I did mine a month ago and broke 5 of 8. I got lucky and the only 3 that came out whole were the last 3 on the passenger side (back one included)(THANK GOD).

Anyways, for your question....The LISLE tool worked perfectly for me everytime. If the pusher tool bottomed out on the body, that means it should have pushed the porcelain far enough down. I found after the 2nd broken one, that I shouldnt bottom out the pusher because it was breaking the porcelain on the bottom of the plug and causing the porcelain to break off and fall into the head. The pieces of porcelain were really tiny but I still didnt want to take any chances with breaking sh*t off inside the engine. So, once you thread in the puller it should grab enough of the shell to be able to pull it out.
It almost sounds like your problem is the threads on the puller tool arent grabbing the shell and therefore not able to pull up the shell.
-Are you having this problem on the first broken plug?
-Are you sure the pusher is seated as far down as possible in order to "mush" the porcelain and create enough space for the puller to re-thread?
I am just trying to figure out where the problem is because in all the threads I have read on spark plugs, I havent heard this problem before.

 

I broke the plugs 3 different ways..Which one of mine does yours look like with the one you broke? It is possible to have the porcelain fall into the head, but its slim and then youll have to take apart the engine..yuck.

 

Oh and another tip...when you go to use the puller tool...make sure you push down and screw at the same time. You want the threads of the tool to really get a good grip on the outer metal shell thats still stuck in there.

 

Well, the tooling that I was using was a rental kit. The threads on the puller looked good. I did try pushing on the tool/ratchet while threading the puller in. It felt like the porcelain was not pushed down far enough. I am going to return the puller kit to the auto parts store. I have ordered the K-tool kits. The main reasoning is that kit will remove the porcelain rather than push it towards the combustion chamber.

The nuts separated from the porcelain on three of the plugs. The remaining plugs broke off at the crimp. Porcelain and ground shroud are still in the head. The electrodes came out with the top part of the plug.

Ed

 

There is a video of a ford master tech using the decarbon the motor treatment, heating the motor up to normal running temps and using an impact to easily remove all 8 sparkplugs without breaking them.

 

Okay. makes sense. Yeah thats a good idea on trying a different kit. It will take a decent amount of strength to screw the puller into the shell with the porcelain. Yeah, sounds like you broke them pretty much the same ways I did mine. Well good luck getting the rest of the plugs out.

 

I agree. If the tool is a loaner then who knows how many times it has been used. threads could be wore down. I broke 5 of 8 when I changed mine, towards the end I was starting to get nervous about the threads on mine. Good luck

 

Agree with getting the motor hot then using an impact. I have done this twice and never broke a single plug. The first one takes a lot of nerve.

 

Just don't put em back in with one. LOL