Well I ordered the tools and had everything ready.

First one, snap. Broke off. Didn't just leave the shield but left all the porcelain in it as well. Next one same thing. Third one came out clean. I thought ok, 2 of 8 I can live with that.

Next one, snap. Same thing. I have 6 of 8 and all but one snapped off and left the porcelain in the whole with the shield. I left it and went to bed. She is gonna get towed to the shop and I will just have to pay for it.

I have been doing my own maintenance since I started driving and this is the worst. What a POS. I was going to be trading it off soon but now I might have to keep it after paying this bill.

 

Oh I forgot to mention. I think I may even have bad threads in one hole. I can get the socket on it and spin freely by hand but I can't get it out of the hole. Got on with some pliers and applied gentle pressure and it won't budge. I have fear that the head is gonna be coming off in the near future.


That duramax I have had my eye on is looking better all the time.

I even followed the TSB.

 

Do you have the broken plug removal tool? I know the directions are poor but I went through the same issue as you but I was a little luckier and only 4 broke. On the broken one I had to use a needle nose pilers and pull like heck to get the top part out in order to use the lisle tool. I also thought I had stripped some threads but it turned out the threaded part of the plug slid up the porcilin and spun freely on it. Tonight I will try to post some pictures for you.

 

Hopefully this works. Trying to do this from my phone.


See how the threaded portion is slid up the porcilin, I believe this is why you think you have ruined the threads. After the first broken one gets out it goes pretty easy its just the hassle of them breaking. But good luck.

 

Unfortunately I bought the Ktool not the lisle. Which sounds like my first mistake. All of my broken plugs look like the 3rd one down in your photo.

 

I've owned trucks from Dodge, Chevy/GMC, and Ford and yes it truly is a drag about the plugs on these F-150s. At the same time, there are negatives to every vehicle and this just happens to be the achilles heel (plus the cam phaser issue).

I feel for you, as I've gone half way into a project to find my self cussing and frustrated to the point where I want to sell the vehicle. Hopefully the shop will take care of you at a reasonable price [since you did some of the work for them] and all will be hindsight soon.

 

I know they will be fair. I don't go to the dealer. I take all my vehicles to them and they have been friends for years. We all play in the same dart league. Great guys. I know I am going to pay my fair share but I am only paying for time. They won't gouge me.

 

Possibly your second mistake was not reading the EXTENSIVE sticky at the top of this forum on the spark plug issue of these early 5.4's. If you had, you'd have seen that the lisle tool is darn near a must.

While I agree that this whole spark plug issue is a royal PITA, you could have known what you were in for. As stated by another poster, all late model trucks appear to have their issues.

Quite a few have experienced this, and do feel your pain, and potential empty wallet issues!

 

Bucko I read the sticky. That is where I got the TSB from. Sticky states either tool will work. I went to Rockauto to order and ordered the wrong one. Thought about exchanging but the posts I have seen said they both work. I am one to tell you that is not the case. The Ktool sucks. It uses a glue on method to remove the porcelain and following the instructions I have yet to successfully remove 1 plug. I knew what I was in for but expected to get more than 1 out.

 

Phenrichs, I had 5 out of 8 plugs break when i did mine. I broke them off every way possible. If you still have the thin rod like thing stuck in the hole you need to get a good set of needle nose pliers...just yank it out. Then you have to crush the porcelain but like you said you have the ktool and its apparently diff than the lisle tool that I used. Also I just remembered you said you took it to the shop to have done so it doesnt matter anymore does it? haha. well I went through your nightmare too but I was lucky enough to get them all out. Just make sure your shop puts nickel anti-seize on the shaft/threads of the new ones!